Update 3pm: It looks like Google will not be buying Whatsapp afterall, not for now at least. A spokesperson from Whatsapp told AllThingsD that the company is not holding any sales talk with Google.
It’s been quite a while now since Google was first rumored to be working on a unified chat service called Google Babel, little hints have been dropped here and there in different places of the internet including the search giant’s very own Google+ service and now, it looks like Google Babel has been leaked again, this time with a lot more details.
According from the leaked screenshots, which are purported to be leaked by a Google employee, the interface looks very much like the current Google Talk that we use, except that it includes whole bunch of emoticons (finally!), and integration with other Google’s services like Google+ for photo sharing and Google+ Hangouts.
Over the weekend, Google was rumored to be interested in buying Whatsapp over, with a price of a whopping USD$1 billion. No confirmations have been give of course, if the buyout really succeeds, Google might be integrating Whatsapp into Babel as well. Google is expected to reveal Babel at the upcoming Google I/O conference happening in about a month’s time.
Hit the break for one more image or visit the source link for more information.
(Source: Pocket-lint)
