Last week we received an email from an eagle-eyed Gmail user pointing out a strange graphic that has appeared in the top-left hand corner of the application. The icon is a ten by ten pixel graphic with a diagonal line across it, with one half in black and the other in gray. It isn’t an inline image, as you can not highlite it or select it in your browser, nor right-click on it. There is also no reference to the image within the style sheet for Gmail.
All users of Firefox should be able to see the box on both Mac and Windows, and we tested across multiple versions of both the browser and operating systems.
In Firefox:
To add a strange twist, when viewed in Safari the graphic is slightly different - with only half of it loading and the colors being inverted (although it is the same dimensions as what is seen in Firefox).
In Safari:
Gmail is difficult to debug on the client-side because Gmail is written using the Google Web Toolkit, which outputs Javascript and CSS that isn’t really intended for human consumption (have a look at the CSS class names, or just the source to the main page itself as examples). There also isn’t a seperate HTTP request to an image that looks like the graphic that is displayed. When you load the DOM inspector, it shows that the graphic is being displayed inside of an IFRAME, and that frame contains some Javascript and simple XHTML.
Initially we suspected that the graphic may be rendered in SVG, a format that defines vector graphics in XML markup. The theory would be that Google is testing browser compatability for SVG across their user base - although there is no reason why they would run such a test for weeks. Google could be looking to develop a more advanced web interface for their applications in the future using SVG (considering they are squeezed between Flash and Silverlight at the moment).
There was a similar issue reported on a forum back in January of this year, and then it also specifically applied to Gmail (although it was a slightly different issue - see screenshot). This same issue was also recently covered and commented on at Google Blogoscoped. We contacted Google about this back on Wednesday, and we have only been told that they are getting back to us at some point with an official response.
The graphic looks like a “flip-page” graphic to me..like a bended page corner…if u know what I mean?
Hmmm
maybe it is just to look nice
Umm… Its an Iframe box at 1px width and height.
That is strange. I first noticed this too this morning. Now that I see it, I kinda bugs me. ;)
Woah… that’s spooky. seeing here on firefox too.
@3 - Agree, it definitely looks like an iframe. closer inspection reveals an emtpty (no href) iframe. Can anyone confirm that?
It’s the end of the world as we know it!
The Google Web Toolkit uses an iFrame to implement history functionality to get around the problems associated with Ajax and saving a pages state, but this is usually done invisibly to the user. Maybe it has something to do with that, and they’ve got a tiny bug with it?
Seen this for a while - using Firefox 2.0 - pretty sure I have seen it on more sites than just Gmail so assumed it was a Firefox bug…
It’s definitely coming from their “invisible” iframes. It looks like someone changed some styling recently and forgot to zero out the borders on their “invfr” class. What you’re seeing are the borders of a 0px tall, 0px wide iframe — several, actually, stacked in the upper left corner. This accounts for why the “graphics” look different in Firefox and Safari, since they render default iframe borders with different shades of gray.
[...] speaks on it too. - Thanks Jason [...]
Wasn’t expecting this on the Techcrunch “Enterprise IT” blog.
@12 you got it right …. save the the silly stuff for other blogs ….
As far as I’m aware Gmail is not written using Google Web Toolkit, or that has changed recently.
[...] a small grey box rendered in an iFrame in the top left hand corner of Gmail, and TechCrunchIT is trying to figure out what it is. The icon is a ten by ten pixel graphic with a diagonal line [...]
Going to reveal an updated UI
It’s a court ordered tracking widget that reports your IP address directly to Viacom.
In Firefox 3, if I refresh the page, the little graphic persists for a small while after the rest of the page has turned white but before the loading bar appears.
Google’s way of mourning?
It appears to be the all seeing Google eye.
They see everything.
Now you know ;)
I wonder if it is going to be a floating toolbar, so that it can be managed as a separate browser window, like how chat windows can be managed.
It’s the return of The Big Red Button That doesn’t do anything. Except this time, it’s disguised itself.
Oh, and of course. The link to it’s true nature.
http://www.pixelscapes.com/spatulacity/button.htm
Infact, if you create your own page like this:
and view it in Firefox 3/Safari, you will have your very own mysterious grey box! What you’re seeing is the artefact from the bevel, which explains it’s varying appearance.
Damn.. it didn’t appear.. it must have filtered out the HTML.
