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Rumors of an upcoming messaging service from Google dubbed “Babel” have been steadily popping up in recent months. We first heard back in March that the service would unify Google’s chat services such as Google Talk, Chat for Drive, Google+ Hangouts, etc, and since got a look at two different sets of screenshots showing variations of what tipsters both alleged were an Android app for the rumored service.
After a small hint at Gmail integration for Babel this morning, we now get yet another set of photos, this time reportedly showing what the service will look like inside of Gmail. TechRadar posted the images above that apparently come from an anonymous Google employee currently testing Babel.
From the screenshots we see a slightly tweaked text layout, new emoticons and the expected Google+ integration, but not much else.
The not-exactly-thrilling news is that the new Gmail Chat tool uses a more threaded-messaging style with image thumbnails rather than the traditional text-based layout. Plus, it will come with a bunch of new emoticons and Google+ is built-in so you can zip from Babel chat to hangout if things get serious. What’s more, you’ll need to link your Google+ account to send photos through Google Talk.
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