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.
How do you keep a geek in suspense?
It’s a hint that Google is coming up with new look/features for gmail.
(they will open wrapper very soon)
(It’s Google…. They can’t afford visual mistake if any…
I think that’s about the size Yahoo! will be once Google’s master plan for secretly tricking Microsoft into engaging with Yahoo has fully been realized.
Yahoo! & MS has been a diversion created by the Google Investor Return Maximizer team. This GIRM (pronounced like ‘germ’) team simple creates ‘opportunities’ for others that often result in ultimate Google investor benefits.
This black/gray box represents Google’s unspoken commentary on how Yahoo! will end up at the end of this.
Yawn, we all know that Google is going to eventually take over the world right?
JT
http://www.FireMe.To/udi
And why do we care?
I’m suddenly reminded of the mysterious gem from diablo 2.
It’s one of two things…
1) A subtle om nom (zoom in: it’s jagged, like a mouth)
2) Since it doesn’t show up in IE7, it may be a secret access point into Firefox’s secret website that helps train people how to take down Microsoft.
I won’t check back here on the comments, but here’s my thing.
I run FF3 with IETab also. When going right to gmail.com I get the following address (http://mail.google.com/mail/#inbox) using just FF3. Now, when I switch to IETab the address comes up as such (http://mail.google.com/mail/?shva=1&ui=1) and the box is gone. NOW, when I switch back to the FF engine using IETab the address stays the same, and the grey box is gone, using FF engine again. It’s something to do with the way they have the formatting done with the default page in FF compared to what they have for IE.
Its a trap!
It’s a viacom camera tracking your every move and sending it to the US governments.
this is just iframe width=0, height=0 border. simple as that.
Try to change it and you will see the result
Clearly a super secret spy webcam from Google. Makes Streetview look like child’s play when they can actually have Peopleview!!!!
It’s a tear in the fabric of time and space.
Umm maybe its a browser thing, nothing in OPera or IE..Stop being paranoid.
Everytime you click on it, Google kills a kitten.
The illuminati, in conjunction with the RAND corporation, who are themselves in league with the reverse vampires are using this little 10 pixel grey box to spy on users’ eye movements so they can more effectively create subliminal messaging campaigns within White Castle commercials.
the page is opening up and will reveal Diablo IV
It’s a page curl. When Gmail comes out of beta you’ll be able to peel off the beta version and reveal the final version.
the box on my page just opened and asked where sara connor is.
If you look at its ID, you will see: “hist_frame”
The other 3 frames have IDs: “js_frame”, “sound_frame”, and “canvas_frame”
Nothing too mysterious there.
Has anyone ever tried switching to basic HTML mode?
The box does seem like a nuisance, but it shouldn’t bother you to the point of not checking your email.
Conspiracy, you ask? Blame Microsoft. It’s likely that they’ve sneaked into the Google office and placed that horrific object right where it could harmlessly harass gullible users. Yahoo’s probably in it with them, plotting against Google as we speak.
No, seriously, had I seen anything affect Gmail’s performance by that box, I would take you seriously on this matter.
Herpes 2.0
“CSS error I believe. On IE6 I can’t find it.”
LOL! That’s the first time I have EVER heard someone say that the error must reside on non-IE6 browsers. That is THE most error prone browser in existence, besides maybe IE2
#=#= #=#= #=#= #=#= #=#= #=#=
#=#= #=#= #=#= ACTUAL ANSWER #=#= #=#= #=#=
#=#= #=#= #=#= #=#= #=#= #=#=
It’s a hack of sorts to accomodate multiple asynchronous file uploads in gmail.
As a file is entered it is submitted to the iframe to be uploaded. Of course there is some javascript magic under the hood as well, but ya… that’s the answer.
It’s the only way to accomplish async file uploads.
Easy. It’s the first sign of the impending apocalypse. No need to give me the t-shirt though … it will all be over soon. Sigh… (so much left undone/unsaid.)
Google found the traffic on Gmail’s website been dramatically reduced because most people now believed that email systems were easier to be monitored by the governments and chose to communicate with traditional phone calls instead. Google wanted to find a way to attract millions of people’s attention again, so they decided to do a cheap trick by putting a small boring dot on the screen’s corner to arouse the curiosity of the netizens.
After almost 3 impatient weeks of waiting, however, the dot generated no discussion at all on the internet because netizens were only concentrating on their phone calls and porns, most people cared nothing about the boring dot on the corner. Even if they logged in to the email system, they read only the email content or Google Ads (but never clicked on it).
