There’s 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 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.
So what is it? Since it’s being rendered in an iFrame it’s difficult to say. We’ve been emailing back and forth with Google since Wednesday but so far they haven’t said what it is. What’s your best conspiracy theory? The most elaborate/entertaining or most accurate comment (on TechCrunchIT) gets a free TechCrunch Tshirt.
Dare I say it’s a style sheet error (what Google make an error?)
It does not appear in IE7!
There is a long chain at GOogle discussing it …. (I will not regurgitate it)
Maybe they are trying to make gmail look like a normal paper page.
There are about 4 iframes in the upper left hand corner. One is for the noise that Gtalk makes, one is for some javascript code that they use, one is for tracking history and the last is the canvas that displays everything. No big mystery except why they are allowing them to be visible at all.
Get over it you geeks!
It’s google, they going to reveal something that makes everyone go WOW!
Who knows? Seriously, might be part of their new beta experiments? Or they just messin’ with you.
CSS error I believe. On IE6 I can’t find it.
It is GUI style element to make the look of the window more pleasant to the eyes. Very similar thing is in Mac OS and it makes the feeling of a more user friendly window/screen.
Interestingly in my Safari browser this gray box nicely fits to the color scheme of the Safari…
yep i see it on FF. it does look like a blemish. maybe our behavior on gmail is being tracked.
It is a new secret project under development by Google. It is called the GPortal, an inter-dimensional space and time portal capable of allowing travel to spaces and dimensions within, throughout, and outside our time and existence.
At approximately 3:30 am yesterday, GPortal inexplicably activated itself, and G staff have since been unable to shut it off without destroying it. They believe GPortal has torn a small hole in our realm, possibly allowing for the intrusion of inter-dimensional capable beings into our reality. G is working to close this portal as soon as possible.
It’s Matt Cutt’s secret peephole to watch for spam.
frameborder=”0″
This property is not set on all iframes and it is causing that design issue
Not visible on Opera, but seen on FF. Did not check on IE. My guess, its left in error, but then knowing Google who knows. I am sure conspiracy theories will abound.
That is the peephole Google uses to watch us through for their studies. Duh.
Could it be a result from a common add-on that all of us are using on FF? An add-on related to the rendering of gmail page ? Have anyone tried it with fresh no add-ones FF ?
Obviously the backing is just starting to come off. If you put a little glue on it and hold it firmly in place for 15 minutes or so it will be fine. I find that a nice multi-purpose adhesive like Goroogle Glue works best.
Its an iframe that loads things in background while we are looking at our mails :). probably it is there for cross browser compatibilities…
it’s been there for quite some time though(many a times at different places)…
@jvedman - Yea, that is what I thought. Just a page curl.
Maybe you should have checked this AWESOME story out in other browsers before breaking this huge news to the world.
It’s not there in IE7, only half there in Safari, and all there in Firefox.
Hm.. coding error? WOW. Big deal.
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.
Google’s way of creating buzz. Just like the time they wouldn’t allow anyone to take pictures of their trade show booth.
Guys, use Firebug. The Frameborder=”0″ is the cause.
That property has to have a value = 0 in order to be invisible for the browse - in this case Firefox.
Michael, I’m waiting for my Techcrunch T-shirt.
@pixelbud, looks like a page curl to me too.. maybe a new gmail design is coming out soon.. so you can switch over to the new design by peeling of the current page
Possibly a Google Labs experiment. A Flash page-peel effect. Advertisement of a new product
I believe that Google is just making sure that during holiday / weekend time, when there is no many tech news, Michael can have prime entertaintment and unexpectable gather a large number of followers.
I’m just worrying that I’m actually in front row too.
God bless working Monday.
Once again Google successfully creates a …… BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!! BUZZ!!!
Get over with it guys!
It’s a tiny camera.
Larry’s watching, you should probably put some clothes on.
It’s a spy camera, requested by Viacom.
The size is exactly the same as the space between the “e” and “c” of TechCrunch. Spooky, I don’t believe in coincidence, we are being invaded by outter space people. Michael is one of them (please do not sue me I am only joking)
Checked it with Firebug and it’s just an Iframe with a single flash file in it: im/sound.swf
if you switch to their older version, it’s disappear.
It’s Viacom in your mail, spying for infringement.
It’s a radionic node emitting a buffered echostream sucking all information from your brain into the Google brain, making Google smarter, and us dumber.
Finally, Nick Carr is proven right.
google has been always successful in creating a buzz… this time too!
but i think this time its a mark up problem. something got to do with their iframe attributes.
Perhaps they want to make it look like a folded sheet. Just for style
Its an internal google contest. They will award prizes for the stupidest thing they can put out that still becomes blogworthy.