Try this: http://cameronharris.org/test.html
Mind Control. yes, definitely mind control.
It’s obviously working, it’s the only way someone could get the entire freakin’ world to
talk about a 10×10 square with absolutely no signifigance.
;)
part of google’s AB testing strategy. that’s what the next generation gmail will look like. simplicity .. you know
It’s a TRAP!!!!
Naw… as someone was saying, it stays for extra time when you refresh. I would assume that this is happening because the way gmail is made. Like… refreshing only parts of the screen when you press stuff, and this is either an unfix-able biproduct, or because of the same reason they are having trouble with it for some random reason they can’t find, so they just chose to put that picture/iframe there, to take up the space, and to be able to say that it was on purpose for athetics :D
Or ofcourse, it could have been implanted there for the very reason of giving us/you/them internet junkies something to wonder over :D
Again something reasonable. When you look at gmail in the ‘basic html view’ it doesn’t appear. So again I think it has to with the multi layer thing that gmail makes.
It seems like its supposed to give the page (or at least the top left corner) a rounded edge look.
It is a marker for their spiders to know which accounts have been crawled/surveyed and which have not. I’ve had Adwords showing up in foriegn languages in my gmail inbox since it appeared.
(I’ll take a men’s XL, thanks)
~Ed
From reading around the blogosphere it seems to be them playing with sounds.
Porter is 100% correct, it’s a big pig-pile of iframes (#js_frame, #hist_frame, and #sound_frame). Funny thing is that #canvas_frame has a frameborder of 0 set, but the others don’t.
Somebody probably forgot that browsers, by and large, get all confused and discombobulated when they see iframes, and don’t really pay attention to silly things like stylesheets.
See comments here: http://blogoscoped.com/forum/134961.html
I think its about:
10*10=100 G
Its is amount the space you well get in Googles Online storage account.
They will release the news 100 days after the day the 10*10 mystery revealed itself.
So the The Mysterious Grey Box On Gmail is about 100.
But i could be wrong.
so THATS where I left those pixels…dammit, i was looking all over my apartment, under my coffee table…couldnt find them anywhere
google must have stole them when i was sleeping and added to gmail…
whoever noticed this has WAY too much time on their hands btw =)
Its the portal to the Google Flux Time Capacitor — Highly credible sources tell us Google has created a way to travel through time via their unique application system. Currently it is only available through google maps, but plans to unveil a full-scale hardware version are in talks, sources say Microsoft has already announced its version, which will take you back to windows BEFORE it crashed every 10 minutes. Our source also tells us that Steve Balmer plans to use it to re-grow his ever-expanding bald spot.
Appears in Firefox! But in IE its clean!.
So some error in the css thing in which there is always a problem when we code for both IE and Firefox.
Google announced that they will be implementing Gmail Themes sooner or later right?
So I guess their working on it!. And that grey spot is caused due to the new css codes they should have added for testing.
it’s a click-behavior beacon. they’re watching you. they’re selling information about you. they’re making a lot of money from you. it’s just business.
on a serious note, i think it is a google radio — they are going to allow you to listen to music via gmail, and any other google system, are they going to take on pandora?
We will see…
Uhhh … seams like a tracking page, when I view the frame it loads on as:
http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&view=bsp&ver=1qygpcgurkovy
And the source code shows as:
I think Google is using it to get better statistics for it’s websites.
Errr Seesimic filtered out the source code but you can view it at the link.
My guess is that this is somehow related to google labs. If you right click in the gray box, go down to “this frame”, then pick “frame info”, the media preview shows an image of the google labs icon. [This was done using firefox 3 browser]. And since no one ever noticed this before google labs was implemented in gmail…makes sense right?
[...] http://www.techcrunchit.com/2008/07/05/the-mysterious-grey-box-on-gmail/#comment-823 [...]
Cameron nailed it in #24/#25. Move along now.
You’re all nuts.
It’s just a mini surveillance camera put there at Viacom’s request.
I know what it is…. and it’s big. You will be blown away when you will discover what it is…
Erm, I think your server time is wrong. I don’t think there’s any place in the world where it’s still July 5th. Course, it may be part of the conspiracy..
So anybody else also think its a extra-dimensional portal created by time and space overlapping and a CSS bug?
