Undercrank

If you’re in the UK feeling a bit put out that your Gmail (er, I mean Google Mail) account doesn’t seem to feature the new Web Clips functionality, then the easy way to remedy that is to go to your Gmail “Settings” link at the top of the interface and then select your “Gmail display language” to be English (US).

Google appeared to have quietly launched a beta of their groundbreaking maps service for the UK, with most of the features of it’s US counterpart intact (with the notable exception of detailed satellite maps).

So now, you can find your way to your favourite football team, check out local pubs and of course, most importantly discover how to make your way from one end of the country to another.

To coincide, with this, it appears that the UK native version of Google’s Local search has also arrived in beta form with results provided by Yell.com.

Update: Looks like myGMaps.com works perfectly well with the UK version too for creating your own custom maps. Neat.

It appears that Google are extending their reach beyond standard web and usenet resources into the realms of IRC networks. Tony Collen noted some unusual activity on a private network from a bot named “Eddie” sourced in Google’s IP block, which Google have indeed confirmed is “part of an experiment aimed at improving Google’s search quality”.

Seeing as much of the content of IRC network discussion is considered private in one way or another, I’m curious to see where it leads to. That said, at least one commentator on Tony’s site states that the bot doesn’t hang around long enough to log any chat, merely MOTD’s, channels, nicknames and such like. Wait and see, I suppose.