I don’t see it in IE 7 but in Safari, it’s grey(black) and white(grey).
I’m not an IT worker so I don’t know what it is technically. However, I don’t think it’s a mistake. Rather I’d like to believe that Google’s working something on it. Maybe some days later we’ll see something meaningful and useful (should be handy too) appearing that upper-left corner.
Thank you!
As i said before, it’s an iframe. I took a screenshot of the HTML containing it and the Iframe with increased width/height:
http://tamole.s3.amazonaws.com.....iframe.gif
http://tamole.s3.amazonaws.com.....bigger.gif
what Anatoly said. Exactly.
I think Jono has the best response, give him the t-shirt!
maybe they are testing their affliate pixel
google is preparing a pixel mass murder. This is just the beta, so it does not actually kill the pixel.
Microsoft has anounced, and Norton too, in a security warning, that this is the most important threat ever, worst than I.Love.You.
There gonna be a massive murder of pixel soon.
as part of the simulation, abusing of their search-market domination, there is also this simulated-for-how-long-dead pixel in google search, when looking for “dead pixel” http://www.google.com/search?q=dead%20pixel
watch out, nobody knows when it really begins (this is the new virus2.0 trick, always in beta)
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.
Welcome to the world of FISA
When the ancient Persians wove their beautiful, ornate rugs, they intentionally make a flaw in its perfection because nothing could/should be perfect.
The Google Blemish is simply Google’s way of reminding themselves that though they are Awesome, they shalt not desire perfection.
It can’t see it in IE6 but it’s there in FF2
Whatever it is, it’s in beta.
Come on guys! The scanning has started. http://www.theonion.com/content/node/40076
It’s a tear in the wallpaper that reveals Google’s true former self… Yahoo!
the future Offline button mode for Gmail!!!.
I think that the gmail lab has a game. Once you press the button, the grey box is filled with the content. (Old Snakey)
It’s Google’s new strategy to get on the front page of TechCrunch
Honestly… who cares? A slow news day doesn’t mean ‘ZOMG LOOK AT THIS LITTLE IMAGE WHAT COULD IT BE’. Come on Arrington, get your shit together.
aha..at last my experiment worked..I was trying to put that pixel on Gmail page since 4 years..and after 4 years of hard work I am finally succeeded. Gmail has files a case against me to put this box down…but I will not stop until they pay me US$1.098 Million. That is the amount I used in this work..Thanks TC for covering my hard work here.
It’s a sign of extra-terrestrial life
It’s a page-curl
Is TechCrunch copy/pasting?
http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-07-03.html
It looks like you can peal of the page… I guess they’ll release Skins for Gmail soon ^^,
For some reason (probably sandbox restrictions) Google is using Iframe communication instead of Ajax communication for some actions.
Here’s what it is, and the iFrames are causing it and are mentioned in CSS.
Here is the 4 iFrames:
The CSS for them is:
.invfr{position:absolute;left:0;top:0;z-index:-1;width:0;height:0}
Put all this on a HTML document and view it on your browser, a page curled box appears. It just the browsers rendering of floating iFrames.
Its a new Google service called “G-Spot”
A few of us on Gmail UX had seen this for quite a while. To think it became a post on TechCrunch is actually quite humorous.
Maybe it is their new integration with Pheltup?
It’s clearly a sign that I had way too little to do this weekend. I actually read this then had to view it in each of the 4 browsers on my machine. It’s there in Safari and FF but not in IE or Opera. Therefore my conclusion is that it’s something that should have been there, just like this comment.
It’s the G Spot of web browsing.
Slow news day? For some companies, it only takes 100 pixels to make the headlines…
But, you asked for a conspiracy theory, here’s mine. Remember the milliondollarwebsite.com? This is EXACTLY the size of the smallest pixelad you could byu there. So, perhaps itäs a new monetization scheme for Google. Is billiondollarhomepage.com registered? The real question here is who bought this space, and how are they planning to use it.
It’s the G Spot of GMail.
The Net 2 starring Sandra Bullock.
Google use a iframe, load another google page there to get more pageimpressions. Why? Only for the alexa chart. They get nervous about facebooks alexa chart performance
I just saw noticed this in my gmail the other day but since I always have gmail in my first tab I figured it was something to do with firefox 3 and never looked past that.
To be honest they most likely did it to draw up discussion about it like it is doing right now. Maybe it’s going to signify gmail peeling away from the old and perhaps a new gmail skin or feature is coming.
I think they are testing how well Gmail works within a frame. Could be linked to making Gmail work on iGoogle with the newly released big canvas functionaliy, whereby Gmail will be a widget and when you click a mail or some other object on the page the big window appears and you can use gmail in it’s full form.
