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.
ok..go outside and take a deep breath now go back inside put on some going out close and go out and spend some money on some women and have fun. This too geeky.
it looks like a corner of a page being dog-eared. Most probably it’ll be a ‘peel off’ effect and show us ’something’…
maybe first 3 search results from google, with search words picked up from the mail and some ad along with it - earning google a few more bucks…
Nah, …it’s just a spot on everyone’s screen.
I cant believe I am reading this on Techcrunch
tomorrows post
Gmail’s Mysterious Black box
day afters
Gmail’s Mysterious White box
is the grey box even worth mentioning on techcrunch???
unless michael believed that the small grey box is a way for alice of the new generation (alice 2.0) to go to wonderland since she cant find a mirror
Before this IFrame started appearing like it does now, I always noticed that if I’m using Gmail, and I decided to navigate to another site in the same tab (for example, clicking a bookmark), that I am always first taken to a blank page with that exact IFrame in the top-left corner before I arrive at my destination.
And this has always made me scratch my head.. How did Google figure out how to make “just one last page” load before I navigate elsewhere, and what is that last page doing?
look at the iframe url:
https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&...
first parameter is ui = 2. This is the buzz generator for the new ui.
All that small box is is just a element of the overlay that displayed before you see your main page. You know the one with all the ajax elements like the progress bar letting you know the page is loading. Don’t want the box to appear, then switch to HTML mode for your g-mail, GONE!
slow news weekend i guess. //g
It’s a webcam!
a square one, that google uses to read our emails!
WE HAVE FOUND IT!
that’s the secret of Google.
Google is in clear violation of our patent A2@K#J!)EJ@!. We will proceed and sue them for 3.4 kabillion dollars. We’ve worked HARD at developing the technology behind out patents. Who does Google think it is to go just like that stealing our technology? I protest.
It’s a representation of Yahoo’s market cap compared to Googles.
111 comments…unbelievable
I suspect it’s a tiny part of the file “icons1b.png”, which contains the icons for the page, and is placed top left so it loads first.
It’s a new way to interact with gmail.
You drag it with your fingers and drop in the “real world”, so you can read your email with the computer turned off.
”
# fritz
July 6th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
I cant believe I am reading this on Techcrunch
tomorrows post
Gmail’s Mysterious Black box
day afters
Gmail’s Mysterious White box
is the grey box even worth mentioning on techcrunch???
unless michael believed that the small grey box is a way for alice of the new generation (alice 2.0) to go to wonderland since she cant find a mirror
”
Gray box is in the middle of the white and black box
I think its a gray box.
The question should be, what is its purpose not what is it.
The Grey box is a subliminal call to arms for all GoogleDroids for Google World Domination! I don’t know; might not be so bad? Resistance is futile!
My guess, I’ve heard rumors of a new google ui coming through (part of the new G favicon), and my guess is that this is a hint of a new ui being “peeled back” or revealed sometime soon.
So I’ll base my half baked conspiracy theory on a weird coincidence:
About 10 minutes after reading the original post and clicking with my mouse over the gray box, I received a strange phone call from an unfamiliar number, which I missed to pick up.
Then I got a message in my gmail inbox that this number left me a GrandCentral voice message.
Now, I set up my account in Grand Central (owned by Google now) more than 6 months ago and never touched it. In all this time I never received a single message left for me there, and I use a different service as my voicemail-to-text provider. This notification email made me go to GrandCentral, renew my password so I could log in, only to find a 26 second long blank message.
Could this be Google’s way to re-stir interest in GrandCentral?
I’m hoping for dancing Larry and Sergey bobble head dolls.
Great PR move.
god now I’m just going to kick everyone in the nuts
This is a bug in google design,
Transperence is not set properly, so you see it,
This pixel is there for a reason (ring the bell when gtalk is talkin) but shouldn’t have been visible
I think it’s a css error, only happen in non-ie broswers, ff and opera, ie 7.0 is fine.
it is a box looks like a new paper coming
a new gmail coming and you know that gmail beta is over.
it is the end of the internet…
Google has finally figured out how to see through your monitor. It is a little camera lens widget watching everything you do on your screen.
It is only visible in Gmail, invisible the rest of the time.
It is the uber-virus interface a la the “pi” symbol in “The Net”
It’s Microsoft finally hacking in, which explains why it isn’t visible on IE…
It’s Google beginning to peel loose from the rest of the Internet. When it floats completely free it will begin its own Googlenet. This will start a cascade effect with every site beginning its own private web. In order to visit other websites, you will have to pay for Big Brother’s costly Web Juice® which, at more than $5 a gallon, will make it very expensive to surf the net.
If you look at Google’s JavaScript framework (http://doctype.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/goog/), you’ll see that they use iFrames for a number of things, including the history manager that helps make Gmail so responsive.
who cares? this is gay
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!
Somebody should add the ticket for firefox to fix it…
!!!!! By order of Viacom, Google has been forced to make a peep hole on Gmail and video record the users and their mail!!!