One clever Googler decided to do another trick, by revealing this dot to the webmaster of one of the most influential weblogs. The webmaster thought he was so clever to find it through his sharp eyes, he even wrote a blog post, captured the screen and asked people what they thought about this so-called “mysterious grey box” (definitely it’s only a dot, but a “box” sounds more mysterious), and half of the population on Earth decided to investigate this case, thus, returning to the Gmail system to check if they saw the same dot on the screen, thus generated huge traffic flow to the system, causing one of the worst black out of the Googleplex in the history.
Google then reported it to the public about the regained popularity, the company shares soared 20 percent, restoring $28 billion in shareholder wealth. Google’s chiefs were questioned following this powerful stock surge. Larry Page and Sergey Brin were found not guilty but Google’s chief executive Eric Schmidt was sentenced to death.
man, these posts are the best.. conspiracy theories, geeky stuff and whole lot of comedy!
I have to agree with the CSS error, but it’s certainly not as fun as the other comments on there! and look at those numbers! 225 comments for an article about nothing! Welcome to the Seinfeld universe!
I just used Firebug to add frameborder=”0″ to all of the iframes, and the grey box disappears.
It’s the iPhone 4G…that’s right folks! Heard it here first!
What did Seth Godin say about the ‘right conversations’… lol
Duh! It’s a solar panel.
It’s not a “box” it’s a turned down corner - the reverse of the turned down corner shows the “gray area” that backs everything Google does, while the black that is revealed behind the page is the black hole which is the unfathomable internet. For brief, unpredictable times each day this corner becomes click-n-draggable, and the user can tear away the veneer of Gmail and gape at the void behind… at which point the True Google Agent will take control… and show you “just how deep the rabbit hole goes…”
Wow. Why did I just read all those comments?
Its a bunch of random things all stacked on top of each other, the most interesting is an input box with the left set to -50 which makes it shrink up, it is below the menu element.
Glory hole.
I believe the little black dot is the iframe that is constantly checking for new mail via AJAX. If you view the source of the iframe for just the black box, you get the query string “?ui=2&view=bsp&ver=1qygpcgurkovy” which you can find in the page source code using the handy Ctrl+F. You can see in the page source that there are 3 iframe’s with that name but only one that has no class and no border, hence the box. You can then paste into your browser as a query string that same string to find that it only refreshes your mailbox. The little black box’s job is to keep you from having to refresh your gmail or click your inbox and keep your gmail refreshing using AJAX.
It is a border on the sound_frame.
It can be fixed by adding border:none; to the invfr class.
-Ed
It is the G spot. Anytime you mouse over it Google receives great enjoyment (probably in the form of cash).
Well, I don’t know, I heard someone mention, over on Digg, that it might be to make sure the browser “back” button only brings you to the inbox and not back to the last web site you visitied, because all of Gmail runs in one frame. I DO know though, that it only shows in Safari and FF, Opera and IE don’t even show it. So the fact that it’s visible is probably just a glitch.
The pixels are actually peeling off of the page, just like the antique flower wall paper did in your grandmother’s powder room when you were growing up as a kid. In fact, if you look closely, you can actually see behind the web page itself - notice that there is nothing back there (that’s the server room.)
This is most likely caused by neglect on Google’s part as they are looking to cut costs in order to help keep up with the rising costs of food in the subsidized cafeterias as well as the ever increasing on site child care expenses. Word on the street is that they have a team of engineers working on some Glue-gle that will patch things up and help keep things together. Expect to see this in place by the 3rd quarter.
I believe it sets cookies. After looking at the page the iframe is linked to, you can see the iframe is used to set cookies via an asynchronous connection. Keeps you from having to refresh your inbox manually, because there is always data coming in from the ajax connection
I get this on some PC customization pages on dell.com
The iframe is probably used to store browser history. GMail uses AJAX, so the page never actually refreshes. However, the back button still works. The frame is somehow used to keep a fake history in the browser via javascript.
The same can be done for flash websites to trick the browser into creating a history (and also allowing deep-linking).
The visual you see on the page is the border of the iframe (border-style rendering set to “inset”).
On the page:
CSS:
.invfr{position:absolute;left:0;top:0;z-index:-1;width:0;height:0}
For something this small and seemingly insignificant, it sure has drawn a lot of attention from the TC crowd. 240 comments and growing…
So. whats the big deal…. have we became so lame that we are worried about a small black dot in the corner of a web application… whats the big deal..??? some one can just post a question in google mail group and get the answer if it really bothers that much..
i am very disappointed that tech crunch has nothing better to report than this??
this is disappointing….
It’s not 1 box, but 3 of them instead.
http://www.saturnwiki.net/index.php/The_G-mail_BOX
It’s the Yin and Yang of Google Apps: open but secure.
well this may be insignificant to some but if weren’t brought up here, many for sure wouldn’t notice or be aware that there is such thing.
That’s where Larry and Sergey keep their integrity.
Any chance it could be as simple as to distinguish between new and old versions? It isn’t in the “old” version.