Use Google to hail a cab

This is too damn cool. The geniuses at Google have rigged up a way to show vehicle fleets on their service, so that you may now see a map of available cabs in a given city. What the hell can I say?

If you're like me, you use a mix of recommendations from friends, the phone book, or standing on the corner with your hand in the air (and hoping it isn't raining) when you need to find a taxi, limousine or shuttle service. With Google Ride Finder, you can tell us where you want to find a ride and we'll show you the actual positions of participating vehicles in that area, along with a phone number you can use to contact the fleet operator (e.g., Chicago).

We're just getting started, so forgive us if we don't have your city or ride provider yet; we'll be adding more as they become available. If you're a fleet owner/operator, get in touch with us; we'd love to include your vehicle.

Look at Chicago. Information Age meets cab dispatching... Also you can have Google provide a whole library of definitions for a given term, for example, define:iran-contra or eschatology. These bits come via the official GoogleBlog.