Google Labs is an incubator created by Google to test and publicly demonstrate new projects.
The original version was online from early 2002 to mid-2011. Google described Labs as "a playground where our more adventurous users can play around with prototypes of some of our wild and crazy ideas and offer feedback directly to the engineers who developed them."[1]
In 2023, Google revived Labs during the annual Google I/O keynote.[2]
History
Google also used an invitation-only model for users to test Labs products including Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Wave, and many of these also have their own "Labs" experimental features and previews. Labs was later removed from Google Calendar.
In 2006, all Google Labs products were presented with a consistent icon, a flask, and a gray title, as opposed to other color-coded Google products, such as Google News and Google Maps.