Angela Bennett is a computer expert working for Google. This young and beautiful analyst is never far from a computer and modem. The only activity she has outside of computers is visiting her mother. A friend, whom she’s only spoken to over the net and phone, Dale Hessman a former Yahoo exec now working for an internet security firm, sent her a program with a weird glitch for her to de-bug. That night, he left to meet her and was killed in a plane crash. Angela discovers secret information on the disk she has received only hours before she leaves for vacation. Her life then turns into a nightmare, her records are erased from existence and she is given a new identity, one with a police record. She struggles to find out why this has happened and who has it in for her.
I think Sandra Bullock would be a good in this movie.
It’s a new technology devised by Viacom. It’s actually a camera scoping out your office to see if you are viewing anything that has a copyright.
Is this a filler post or what? Go enjoy the weekend guys.
time to zip up…
Okay, just out of curiosity, I looked it into it.
Mike: it appears to be the border of the iframes in the main document with ids of “js_frame”, “hist_frame” and “sound_frame”. Looks like the google guys didn’t turn off the border on them.
I found it by using Firebug (great tool). If you edit those iframe elements and add frameborder=”no” on all three, the thing disappears.
So although it looks like a neat way to turn pages (when zoomed in), it’s just a frame border. Bah. So do I win? :)
In 1948 Orson Wells wrote a book called 1984. In the book, he wrote about the ‘telescreen’
Big brother’s way of keeping and eye on the populace and keeping he propagnda streaming.
I think this is the Web 2.0 version of the telescreen. But in this case it is the teledot.
It activates your webcam so they can see into your living room and it also captures audio from our mic and sends it straight to google headquarters.
Undercover sources say it was there all along disguised in white but there was some problem with affirmative action or something like that so they had to use a black and gray dot, at least for now. I have this from a reliable source.
All hail Google! All hail Google!
Normally I LOVE stuff like this… but with how easy it is to demonstrate that it is developers forgetting to remove iframe borders… I don’t feel very tempted to create a more imaginative answer.
My constructive criticism is that this kind of thing should be left to Digg, where I can safely ignore it.
oh wait, like 3 people said it before me.
Okay, then… it’s a portal into the googleverse!!!!
#55: it was actually George Orwell
Its a web bug/tracking pixel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_bug
-Eric
Well, they should fix the CSS and do border: none; for this iframe:
And what’s it used for? It could be their JS library but I didn’t get into it :)
So the best conspiracy would be it is used for tracking the mistaking monkeys @Google :P
sorry forgot to use the tags. if they are allowed to at least.
*for this iframe:
(class=”invfr” id=”js_frame” if not allowed)
[...] a small grey box rendered in an iFrame in the top left hand corner of Gmail, and TechCrunchIT is trying to figure out what it is. The icon is a ten by ten pixel graphic with a diagonal line [...]
I was finally able to get Silverlight Deep Zoom to work with this, and when I zoomed in on the Gmail gray box, I discovered that it was actually just another Gmail window with its own mysterious gray box, and when I zoomed in on the gray box inside the gray box … I found yet another gray box. After 23 iterations of zooming in on nested gray boxes, I found a bitmap of the back of my head in front of a computer screen with a gray box on it. I think the gray box might be God.
BTW they should fix another problem as well because it is so frustrating:
http://img29.picoodle.com/img/img29/4/7/6/f_fixgmailm_4ec534e.jpg
Testing on:
WinXP Pro
FF 3.0
ITS A BUG-
” We’re on it. Thanks for the heads-up!
Michelle
Gmail Guide Blue ”
http://groups.google.com/group/Gmail-Help-Logging-In-en/browse_thread/thread/d67ed79cd8def106/e231407fea9b1b28#e231407fea9b1b28
I think it is a problem of Firefox 3.0, because I can not see this “icon” in IE7 nor in Opera 9.5.
Google badly needs to improve its page rank. They added this grey box as a CSS bug just to increase hits on gmail and hence improve its page rank :P
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It’s the way the browser renders the floating iFrames with 0 height and width. It makes it a small dot, and all four frames together made a 4×4 box.
And the dot is in the CSS, under “.invfr”.
Just try to make a four iFrames with the CSS properties of “invfr” and you will get the same effect.
The reason IE doesn’t show it, is because it renders 0 by 0 pixel iFrames differently.
