Google introduced a refreshed look logo line for its services and a new Labs feature in Gmail that allows users to preview their inbox messages while the webmail service is loading.
The new Google logos are being rolled out over the coming weeks and are intended to improve consistency and freshen up the look of the company’s services across its sites. While it might take a while until they appear on all Google sites, here’s a preview of the new logos.
There’s not a big difference between the old and the new logos. The product names appear in clean, simple blue lowercase type next to the Google logo, which is always a nice touch in comparison to the old logos that looked like they were slapped together in five minutes.
Do you hate or love the new Google logos? Sound off in the comments.
Another addition from Google in Gmail comes in handy for those with slow connections. The new Inbox Preview feature allows users to preview unread messages in their inbox while the AJAX interface is loading.
The simple, static interface previews the ten most recent messages and can be turned on from the Labs tab under Settings in Gmail. If you’re on a trip to some remote place with a slow connection this new feature could just save you some time. Otherwise, users on speedy connections can skip Inbox Preview, as it’s not likely to make much of a difference for them.
Gmail also added a functional translation feature this week. As the name of the feature suggests, with one click you can turn gibberish into some phrases that actually make sense — and that’s including those foreign spam messages clogging your inbox.
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