Must be April 1st, ’cause it’s too damn funny:

As posted on the official Gmail blog, Google introduced a new feature on their Gmail service: Mathalyzer tests. Designed to prevent you from accidentally sending out ‘the truth as it needs to be told’ when being drunk it’ll hopefully spare you the regrets of fighting your hangover and discovering what you decided to sent out the night before (as if a hangover isn’t bad enough).

The idea: If you want to send a mail during a certain period of time (by default, it’s Fri+Sat 10pm to 4am, but that can be adjusted), you need to prove that you aren’t drunk or otherwise inhibited by solving some simple math tests. The tests are available in 5 levels, none of which appears to be to difficult to me, even when drunk (I guess I’ll have to use myself as a guinea pig and try that ). Also, there’s a time limit (60secs) in which you’ll have to answer the questions correctly – otherwise you’ll get another set of questions and the reminder that you it’s “water and bed” for you.

The feature is called Mail Goggles and isn’t activated by default, you’ll have to add it to your Gmail settings by switching to the “Lab” tab and activating it manually. Afterwards, it can be configured on the “General” tab.

I activated the feature, and will tell you whether it did prevent me from sending stupid mails…