This black/grey box is coming from the iframe with the id of sound_frame. Opening up firebug and disabling a few options on it gives three boxes, with the left most one containing “Copyright 2002-2008 Google Inc.” and the other two are blank, as shown here: http://skitch.com/radarlistener/x8pa/window. The background on the copyright text is becaused I selected it.
Well actually it’s just a badly styled iframe, well actually 3 iframes (history, js and sound), they will probably fix it with simple border:0 soon enough….
They probably load the Hotmail homepage in the small frame just to waste Microsoft’s money.
@71 hahahaha yeah right :D i would wish Microsoft would do it on hotmail so everyone turns to gmail with the iframe outbreak :D
Just a minute ago, I happened to open Gmail while my internet connection was a little flakey. When Gmail loaded, there was a note pinned to the upper left corner that said something about how Gmail may not have loaded completely due to an error in my internet connection. When I clicked okay, it looked like the note disappeared into that new little gray square.
I wish I could recreate the problem and take a screen shot, but it was pretty random.
My guess is it’s a placeholder for displaying AJAX overlays with system information, like what I just encountered.
It’s the first corner of a gmail theme!
It’s actually a little camera lens where Google can take a picture of you right through your monitor, add that photo to the info it’s already collecting about you and start a new service called http://faces.google.com, which they’re launching as a facebook killer - just like facebook except all your info, including your photo, is automatically added to your profile.
That’s actually been there for a while.
I think it’s their hint that an upgrade is coming. Maybe gMail is FINALLY coming out of Beta.
It is a job listing! The one who can crack the code behind this grey box will get offered one of the many new VP openings. Being able to work from home, being creative, reserved kindergarten place and so forth.
It could be web beacon.
All the web analytics’s are done by placing a small pix cell.
Cheers, Nag
you are all lame.
[...] Gmailの左上隅にiFrameで表示された小さなグレイの四角が見える。TechCrunchITが解明を試みている。このアイコンは10×10ピクセルのグラフィックで対角線を境に黒とグレイに塗り分けられている。インラインの画像ではないようで、ブラウザー上で反転させたり選択したり右クリックすることはできない。Gmailのスタイルシートの中にもこの画像への参照はない。 [...]
It’s promotion for the next M. Night Shyamalan movie…clicking the dot takes you to an alternate universe…created by Google…
It shows that street google maps has arrive in france.
It is little , to show that only a few roads in france has been street-google-mapped.
When EU let google to fotograph the wall europe, it will be bigger, and will contain a link
[Visit street europe google-maps]
Do I really need to explain why I wear the tinfoil hat? We all know that this is the google device that lets google read your mind and give you those ads that just so happen to be for products that your emails are about. I keep getting lots of google ads for mental health screenings, tinfoil, and canned meat. First the gov’t reads my stuff and then google reads my mind…. At least the black helicopters stopped coming around.
It’s DIablo III OMG!
It is Google’s new GTD app. It is so small, you are not even aware of its presence. Clicking the black brings you to your inbox where you dump all your thoughts. The grey is your context, click that and away you go: errands, office, home, and all via google maps. It will be on your iphone, in every browser, on your moleskin, and in your Garmin. Simple.
It’s a soon to be implemented frame for those who have installed the Goggle Docs app. The frame will include a wide variety of synchronization and application features, such as “Backup all documents to disk”.
Google is just trying to f*ck with you and all the other bloggers who have too much time on their hands.
it is an mispelled code-= which in return is causing the optical illusion of a tear notebook page!
-= = have you tried clickin on it? you wont get anything other than a chance to get a free TECHCRUNCH tshirt if you click on it!!!! CAN I GET MY SHIRT PLEASE????
Yep, it’s a bug in Firefox… IE is fine… You Firefox users always amaze me. If there is a problem while viewing a site in IE, it’s IE’s fault… If the problem shows in Firefox, it’s the website’s fault. Come on!
@69: “The reason IE doesn’t show it, is because it renders 0 by 0 pixel iFrames differently.” Exactly… somebody should add the ticket for firefox to fix it… This might be the solution here.
Ok so we know what it really is, but lets not let that get in the way of outrageous speculation
probably a sign that Gmail will soon have a face lift.
It’s a camera that records all of our movements. Data will be forwarded to the secret police in China.
