The HTML5 version of the mobile Gmail app hasn’t exactly been friendly towards non-American users to date; English (and indeed what Google calls "U.S. English") was the only language in which it was available.  Now, however, Google’s addressed the problem in a big way.

Today, there are 44 new languages on the figurative table, and that should account for the vast majority of people who are likely to own a smartphone.  An Android device or anything running a recent version of iOS, in fact.

Google announced the launch of Gmail for Android 2.3.2, which brings Gmail’s well-received Priority Inbox feature to mobile. 

"While Priority Inbox on your Android phone doesn’t have all the features offered in the desktop version of Gmail, we think this is a good start and plan to add even more functionality moving forward," says Paul Westbrook of Google’s Gmail for Android team. 

Several months ago, Google launched Gmail Priority Inbox. It was very well received. "Gmail has always been pretty good at filtering junk mail into the ‘spam’ folder," explained Google software engineer Doug Aberdeen upon the product’s release. "But today, in addition to spam, people get a lot of mail that isn’t outright junk but isn’t very important…" 

Google said today it is offering a free $10 calling credit during the holidays to military families in an effort to help them keep in touch with their loved ones serving abroad.

You’ve no doubt heard or read about Facebook’s new messaging announcement this week. If not, the company announced a new messaging system to combine email, SMS, IM, Chat, and other forms of online communication, bringing them into one inbox. Along with this comes @facebook.com email addresses. CEO Mark Zuckerberg described the system as "starting from scratch" as opposed to being a Facebook email product. 

Rumor has it that Facebook will unveil its webmail product on Monday. That means look out Yahoo Mail. Look out Hotmail, and more interestingly in the grand scheme of things, look out Gmail. 

> Update: Read today’s article on the announcent of @facebook.com

Google has been rolling out new features for Gmail in mobile Safari for the iPhone. They’ve sped up scrolling to reflect the speed of the swipe gesture, and the toolbars stay on the screen while the user is scrolling, as opposed to moving down into view after each scroll. 

Airline Virgin America said today it is moving its operating systems into the cloud with Google Apps and will use Gmail as its email provider. Virgin America said the move to Gmail will improve its productivity for its more than 1,700 employees and it will help to streamline its IT infrastructure.

Google is launching a new option in Gmail that lets users turn of conversation threads. This is a feature that was innovative when Google released its popular email service years ago, but not everyone has been a fan of this style of email communication. 

I’m not sure why it’s taken Google so long to offer a setting to turn the feature off, but better late than never, I suppose, for those who aren’t fans. 

Google has released a new version of the Gmail app for in the Android Market. The company says Gmail updates are no longer tied to Android version releases, though the update does require Froyo (Android 2.2). 

Google introduced a new feature in Gmail Labs today for video chat enhancement. If you turn the feature on, your video chat experience will come with higher resolution. 

Chances are, the feature will be automatic in the future. Google says by using it, you’ll be getting a preview before its turned on for everyone. 

Last week, the New York Times reported that Bit.ly lead scientist Hilary Mason had created a customized email classification system for Gmail that prioritizes her email by which she should read first. She said that she hoped to release the code for it this fall, so others could take advantage.

Google announced (via Twitter) that over 1,000,000 people placed calls from Gmail within just 24 hours. This feature began rolling out yesterday (and as far as I can tell isn’t even finished yet).

Earlier, it was reported that Google was testing a feature that would let you make and receive phone calls from within Gmail. It turns out, this wasn’t just a test.

Google has now officially announced that this is indeed a feature of Gmail. It is being rolled out in the U.S. starting today.

Google is reportedly testing a new voice calling service that would reside in Gmail on the desktop. Tom Krazit at CNET says the service is launched from the Google Chat window within Gmail, and allows users to place and receive calls from within their contacts.

Google announced today that it has updated its Google Mobile iPhone app to push notifications from users’ Google accounts to their phones. Now, an icon badge will show when you’ve got new mail in Gmail or when a reminder for a Google Calendar event comes up.

The badge will appear right on the home screen.

"We’ve also added spiffy features to get you information faster — when looking for flight info, weather, stock quotes or currency conversion you’ll see answers before you even hit ‘Search’," says Google engineering manager David Singleton.

About 22 months ago, Google launched a voice and video chat feature within Gmail, allowing many people to have live, face-to-face conversations with their friends and colleagues.  Now, a few more folks – Linux users – will finally be permitted to take advantage of it, too.

Google has released a new "stacked card" interface for Gmail on the iPad. What this does is allow for selecting and managing multiple conversations.

Google released a new Gmail Labs feature today that lets you search across email and Google Docs. If you turn it on and search from the Gmail search box, you will simply get results from both places, when applicable.

A Googler, by the name of Paul Truong (Creative Technologist) has created a game based on his love for Gmail. The game was created with HTML5, and runs a little choppy in Firefox.

The Gmail game is a throwback to arcade games of yesteryear in which you’re a spaceship flying around, shooting various flying objects. You know the kind – Galaga, Stinger, Lifeforce, and probably dozens of others.

Google has made some updates to the Gmail experience with a heavy focus on contacts. The company says that out of all of the feedback it gets about Gmail, most of it is about improving the contacts experience.

New contacts features include: