Mail Goggles Prevent Drunken E-mailing

Google's new Mail Goggles feature checks for a sound state of mind before sending out e-mails between the hours where many e-mailers are likely to send messages they regret.

If you’ve never sent an e-mail you regret under the influence of alcohol or just plain late-night tiredness, count yourself among the lucky few. With the proliferation of smartphones, lightweight notebooks and other methods of accessing e-mail from anywhere, the probability of an all-too-honest e-mail to colleagues and friends has only increased. But Gmail understands.

Apparently, Google engineer Jon Perlow has been burned by his own inebriation a few too many times, leading him to write Mail Goggles, a new feature available through Gmail Labs that aims to prevent drunken e-mails by putting a little sobriety check in the way. Perlow’s solution: a couple simple math problems that kick in between the late-night weekend hours when e-mail is most likely to be abused. Gmailers who prove their functional brain state with arithmetic will be allowed to send whatever they like, the rest can sleep it off and try back later.

After enabling Mail Goggles, Gmail users can select which days they would like it to be active, which hours, and even how difficult the questions are – in case booze doesn’t impair your math skills as much as it should. Default settings make it active on Friday and Saturday nights between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m., prime time for regrettable typing.

Like all Google Labs features, Mail Goggles can be enabled (and drunkenly disabled, if you’re that clever) free of charge through the flask icon at the top of the Gmail client.