It is actually a portal into Jerry Yang’s head. Sergey and Larry discovered it on the 8-1/2th floor of the original Yahoo headquarters, when the found Steve Balmer trying to pry a padlock off it. In typical Google fashion, they have opened it up free to the world in hopes that they can starve the John Malkovich portal of revenue (since it charges $19.95 per visit, plus you have to pass their compatibility profile before being allowed in), and thus drive higher share of voice for their new display ad platform. And when your trip is over, it drops you off on Seattle’s 520 floating bridge in the middle of rush hour (which explains the regular backups and why I saw Sue Decker in Redmond the other day–since she obviously wasn’t here to negotiate).
I swear…
IT is the on/off button for the entire internet. (not yet active)
or
Future location of the email postage stamp. Google testing right now. (G-stamp)
I’d say it’s a sneak-peek at the GHole. Google is constructing its own black hole with the intention of speeding up their mission of collecting all of the world’s information in one place. The GHole will suck in anything and everything. Everyone’s GMail and Google queries are already being absorbed into the current beta-GHole that we’re seeing in the upper-left corner. The GHole will be expanding by .000000314 every single day (as GMail storage expands), without us being aware of it. Google knows that it’s all about relative change and not absolute change - so they will be increasing it by more and more as the GHole expands, making sure that the proportion is small enough that we can’t see a change as we visit Google every day and throw more information into the GHole. This will reportedly help complete G’s mission statement of collecting all of the world’s information in one place 367.4% faster - profit numbers for quarterly earnings will follow accordingly.
proof that people have to much time to speculate on meaningless topics, albeit a good “buzz” generator.
errrr… i just read through 90 or so such speculations :-}
that’s just the mistake of the gmail user interface designer :)
The is Google engineer recruitment test. Google is putting this up as a test to find out who can get an actual url of that image. First person who does, get a job at Google!
My guess is its a history tracking frame. Not for use with the back navigation buttons necessarily, but for logging activity. I believe mail is pre fetched now so data isn’t requested on a demand or by an AJAX call. If thats the case theres no good way for google to log what you are doing. Maybe it makes a post to that history iframe to record what you are up to. I have also noticed that box there for several months.
It’s the G Spot!
wow - you guys are making the t-shirt giveaway selection difficult
Gmail definitely did an update recently, something that has a some people complaining it has gotten slower. The box seems to have appeared around the same timeframe. Looking at the contents of the iframe shows a lot of javascript code and nothing else. So here is my theory: GMail has refactored the UI to pure html on the page and the javascript libraries loaded on the iframe. They could be experimenting with speed optimization since IFrame content can load as slow as it wants without holding up the speed of the page. Its visibility is probably just a bug as a result of not being tested on firefox3 since its a lot less obvious on safari and IE.
it is the new gmail layout, you will be able to peel it like a fruit and see the new GMAIL
just a link back to the main search page
!!!!! By order of Viacom, Google has been forced to make a peep hole on Gmail and video record the users and their mail!!!
maybe its a sneak peak into the new gmail, the page is bent so you can peel it off to view the new re design!!
It’s been there a week before June closed, Filipino bloggers noticed it early last week as well. Some were able to “crack” it up and it shows JSON stuff of Google Mail.
For me, I simply ignored it.
Now I wonder why US Gmail servers only had it on July 5th?
But here’s what I think. It is clue to Gmail’s new sleek look ;)
It’s obviously a quantum singularity, duh. Google bought out singularity manufacturer Quan-Sing last year and plans to start giving out the small highly-dense black holes for free in the coming months. This small square on gmail is a test of their distribution method. As in many Google business plans it is hoped that they can make up the initial investment by selling ads about services and features offered in parallel universes believed to exist on the other side of singularities.
In related news Microsoft plans to offer full-size black holes with it’s hotmail and live accounts, but in initial testing they took over 4 millennium to download and tore the fabric of the time and space of several of their mail customers.
They just wanted more buzz..now they got it :)…
Humans have a natural desire to receive attention.
If I worked at Google and did not feel appreciated, I too would have programmed something into GMAIL that I knew would go unnoticed by the other programmers with the sole goal of receiving thousands of diggs, news articles, and comments on blogs around the world for something as small as a 10×10 box of pixels… and do it over the 4th of July weekend when a good chunk of Google’s employees aren’t working on fixing it.
