I played with the new ask.com. It has really become new — many features from Ask Jeeves are gone and the new site is much improved in many respects. I particularly liked their maps. You can get driving and walking directions. More importantly, the simple animation of your directions is neat feature — it animates your driving direction. Simple but useful in my opinion because you get an idea of how you are going to get there.
Is this the signal that ASK.COM wants to challenge some of the biggies?