Remove the style ‘.invfr’ from the general gmail stylesheet, and you end up with 3 large squares above the Gmail design, 2 empty but one containing the words ‘Copyright 2002-2008 Google Inc.’ - the source for this frame is a bunch of Javascript. The other two have no or basic (unimportant) source.
See this for yourself in Firefox with the web dev toolbar; when logged into Gmail, edit CSS and simply cut it all out. You’ll see the boxes.
What’s it for? A way of delivering Javascript without it being viewable in the usual view source, in my opinion.
Shirt? Make mine an XXL
My GMail is themed (in Firefox), so I don’t have that little gray box.
http://userstyles.org/styles/8205
With the FISA vote pending, google’s data crunching bots have determined that the new law will be passed, and this bot is collecting ALL YOUR BASES BELONG TO US data to be passed to George and his cronies……
or perhaps its the new viacom personal information collection system in compliance with the latest in court orders……..
cheers
obi
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 complete G’s mission statement of collecting all of the world’s information in one place by 367.4% - profit numbers for quarterly earnings will follow accordingly.
Nothing special.
1. its a counter
2. its a symbol of older page - maybe gmail has been in previous versions black (lack skin) (like http://www.blackoogle.us/)
3. maybe gmail gona be an offline program (i am not sure, if already is) and that is a symbol of new age
Anyway, outside is midnight and I am really curious why I am commenting a post about 10×10 pixel picture in gmail…
It’s a javascript that checks browser type & os.
@69, you don’t have to do all that. You can just do “save as” in firefox to save the iframes. Firefox saves the page as a.htm.
I am trying to go through the javascript, but it’s heavily obfuscated with an automated obfuscater/optmizer.
Plus it’s very hard to run javascript with breakpoints ect…
I am trying to check it in place with firebug.
It’s a smudge of pixelized pigeon shit - remnants of Arrington’s failed attempt to follow Rock Doves using Google Earth’s new animal migration features. Pigeons don’t really migrate, Michael, they are happy wherever they can encroach on humans. Were you to follow the great porcupine herd in the North Slope of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, your search would have yielded better results. But the pixelized procupine quill might be more painful. So stick with the smudge. While you’re at it, write another ten blogs about twitter. Twitter this, twitter that.
Speaking of Twitter, here’s a practice SAT question for those of you with kids taking classes at Stanley Kaplan: Arrington is to Twitter like… A) Hearst is to the Spanish American War B) Judith Miller is to 9/11 C) Robert McNamara is to the Gulf of Tonkin D) Mad Money’s Jim Cramer is to Hornbeck Offshore Services (HOS).
(the answer is D)
Its a NSA Spy cam wich reads our emails and sends all data to NSA central.
Can’t believe you did not know this
It’s a web bug/tracking pixel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_bug
-Eric
You have been e-mailing Google since Wednesday about this? Why?
an embedded tab feature that is not yet operational
If you look at the javascript for the js iframe what really stands out in it is that it’s making divs and embedding a flash player.
src=”im/sound.swf”
Way back when I used to make web based email software, which is what first started me on Perl and later PHP, we had a mod that would read your email to you with Microsoft Agent. There was a lame wizard that would do text-to-speech and other dumb characters.
I can’t take hours to de-obfuscate this javascript, since there is a lot of it, but I can take a stab and say I think they are either trying to play sounds to enhance the web client through flash, and they need the iframe to hide the flash player, or they are doing text to speech for email or they are implementing gtalk into the gmail with flash audio.
You can’t put flash in a div and hide it that setting the style to none.
That is my guess.
1. If you ask me it’s a clever marketing ploy to get everyone talking and it seems to be working very very well, hats off to the guy who thought up this one.. Nothing like a bit of curiosity to get a whole load of free media coverage.. hehe
2. It, could also be a new highly advanced screencam, which allows Google to spy on us whenever we use Gmail, I stuck some bubble gum over the block just in case
3. It could also be a subliminal message: http://flickr.com/photos/terra-cam/2643005853/
Well only time will tell
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.
It is part of the McCain/Gillmor energy plan, called no pixel left behind. By dimming the upper left corner of all G-mail users screens we can now harvest and triage enough energy to bring back the Twitter track G-talk gateway, allowing big oil to off-shore drill for the next tens years, which by then Ray Ozzie will bring back Hailstorm, fully realizing the Silverlight Mesh gesture stream.
Scary… Hawkins’ was so right… Black Holes do exist
I have to commend TechrunchIT to discover that.
This is seriously the dumbest shit I have seen in a long, long time. Even for TC and even for the weekend, this is a new low. The guys at Google are seriously probably laughing their asses off at the blogosphere for all the speculation and conspiracy theories, when in reality, it’s probably just a display bug.
This is why non-techies think that web 2.0 is irrelevant. Get a life, folks.
who cares?