I can’t believe no one has got it yet!
It’s a camera!
Google are using it to monitor your facial reactions when we view the related ads… it uses a new advanced eye technology so the camera knows what part of the page you are looking at. Your facial expressions, when viewing the ad’s, will effect Google Adwords publishers quality score!
whatever it is, it disappears as soon as you move to the calendar or the OLD version of gmail. This is also present in google apps. I suspect they are launching avatars (themes) for Gmail … just like Orkut.
But don’t be surprised if its only there to differentiate the old version and the new version of gmail… !
Probably , GMail skins ?
Its for accessibility . They are bucket testing some sort of special screen readers and rendering engines.
:)
Now for Gmail It is just the smallest and new advertising format coming from AdSense.
The mysterious gray box to me looks like Google maybe implementing a new tool which will allow you to switch between your GMAIL, and another application.
It’s a camera Viacom put to spy on Gmail users
it’s defenitely not used now…but might be used in the future, to maybe store temporary data, however the reason why it’s visible today is to test if it is so recognizeable. Google might change somethings in its future plans…because it is actually recognizeable and makes me sick! :)
maybe it’s a tool that Googe is testing to prevent the use of popups within gmail, and instead using absolute positioned iframes. ;)
It’s either the page-peeling-out effect or Google’s new way of checking how closely we monitor their work!
The camera comment was funny.
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The iframe is used to play sound.swf as soon as new message arrives. Besides Google Marketing is using the iframe to start mysterious discussions on the net and see which features they should develop next.
I think that GWT is NOT used to build GMail. GWT is born with the developpement of Google Calendar ?
when user click it, it will roll over， show a black screen with a sentence–”You just got punk’d by GoooooooooooooooooGle”, and all your emails are deleted.
It’s supposed to be a 1×1 pixel, testing a new Google Analytics tracking feature. But since Google collects so much data about you, they needed to increase the pixel size 100-fold in order to capture all that data.
I think its supposed to do just this!! Create a buzz and nothing else :-)
It is right clickable, and on ff3 rightclick->this frame-> open in new tab, it shows this link:
http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&view=bsp&ver=1qygpcgurkovy
with source being
This is generally used for javascript purposes.
It have something to do with the integrated chat function. This is an swf packed into 2 frames. It plays a sound when you get a new chat message.
I’m sure: it’s a little microphone we can use to make (free!) voice calls to our contacts instead of sending them emails…. ;-)
It might be used for some ajax requests
It may be that Google is planing to change the skin like it did for http://www.orkut.com. But in phase wise manner where this small box will grow in timely manner… at the release day a user can peel out the current theam using this box to reveal the new teams.
It may be that Google is planing to change the skin like it did for http://www.orkut.com. But in phase wise manner where this small box will grow in timely manner… at the release day a user can peel out the current theam using this box to reveal new theams.
The Iframe looks like one that folded page. When we select this frame it redirects to this URL : http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&view=bsp&ver=1qygpcgurkovy page with blank info. When we look for source it shows loose.dtd.
I guess tgoogle are checking some function or for monitoring kind of thing. So this image will be removed i guess.
Wow! Google can generate such a buzz with a 10×10 pixel image :-)
Image what will happen when they take over the entire screen ;-)
may be induced error on page .. for publicity …
I think it’s to increase the real estate space on page, may be hovering over it will give you page turning effect and will uncover the page diagonally to show some new stuff. May be some interesting ads. May be this 10X10 px will be increase in size with production version.
Hey friends it may be page flip corner also… Just for look and feel it may be the property of iFrame.
to ravi > We techie’s will only notice that Grey box and among all of us I think Gmail is pretty popular anyway. Google mostly plays an April fool trick to publicity!
We’re doomed.
Wow, April fools? It really must be a weird time and space overlapping and folding into an origami conspiracy.
Hint: “Hey Jerry, I come from the future. One word: *sell*”
[...] a small grey box rendered in an iFrame in the top left hand corner of Gmail, and TechCrunchIT is trying to figure out what it is. The icon is a ten by ten pixel graphic with a diagonal line [...]
It’s him, it’s the king. He’s alive.
I suspect Google did it just to raise discussions.
My guess its a flip page , can be something what Xoopit is doing now, exploring your data in different ways.
