Gmail brings photos to contacts, sound to chat
Since I've dumped Apple's email client for Gmail, I've come to miss a few minor features like having images accompany contacts in my address book and the emails I receive from them in the email app itself. As of yesterday, this is one feature I can scratch off my Gmail wishlist, as Google announced they are now rolling out contact pictures to Gmail, with some special sauce to boot. Not only will you be able to add pictures to contacts and see them in their emails you receive, but users can suggest pictures for each other. If you don't see these features in your Gmail account yet, have patience, grasshopper. Google said they're rolling these out to accounts over time, though they didn't specify an ETA for when they'll be done.
Another handy but less whiz-bang feature Gmail rolled out is sound for chat windows. You'll receive a ping for new chat messages now, and this feature is enabled by default (you can toggle it in the prefs). Oddly, you need to have Flash enabled in order to hear the ping.
[via Hawk Wings]
