Google Number Shortcuts and a Potential New Look

Google has added a few more shortcuts for specific number searches and for airport travel conditions. Basically, five databases will have shortcuts: U.S. Patents, UPS Tracking Numbers, FedEx Tracking Numbers, FCC Equipment IDs, and FAA Airplane Registration Numbers. Note that some require a prefix like patent, fedex, or fcc while others do not and the airport weather needs the suffix of airport. Not all of the examples given work, or they only work at some data centers, but since it is a new feature, those bugs should be worked out soon.

Also, Google is trying out a new design and look on a very small portion of searchers. Whether Google will decide to implement the new look in this screen shot (or here or here) remains to be seen. But based on these samples, it looks like they are experimenting with doing away with the tabbed interface and moving those links above the search box, removing the color background on ads, and adding a "define" link after the search terms. Or is this just a response to Danny Sullivan's predications of multiplying tabs?