Posted by Brian Kemler, Product Manager

In the summer of 2012 I travelled in Myanmar (Burma) and found inspiration in the temples of Bagan, the floating gardens of Inle Lake and the sweltering heat and teaming markets of Yangon. As a country of 53 million, Myanmar’s recent opening-up has triggered an explosion of people coming online. As recently as 2011, a mere 500,000 Myanmar citizens were able to access the internet, which was less than 1 percent of the population. That number has grown to 2.6 million people as the availability of mobile phones has made it easier to get online. As Myanmar speakers embrace online tools, our team has been working hard to ensure Google is ready to support this new community in their own language.

To capture the nuances of this language and make sure the translations were accurate, consistent and complete, we relied on an array of Myanmar speakers from within the country, and around the world. In April 2013 we launched Google Search in Myanmar, and today we’re excited to announce that Gmail now supports Myanmar (Burmese), our 74th language.
Myanma bhasa (Burmese) is the official language of Myanmar, spoken by over 33 million people as a first language, and 10 million people as a second language. Although primarily spoken in Myanmar, there are also significant numbers of Myanmar speakers in Thailand, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Myanmar speakers can switch their language in their Gmail settings starting today, and we couldn’t be happier that Gmail can now greet them with a hearty “Mingalaba” (မင်္ဂလာပါ)!

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 [email protected] 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.

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.

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.