@127 “It’s supposed to be a 1×1 pixel, testing a new Google Analytics tracking feature. But since Google collects so much data about you, they needed to increase the pixel size 100-fold in order to capture all that data.”
If I had a T-Shirt to give, you’d get it.
[...] van Gmail zit een Mysterious Grey Box. TechCrunch onderzoekt wat het zou kunnen zijn, check het technische verhaal. Als er onverklaarbare dingen gebeuren met Google is dat gevaarlijk. Het 10 pixel grote vierkant is [...]
Just notices that if you scroll the page, the dot stays at the same position.
This is some kind of a POC for a new functionality someone in Google wanted to prove working.
Its the same dot as it was shown in the movie “The Net” where Sandra Bullock click on the dot and firewall crashes and weird things happen and she can see the insider information. I guess by clicking it e=mc2 times will open up the Google’s insider information and that would be end of Google. Microsoft, are you listening ??
The dot is a inline frame with zerro size, but the browser draws it’s borders.
It’s a browser rendering issue.
It contains sripts to show contact list and who is on-line (perhaps even GTalk… didn’t lookup the source).
When you open the main page you first see your mails and all and then after a while contacst show up. This is because the browser first loads the main page and after that (when fully loaded) it tries to load inline frames.
There are 4 frames: script, history, sounds and canvas.
Nice trick.
my guess is it is atracking icon to see if you are using the browser based email and for how long you stay on apge for ad reasons or if you are using the pop3 /imap approach
wwooow
all this for a simple iframe??? nothin’ else to do people?
I think they are developing a new top menu bar.
It’s an IFrame for use with AJAX/COMET stuff.
It is a secret camera where Google can beam pictures of you to space aliens. This has long been known as a hidden feature of CSS and with the serious security flaws in internet explorer, peering into your hope is now easier than ever. :)
It’s the Praetorians!
Wellll, I was going to wait and see if the truth is in there when X-Files 2 comes out. Of course perhaps it is going to suck us in and digitize in a Tron-like pixelated world. (What do you mean you don’t remember Tron?)
Maybe it will eventually converge GMail with Adobe Flex/ Air and you will click to reskin a sweet, sweet skinable Flash wrapped GMail :-)
You didn’t click it, did you? Tell me you didn’t click it? PLEASE, TELL ME YOU DIDN’T CLICK IT!!! OH, MY GOD! OH, MY GOD! OH, MY GOD! THE PORTAL! IT’S OPENING!!! OH MY G …
kulangot yan ni Manny Pacquiao!
[...] TechCrunchIT » Blog Archive » The Mysterious Grey Box On Gmail [...]
[...] TechCrunchIT » Blog Archive » The Mysterious Grey Box On Gmail [...]
[...] TechCrunchIT » Blog Archive » The Mysterious Grey Box On Gmail [...]
[...] المصدر addthis_url = ‘http%3A%2F%2Fwww.teedoz.com%2F2008%2F%25d8%25ae%25d8%25b7%25d8%25a3-%25d9%2581%25d9%258a-%25d8%25a8%25d8%25b1%25d9%258a%25d8%25af-%25d8%25ac%25d9%2588%25d8%25ac%25d9%2584-%25d8%25a7%25d9%2585-%25d9%2585%25d8%25a4%25d8%25a7%25d9%2585%25d8%25b1%25d8%25a9%25d8%259f%2F’; addthis_title = ‘%D8%AE%D8%B7%D8%A3+%D9%81%D9%8A+%D8%A8%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%AF+%D8%AC%D9%88%D8%AC%D9%84%21%21+%D8%A7%D9%85+%D9%85%D8%A4%D8%A7%D9%85%D8%B1%D8%A9%D8%9F’; addthis_pub = ”; This work, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License. [...]
Only 7 years late…
http://atypicalsnowman.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/2001_monolith.jpg
your browser’s dust.
SImply an alignment tool, ensuring the site is flush top and left.
If you stare at it long enough you will see the resolution of all the fruitless searches.
Its a tracking mechanism for gmail stats.
