Google is all up in your mailbox, keepin’ you from drunk… emailing.
So this morning I was doing my daily blog reads, because hey you guys, waaaay more important than the newspaper, and as usual BeTheBoy was blogging about something awesome. Upgrades he wishes his computer had. And as I scrolled down to leave a comment of my own, Catherine had added more dimensions of awesome to this post by pointing out that the nice people at gmail have already made “breathalyzer” for your computer.
Wait, wait, wait, SAY WHAT?
Obviously this needed more investigation and I clicked on the link that Catherine provided. And O-to the M to the G, they really do have an email breathalyzer. You have got to be kidding me!
From the Gmail blog:
New in Labs: Stop sending mail you later regret
Monday, October 06, 2008 6:25 PM
Sometimes I send messages I shouldn’t send. Like the time I told that girl I had a crush on her over text message. Or the time I sent that late night email to my ex-girlfriend that we should get back together. Gmail can’t always prevent you from sending messages you might later regret, but today we’re launching a new Labs feature I wrote called Mail Goggles which may help.
When you enable Mail Goggles, it will check that you’re really sure you want to send that late night Friday email. And what better way to check than by making you solve a few simple math problems after you click send to verify you’re in the right state of mind?
Naturally I felt this must be some kind of joke, like the constant “Gmail Upgrades” that they tease us with every April Fools day. What was last years? Emailing the future or something? Anyway, I logged into my own gmail account to see if this was a real feature and it really is. You can really set your “mail goggles” to keep you from sending emails during certain hours of the weekend or most likely whenever you want.
This is brilliant!
Back in my single days I’ll admit it, my cell phone definately needed a breathalyzer, and that actually also exists. It just doesn’t appear to exist in the States yet, which is really par for the course with cell phone technology, I mean how much longer has the rest of the world been texting?
Anyway, I am all in favor of technology helping me to NOT embarrass myself as opposed to the other way around and from the looks of my various Google searches on the subject, other people have been looking for this for awhile now.
Ahh… Google. What won’t they think up, eventually?
That is both awesome and frightening. Also, awesome.
oh, i could’ve used this email filter a long time ago. there have been emails i sat and composed/edited for hours…that really shouldn’t have been sent. you’d think if i was sitting, thinking and writing for so long, i would’ve realized hitting delete was the smarter option… Google is so smart!
HOLY FUCKING SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!
Now why can’t Myspace have that function yet?
I don’t use AOL anymore for a few reasons, but I remember back in the day it has a function where you could “unsend” email. Why cant we do something like that? Great post!