Projects That Started in the Labs

Google Labs is, for all intents and purposes, a research and development (R&D) lab. The intent is to create new products and services that can be launched publicly within the Google universe. Granted, some of these projects are more theoretical than others and eventually fall by the wayside. But many Google Labs projects have graduated into full-blown products and services that are now presented alongside Google’s more established offerings.

Which Google services first saw life in Google Labs? Here’s a short list:

  • GOOG-411. Search for local businesses by voice from your cell phone (dial 1-800-GOOG-411).

  • Google Desktop. Search data on your computer’s hard disk.

  • Google Docs. Create and share word ...

Get Googlepedia: The Ultimate Google Resource, Third Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.