All go at Google

Is there no part of the web that Google won't try to colonise? The G-men have so far dabbled in news aggregation, price comparison, newsgroups, blogging, webmail, desktop search, photo cataloguing, etc, etc.

The latest: maps. Though MSN and Yahoo! have had something similar for a while, dammit if these aren't the loveliest maps online. With traditional map sites, moving around involves reloading pages as fresh images are requested. Not Google Maps. Just click and drag to scroll in any direction on a 3D-style map with automatic magnification. The downside: it covers only the US, Puerto Rico and parts of Canada. It really needs a broadband connection too.

But if you're visiting the States and need directions from anywhere to anywhere else, this is a gem. (For geeks who need to know how it works - via Boing Boing)

Not to be left out, Amazon has created an unusual feature at its search site A9 with pictures of every business in its Golden-Pages style database. Apparently, to create what they call Block View, they sent a load of trucks to drive slowly up and down the streets of America with a camera pointed out the window to take pictures.

The web is also abuzz with rumours that Google's GMail is heading for a full launch after several months of a closed beta test, where you could get one of the webmail accounts only by invitation from an existing member. Gmail members have found themselves suddenly coming down with a raft of invites.

Now I've got 50 of them burning a hole in my inbox, so if anyone gets the urge for a 1GB webmail account from GMail, drop me a line: rprice at unison dot independent dot ie.