I think it’s a beta (of the beta, of the beta, of the beta) version of custom sounds for the instant messaging in Gmail. Soon, we’ll all be able to set Barack Obama’s voice for incoming messages. Why is Gmail still in Beta?
Magnified 60 times, and using advanced steganographic techniques, it is political propaganda, aimed at out subconscious. Here’s the magnified image:
http://a.abcnews.com/images/Po.....208_mn.jpg
So far no one has explained why the odd grey box split diagonally. I edited the height and width properties of the iFrame and you can see that it is a border around the iframe. Sorry, I have no conspiracy theory. Someone simply forgot to put “border:none” in the CSS file for the iframe!
See screen grab here: http://beepinteractive.com/200.....ft-corner/
Not since December 7th 1941 has the alarm sounded so loud… the sleeping giant stirs from sleep once again. But this was a beast of a different color, resting under a rainbow banner, quietly purring like a server waiting for the right time to make it’s move.
The timing couldn’t be more perfect. It’s two biggest rivals were quickly destroying themselves by infighting and conflict. Those at the highest level had seen the signs early and the exodus had already begun. Desperately trying to save themselves, from what they knew was coming.
The signal was modest at best. Small and unassuming to the average user, but loud and clear to those who understood. The critical mass had been achieved… we have reached 10100.
Mr. Brin, Mr. Page… Your message has been recieved five-by-five.
We are here. We are ready.
It’s a trap!!!!!
Its not a bug in FF. IE6 doesn’t display the new version of gmail… even with FF the old version is perfect
“”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!
Somebody should add the ticket for firefox to fix it…”"
Two Guesses
(1) It will allow you the google chat box to pop up on any google page instead of just at the bottom of the gmail page.
(2) Google eye, it will watch everything you do and once it has learned enough it will replace you and and do all your web surfing, blogging, and even your work for you.
I am leaning towards number 2.
The first one to figure it out gets bought out….. by Google
10×10 is not a coincidence. Why 10? As you must know the name “Google” is derived from the word “googol”, which refers to the number represented by a 1 followed by one hundred zeros, we can see that 10×10 is exactly 100! And if we think deeply about the number zero it is obvious that we cannot highlight or select, or right-click on it, because it represents the nothingness.Why the black and gray triangles? If you look carefully you will see that they are not simple triangles, the represent a choice between a pure offline world and a world with Google. A black arrow tip points outside the computer screen, the black is an allusion to the absence of color and light; on the other hand, in opposite direction, there is a gray tip of arrow that is subconsciously priming you to stay online, if draw a straight line from the gray tip you will see it is pointing to a very colorful Gmail logo. Since white is the combination of all the colors of the visible light spectrum, and gray= white+black, the gray tip of arrow that represents the Google effect of bringing light into to the darkness of ignorance and unconnectedness. Now that I revealed the truth behind this mystery, I hope I get the tshirt
It is a small hot spot upon clicking which Gmail will display Google ads!
It is a hidden camera!
@Anna
lmao
Tucked inside the iframe sound_frame
Google wants to turn us all into a bunch of energy and computational cells, essentially the basic unit out of which everything will function in the world after the GSingularity, an eclipse of the singularity by the convergence of Google applications and APIs, from “open” APIs for dildos to APIs for the computational units injected into cells by viruses that have measurably improved fitness differential from a negative feedback loop implemented by Google, a convenient “interface” Google has set up for the incurable viruses, intented by Larry to tap the single-cell and not-quite-living market.
I won’t go into the whys, or even the hows of past. What I do know is that if you stare into the grey dot on the upper left, the dot will stare into you as well. Machine learning never really entered into popular culture because all of the applications for it have been fairly uninteresting. Google doesn’t seek to change this public perception just yet. As they open up their search algorithms to various APIs on different levels, they need a new, secret core capability.
Behold! The symbiosis of the implementation of all machine learning techniques known to man (and woman), with the brains of humans. The dot is just the first step - a 15Kbps modem. Google is in it’s infancy - we could consider it just a simple, lame, BBS in it’s current state. In ten years, you will launch Safari or Firefox, and see a big grey box with a diagonal line. You will ask the dot questions. The dot will always answer. Eventually every conception of child, from the first cell, will be detected by Google engineers and implanted with the grey dot interface.
See the dot. Feel the dot. Be it.
This is a beginning on an Alien Invasion. They are going to invade the earth through the Inboxes. Because everyone who is capable of stopping a Alien invasion uses gmail.
So be careful people. This dot gets any bigger. I am outta gmail.
I have a theory and it’s not going to be easy for you guys accept, even understand this.
It is a MICRO BLACK HOLE caused by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Geneva. This is caused by the first live LHC tests that are live now. Since it’s creation began, the CERN team faced security concerns by scientists around the world. One even filed a complaint to the CERN for destroying our world as we know it by going fully operational.
Apparently TIm Berners-Lee brought, a former CERN employee” brought some along when he visited Google the last time.
These micro holes will be poppig up al over the Internet in the next months, will grow until they reach each and every page and eat them all up.
THE INTERNET IS GOING TO DIE (Slowly but steadily).
Sorry guys, this is just the first sign of the Internet dying!