In light of Google’s new privacy policy changes, Microsoft has released a jab at Google in the form of a new Gmail Man video ironically, as I’m sure you’ll note, hosted on Google-owned YouTube. Whether you agree with the Microsoft ad –because it is an ad, after all– or not, it’s hard not to appreciate the that little girl’s expression when she finds out where ads come from. Personally, I think everyone is over-reacting anyways. I hardly ever say anything important over gmail anyways; I usually use GChat, or text from my Android phone. Whatever. Come over here Big Brother! Gimme a big hug!

Taking a cue from jaded high school students and most college students, it turns out the Gmail logo was designed the night before Gmail launched. According to a post on Quora, Google designer from 2003 to 2008 Kevin Fox said that Gmail logo designer Dennis Hwang was up designing the logo literally the night before the product launched.

So, I bit the bullet today: I switched my Gmail over to the new look. I figured I’ll have to do it sometime, and I might as well do it now, while I’m shaking up all my old habits with fancy labs. If you remember, sharebros were not too happy about the Google Reader redesign, and even more people are likely to be miffed by the Gmail one. According to Google it’s “cleaner and more modern,” which apparently means “has a lot of white space where useful information used to live.” For the moment, you can stick with the old look, but there’s also a display mechanism built in that looks a lot more like traditional Gmail without straight-up being the old format. It’ll come in handy when they kill off the old one for good.

Gmail has been a stalwart companion and workhorse for over seven years, but in that time it has remained mostly the same. However, a recent video posted to the official Gmail YouTube channel heralds the arrival of a new look for the web-based email service, and new functionality to boot.

Today marks the end of an extremely awkward chapter in the life of Google, the overlords of the Internet. Today, Google announced that they are finally killing Google Buzz. The move to end Buzz comes as Google+ enters the field as a real power and as the search giant has begun pruning off many of its side projects.

When it was originally launched, Google Buzz was meant to be the search giant’s first foray into social networking. Its aim was to allow users to quickly and easily share their activity, and place it prominently on the main Gmail page. However, the service was far too overreaching, leading to an uproar that ended with the service becoming a wasteland, and Google in hot water with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.

For the six of you that still use the service, Google says you’ll be able to pull down a copy of your data using Google Takeout.

A recent study carried out by IBM has determined that users who use a complex folder system to organize their email do not find messages faster than users who rely on search functions. The study compared the time it took to locate a specific email when using folder trees versus simply typing in a search query. They found that it took users 58 seconds to find an email without search, and 17 seconds to find it with search. Moreover, users who searched were far more likely to actually find the desired email. In other news, sky blue, water wet; film at 11.

In any discussion of search in email, Gmail is the king of the hill because of its close integration of Google search. However, some other aspects of Gmail received specific praise from the study, such as conversation threading — where back and forth email exchanges are grouped together. Strangely, the study endorsed “superthreading,” where emails of a similar topic or project are organized together. Which to me, sounds like folders, but maybe I’m missing something.

Even though Gmail isn’t particularly cluttered or ugly (aside from that bar on the left, maybe?), Google has decided to spruce it up a bit, making it even easier on the eyes. Currently, they’ve only released two new themes for the service, but it is part of a larger plan that was announced on the Official Gmail Blog quickly outlining their intent of visually upgrading Gmail through a series of interface updates.

One of the two released themes, “Preview” and “Preview (Dense),” can be seen above, sporting an easy-to-read, cleaner, minimalistic style. The Gmail team explains that there are two version of the new theme because, eventually, Gmail’s interface will dynamically expand depending upon screen size and user interface preferences. Both of the new themes can be found in the theme tab within Gmail’s settings.

In the midst of a blog post blandly titled “Ensuring your information is safe online,” Google lobs a bombshell of an accusation against the Chinese government: It says that it unearthed a Gmail account hijacking campaign, “which appears to originate from Jinan, China, affect[ing] what seem to be the personal Gmail accounts of hundreds of users including, among others, senior U.S. government officials, Chinese political activists, officials in several Asian countries (predominantly South Korea), military personnel and journalists.”

Google’s backing for its accusations come in part from a thorough February 2011 blog post from researcher Mila Parkour of Contagio, which details several “spear phishing” methods by which hackers attempted to get the passwords and personal information from their targets. In the image above, for example, a fake Gmail login page is used to attempt to scoop up user passwords. Google:

The goal of this effort seems to have been to monitor the contents of these users’ emails, with the perpetrators apparently using stolen passwords to change peoples’ forwarding and delegation settings. (Gmail enables you to forward your emails automatically, as well as grant others access to your account.)

Google detected and has disrupted this campaign to take users’ passwords and monitor their emails. We have notified victims and secured their accounts. In addition, we have notified relevant government authorities.

The Chinese government denies any connection with hacking attacks: “Allegations that the Chinese government supports hacking activities are completely unfounded and made with ulterior motives,” an official said in a statement.

(via WSJ, PaidContent, Google. title pic via Contagio.)

Gmail’s forgotten attachment detector is a wonderful thing, and in that vein — helpfully analyzing the context of an email using the data centersful of information without being too pushy — Google is rolling out two new features to Gmail which previously existed only in Google Labs. Called “Don’t forget Bob” and “Got the Wrong Bob?”, respectively, they both analyze a user’s email history and scan the current recipients of the message in draft.

The first of the two makes suggestions as to who to include “based on the groups of people you email most often”: Clicking on those suggested names automatically adds them to the recipients list. The second has the potential to avert even more awkwardness: If Gmail ‘thinks’ you are accidentally including the wrong person as the recipient of a message in the place of someone else with a similar name, it gives you a clickable suggestion to replace the “wrong Bob.”

Both of these features will roll out over the next few days across all Gmail accounts.

(via Gmail Blog)

Having observed access issues with their popular web-based email service Gmail, Google is accusing the Chinese government of causing the problem. Gmail users have apparently been unable to reach their accounts over the past few weeks, while some are claiming that their accounts have been compromised. After investigating these problems, Google is saying that the interruptions are coming from outside their system. From Google’s statement, quoted by The Telegraph:

There is no technical issue on our side; we have checked extensively. There is a [Chinese] government blockage carefully designed to look like the problem is with Gmail[.]

The accusation comes after Google has repeatedly locked horns with the Chinese government, and gone so far as to move their corporate headquarters to Hong Kong, where governmental authority is somewhat diminished. Prior to their move, Google said they were targeted by Chinese hackers who stole source code and apparently accessed email user information. This apparently included information about human rights and pro-democracy supporters.

Observers are noting that this could be part of a larger effort by the Chinese government to crack down on dissension within the country, and enhance their censorship over Chinese internet access. Which is hard to believe, considering that it already has some of the tightest controls in the world.

If true, these accusations will only further frustrate an already unhappy relationship between Chinese authorities and Google. One wonders how far these two will push each other, though in the face of the monolithic power that is Chinese authority, even the mighty Google seems at a disadvantage.

(NYTimes, UK Telegraph)