Main utility of having an iframe is to do some background activity without affecting the working of existing layout. Gmail already has 4 iframes just to sound for chat, the canvas, to change layouts, and history. Nobody adds iframes just for the heck of it. The iframe loaded in the beginning can be used for lot of activities during the course of the page lifecycle. So, we can expect some new service based on google Labs where they will cache some of the items like, complete user profile details, tracking the user behaviour towards spam for on-the-fly analysis of spam mail, etc. Somehow it reminds me of a service that was featured in techcrunch, where people can flip the page and make notes :)
as mentioned previously, it’s an iframe. it gets used to support the history correctly. other ajax apps use the # method for tracking history (see yahoo maps) but this makes the URL a bit messy and has other side effects. it’s an iframe with no href because they don’t load anything in it by default. every time there’s a click, they change the href of it, using it as a sort of internal history object. and why is it visible? because there’s problems with making it invisible on some platforms/browsers:
http://www.quirksmode.org/bugreports/archives/2005/02/hidden_iframes.html
yes i know that post is old, but it still represents issues with hidden iframes. i’m not sure of the current browsers and platform combos that don’t support hidden iframes.
It’s the latest “Google Labs” project. It’s called GWhiz and it makes people say, “What the hell is up with that square?”
Its the new Google HTML isight camera of course. Records your facial expressions as you surf and crossreferences this with URL tracking to try and predict whether you mood can predict your surfing habits
It is the first move towards your entire screening becoming those pixels, halting humanity into a even-falling pit of self-destruction all at the hands of one rouge TechCrunch writer.
its a page flip image for sure, maybe gmail is coming out of beta
It could be Google screwing with the blog press.
I can hear them in the office now:
“Let’s change 10 pixles on Gmail and watch everyone write about it. We’ll call it a ‘get a life’ test.”
It’s a speck of yogurt on th corner of Google’s mouth . . . it lives, ya know . . .
it’s clearly carl icahn’s eye-spy bug, so he can monitor google while in the midst of manipulating the yahoo - microsoft deal. they don’t call him a corporate raider fer nuthin’. . .
Its may be hints of an upcoming feature that allows users to flip multiple gmail pages using drag and drop.
Google is the leader of the mighty Internet, everybody knows that but what the people do not know is that “The Google” is now up for world domination….yes my friends…..the gray dot which techcrunch has finnaly discovered was just the beginning …..So the question is how does the gray dot serve the purpose?
It s difficult to understand the true strengths of google but from our experience we can say that that was………
oh my god they are here …the aliens ….they know i know it…..i have to run ….bye..
wait for the continuation…save me!
it looks like a peal-off label. maybe they are about to peel off the beta “label” for gmail and officially move it beyond the testing stages…. or introduce a newer version
Come on people, it is so simple. When ever anybody makes a declarative statement, like ‘I only had one beer, officer.’ You KNOW they are lying. So when Google made the statement ‘Do no evil.’ That’s EXACTLY what they are up to! Actually, some spaced out Unix hippie from the 1980’s I met in Boulder claims this was a typo and they actually meant ‘do know evil.’ Anyway, from Google labs comes a very dynamic web app which shows up behind the clean, now iconic white landing page. However, it is (currently) turned off. Once the app is stabilized and the appropriate numbers of employees souls have been sold at the proper strike price, it’ll be turned on. ‘It’ is a bridge to beyond. Beyond what? If you ever get into the inner sanctum of Google labs, you’ll note a funny thing. On all the MacBook Pros scattered around, they are running an obscure movie called ‘Time Bandits’ over and over and over. It is sort of maddening. The movie provided the engineers the inspiration to create the bridge. The dynamic bridge they have created allows for a doorway to open and the app to run and is some sort of hypnotic application designed to compel users to click on every ad Google serves up (since the space under the page turn is dark, it’s obvious this is the case…it’s dark in evil places). Well, you wanted a conspiracy theory that was a little different…
Look at the amount of discussion that is going on about a little thing in gmail..? Thats what Google exactly want- The Word of Mouth Promotion.
Its like a trade technique. Maybe, it was someones 20% Job to do this. Well done google
It is an iframe containing Javascript and is being rendered by Firefox. Use IE like “normal” people do and you will not have to question these wierd FF issues. This my also be FF beginning to fall apart (like a loose thread in your sweater). Don’t pull it!
It’s the “pi” symbol in Mozart’s Ghost! Hold down option and click it and maybe Sandra Bullock will appear.
its’ just a mark, google developer uses it to see if the page is updated or not. they will soon removed it after reading my comment. :)