Gmail inbox Preview

Whenever I open up my inbox at work, I'm never surprised to find several new messages waiting to be read. The same thing can't always be said about my personal Gmail account. Sometimes I end up checking my mail only to find nothing new there.

No big deal, really. But now imagine that you access Gmail on a super slow connection from a remote place in Ethopia where it might take minutes to completely load your inbox. The disappointment is larger when you find out that there is nothing new to read and you could have saved all that time.

To ease this pain a bit, we created a new feature in Gmail Labs called Inbox Preview. While Gmail is loading, a simple, static preview of your inbox with your ten most recent messages is displayed. Turn it on from the Labs tab under Settings, and if you're on a slow connection you'll know from the start if it's worth the wait.

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/new-in-labs-inbox-preview.html

New in Labs: Automatic message translation

Back in the early days of human existence, before language had fully developed, our caveman ancestors probably did a lot of grunting. Language, and thus life, were pretty simple: watch out for that saber-toothed tiger ("Blorg! AIYA!!!"); stop riding the wooly mammoth and help me pick some berries ("Argh. Zagle zorg!"); man, it's cold in this Ice Age ("Brrrr.").

Somewhere along the line, all those grunts diverged into thousands of distinct languages, and life became both richer and more complicated. And for the last few eons or so, we've struggled to communicate in a multilingual world. Which brings us to today. Since the heart and soul of Gmail is about helping people communicate, I'm proud to announce the integration of Google's automatic translation technology directly into Gmail.

Simply enable "Message Translation" from the Labs tab under Settings, and when you receive an email in a language other than your own, Gmail will help you translate it into a language you can understand. In one click.

If all parties are using Gmail, you can have entire conversations in multiple languages with each participant reading the messages in whatever language is most comfortable for them. It's not quite the universal translators we're so fond of from science fiction, but thanks to Google Translate, it's an exciting step in the right direction. I use this feature everyday to help me work with teammates around the globe (they think my Japanese is much better than it really is...shhhh!).

Whether you're reading a family update from inlaws on the other side of the world, working with a multinational team, or just trying to bring about world peace, don't worry, Gmail's got your back.

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/new-in-labs-automatic-message.html

Google challenged by new rival - WolframAlpha

A revolutionary new search engine that computes answers rather than pointing to websites will be launched officially today amid heated talk that it could challenge the might of Google.

WolframAlpha, named after Stephen Wolfram, the British-born computer scientist and inventor behind the project, takes a query and uses computational power to crunch through huge databases.

The service can compute the distance between two cities, the population of a country at a specific date and the position of the Space Shuttle at a given moment. The user does not have to search through links provided by the engine; the answer comes immediately and, if appropriate, is accompanied by charts or graphs. What it does that Google, at the moment, cannot do is provide answers to questions that have not been answered already.

The new service, available at wolframalpha.com, was previewed several months ago amid industry speculation that it could be a “Google killer”. Dr Wolfram, however, is at pains to point out that his brainchild is a “computational knowledge engine”, not a traditional search engine.

A physics prodigy who earned a PhD aged 20, Dr Wolfram, 49, founded Wolfram Research, in Illinois, which develops advanced software called Mathematica, used mainly by scientists. Mathematica has built up a number of databases and Wolfram Alpha is an attempt to bring them to a wider audience.

The service is free but the company plans to include advertising eventually and to offer paid versions with extra features. Dr Wolfram said that WolframAlpha was a “long-term project” and he hoped to broaden the databases that it uses.

Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land, the website, said: “They're saying they're not trying to wipe out Google, but they feel they do the kinds of searches that Google doesn't handle. If you're trying to get facts, this might be a handy kind of encyclopedia for you.”

Last week Google previewed a new experimental service called Google Squared, which will automatically produce spreadsheets of information from search terms.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/technology/article6307744.ece