tedster - 6:35 am on May 17, 2010 (gmt 0)

Of what i can gather personalised search requires the Google toolbar?

No. Just a Google Account of any kind - anything you sign into. and even if you don't have that, if your browser stores cookies, that browser's history with Google is also used to customize search results.

If this AI thing is correct...

Please, let's not turn the AI idea into a new mythology. It's just an idea, a theory that some of us are investigating - and nothing more than that at this time. I'm hoping that our forum can become more like a think tank than a place to come for "the answer". That's the best way to approach things, IMO. Then if some new idea begins to bear fruit, we can all share the victory.