Google Babel, or is it Hangouts?

The much leaked, frequently talked about and speculated upon Google Babel may actually be going by a familiar name; Simply “Hangout”.

Since the first murmurs of the pending change and Google looking to centralize and unify their disparate messaging solutions, the Babel rumour train has done nothing but gather momentum. It’s pretty well known now that Google are working to integrate Google Talk, Messenger (from both Gmail and Google+) and Google Hangouts. There has been more and more mounting speculation and rumour as to what the service could include, these rumours have been quite extensive including:

• Screenshots leaked
• A features list
• More information and features, and
• The rollout of a new drive chat feature for uploaded files

Now, one of the readers of The Verge have posted in the Verge forums further details about the service.

I got some info on Babel.

Babel will be called Hangout
The icon will be similar to the messenger icon, except that it will be green
UI will be Holo (obviously), a swipe from the right will give you a list of conversations
Unifies messaging as expected
Just got to play with it for less than a minute. Will update if I get to play with it for longer.

Updates:

SMS/MMS sync is not there on the app that’s being dogfooded
And it’s gonna be hangouts not hangout
I already mentioned this in the comments, Google Now will get location based reminders. Example: “Remind me to call Lisa when I get home”
Gmail is getting a UI overhaul, it will be “Holofied”. Swipe from the left will give you access to your inbox, drafts, labels, etc much needed improvement in my opinion.

It’s worth pointing out that this is also one of the sources of the original Nexus 10 rumour, prior to its release. They also outed the Nexus 7 3G, prior to that release, and to add their credibility as a source for such rumours further, they also had information that was accurate regarding the Nexus 4 prior to its release.

It really seems as though there’s going to be no surprise left at the anticipated release of Babel/Hangouts at Google I/O in a few weeks. With a feature list already available, screen shots and other information about the service exciting many users let’s hope that the service is as good as it looks to be.

Is “Hangouts” the right name for the service? Does the familiarity make it an easier transition for users? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.