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Assists in Inbox: An extra helping hand for your Reminders
December 17, 2014
Posted by Tim Sohn, Software Engineer
During the busy holidays, who can say no to a little extra help? Inbox makes it easy to focus on your priorities by adding
Reminders
right to the top of your inbox, but we all know how easy it is to "save" to-dos for later. This is why Inbox provides over
twenty
different types of Assists–handy pieces of info to help you with the next step. Below are a few ways to give them a try, as well as a quick look behind the scenes.
To start, simply add an email address, phone number or link to a reminder.
Next, you could add a reminder to pick up your friend at the airport, pack for your trip to New York or watch a video. Assists may provide your friend's flight status, a weather report for the Big Apple or a link to that video.
There's actually a lot going on behind the scenes to make Assists work. For example, phone numbers and business hours come from Google Maps and customer support numbers from Google's
Knowledge Graph
. Your contacts and other emails (like flight confirmations, purchase receipts or bill notifications) also help Inbox provide Assists.
Some Assists even combine information from multiple sources to give you what you need. For example, when you create a reminder to return a product you purchased, the purchase date and business from your confirmation email, the business's return policy from the Knowledge Graph, and the current date all combine to give you a countdown of how many days you have left to return your purchase.
Another category of Assists are questions that, when answered, lead to another Assist. For example, if you want to call your dentist, Inbox will ask you who your dentist is and once answered, provide a link to call them.
And starting today, Assists are getting even better based on your requests to make them easier to discover. Assists now help you create Reminders faster by providing smart suggestions as you type (or tap!). If a suggestion has an icon next to it, that means you're guaranteed an assist.
We hope Assists will save you a bit of time over the holidays. As always, if you aren't using Inbox yet and would like an invite, email
inbox@google.com
and we'll email you as soon as more invites are available.
PS: In the spirit of saving time,
Inbox on Android
now works with Android Wear. You can now view messages, mark as done and reply without taking out your phone.
Reject the unexpected - Content Security Policy in Gmail
December 16, 2014
Posted by Danesh Irani, Software Engineer, Gmail Security
We know that the safety and reliability of your Gmail is super important to you, which is why we’re always working on security improvements like
serving images through secure proxy servers
, and
requiring HTTPS
. Today, Gmail on the desktop is becoming more secure with support for Content Security Policy (CSP). CSP helps provide a layer of defense against a common class of security vulnerabilities known as cross-site scripting (XSS).
There are many great extensions for Gmail. Unfortunately, there are also some extensions that behave badly, loading code which interferes with your Gmail session, or which compromises your email’s security. Gmail’s CSP helps protect you, by making it more difficult to load unsafe code into Gmail.
Most popular (and well-behaved) extensions have already been updated to work with the CSP standard, but if you happen to have any trouble with an extension, try installing its latest version from your browser’s web store (for example, the
Chrome Web Store
for Chrome users).
CSP is just another example of how Gmail can help make your email experience safer. For advice and tools that help keep you safe across the web, you can always visit the
Google Security Center
.
This post was updated on December 18th to add a description of the XSS defense benefit of CSP, and to more precisely define the interaction with extensions.
Use your cúpla focal on Gmail, now in Irish
December 11, 2014
Posted by Laura Brassil, Google Localization
Language. It’s the foundation for communication, and an important part of cultural identity. And it’s for these reasons that we’ve made Gmail available in
71 different languages
so far—about 95 percent of the world’s internet population. We’re always working to support more languages and the cultures they represent—from
Cherokee
and
Welsh
to
Mongolian
and
Zulu
—so today we’re proud to add
Gaeilge
(Irish).
Irish, in case you didn’t know, is the national and first language of the Republic of Ireland. It’s taught to all schoolchildren, and it’s spoken daily in the
Gaeltacht
, so for many Irish people it sparks memories of a shared history—from summers on the Western coast to the story of
Peig
and the Blasket Islands.
With
Gmail as Gaeilge
we’re honored to help bring this Irish tradition online. So whether you’re a committed
Gaeilgeoir
, or you just want to experience a
cúpla focal
(a few words of Irish), you can select Irish today in your
Gmail language settings
.
Reminders in Inbox: Your to-dos on your own terms
December 4, 2014
Posted by Vijay Umapathy, Product Manager
The holiday season is chock full of to-dos. Instead of having to keep a separate to-do list, Inbox makes it easy to focus on your priorities by letting you add Reminders right to the top of your inbox. In fact, Reminders go beyond your typical task list by actually helping you get stuff done. Here are just a few examples:
Inbox helps you cross items off your to-do list faster by providing Assists–handy pieces of information to help you get started, like customer service phone numbers, countdowns to important deadlines, and more.
And sometimes–who are we kidding, all the time–friends and family email you with things they want you to do. With Inbox you can add Reminders to emails: just pin the email, and you'll see a field where you can add a Reminder. Never re-read that to-do, disguised as an email, again!
Of course, it's safe to put off some to-dos. Whether you're dreading that call to your talkative Uncle or simply need to focus on something else first, you can snooze Reminders just like email. You can even set up repeating Reminders for to-dos that happen on a regular basis such as taking medication or paying rent.
Reminders go beyond your inbox. If you use Google Now and want to quickly set a reminder, you can simply say "Remind me to..." and it will appear in your inbox. And if you're using the new Google Calendar app, any reminder you snooze to a specific day and time will appear in your calendar automatically.
No matter what you need to remember, with Reminders, your inbox becomes a centralized place to keep track of the the things you need to get back to, and that's especially helpful during the holidays. As always, if you aren't using Inbox yet, you can email
inbox@google.com
to request an invite and we'll email you an invite as soon as more become available.
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