Gmail / RSS accessing from script

I am trying to write a small module to display my gmail email on my custom startup page. I am using this url with the correct userid and password - https://USERNAME:PASSWORD@gmail.google.com/gmail/feed/atom . When I put it in the web browser, it acts like it is supposed to. But when I try and script it, it returns a 401 unauthorized error. I get the same error when I try a wget also. Has anyone had any success in getting this to work from a script? The output is supposed to be simple RSS once I get past this error.