The new feature, only available in Labs at the moment, is called Smart Labs and it adds filters to your incoming email based on their type - Bulk, Notification, or Forum.

If you already use filters to organize your messages, you'll be relieved to know that these new labels won't impact your system. You are able to edit your current filters so that they are included or excluded from the Smart Label categorization. You can also edit the Smart Label filters themselves.

If you don't currently use an elaborate labeling system, then Smart Labels can certainly help you get started by putting some of these very basic filters in place.

Having a smarter, more manageable inbox isn't just something that Google is working on. The new Smart Labels are reminscent of the service offered by OtherInbox, which also helps minimize your email clutter but then goes the extra step of sending you a nice email reminder with a digest of that "other stuff" so that you don't miss important messages that aren't in your inbox any more but in some other vast pile of unread messages.

To activate the new feature in Gmail, go to the Labs tab under Settings and search for Smart Labels.

So how can you access this new Labs section, which is still off-limits to users of the standard Chrome browser? We've got the details in our latest "weekend project."

For those that's don't know about Chromium, it's the open-source browser project which serves as the basis of what eventually ends up in the Google Chrome Web browser and the upcoming Google Chrome OS, an Internet-only operating system powered by Chrome.

Although Google recently released the (Windows-only) "Canary" build of its Chrome Web browser for early adopters who want to test drive the newest features before they go live in the more stable public builds of Chrome, there are some features, such as this, which are only available to those who run the latest build Chromium Web browser itself.

We heard of these latest additions thanks to the unofficial Google-watching blog, Google Operating System, a site known for keeping a close eye on the latest-and-greatest Google news. According to writer Alex Chitu, the Labs feature was turned on in one of the newest Chromium builds.

This build also includes a placeholder for the Chrome Web Store, an in-browser "App Store" for Web-based applications, due to arrive later this year.

Chitu also confirms something we were seeing as well: Labs doesn't currently work for those running a Chrome Developer build or even the Canary build: you must manually install the latest Chromium build instead. 

How to Enable Google Chrome Labs

So how do you enable Google Chrome Labs? Here are the steps:

1. Head over to this list of the latest Chromium builds.
2. Click on the folder for your operating system (Linux, Mac or the folder "XP" which supports various Windows operating systems, including Windows 7)
3. Scroll to the bottom of the page to locate the folder containing the most recent build.
4. It appears that this feature was implemented in build # 57635, but it should be available in later builds, too, unless it gets pulled for some reason. I was able to install build # 57672, for example, and access the feature.
5. Install the latest build using the provided installer or files for your given OS.
6. Launch Chromium and in the browser's address bar type about:labs (without spaces between the colon and the words)
7. If you're on Windows, you'll see an option to enable "Tabs on the Left." Mac users will see the expose-for-tabs feature. Sorry, Linux users, there aren't any Labs available for you just yet. However, this section is sure to grow soon.
8. To enable a Labs feature, just click the hyperlinked "Enable" option. Then click "Restart Now" to reload the browser.

Note: both features can also be enabled manually, by using command-line flags instead. Just edit your Chromium shortcut with -enable-vertical-tabs for the Windows side tabs feature and -enable-expose-for-tabs for the Mac expose-tabs feature.

Also, Windows users: to actually turn side tabs on, you'll need to right-click on a tab and then select "use side tabs" from the menu that appears. Do the same to turn them off again.

So will the new Google Maps Labs be the same? Filled mostly with fun but ultimately minor upgrades among a handful of gems? Or will it truly serve as the testing ground where the next major features planned for Google Maps make their debut? We checked it out this morning and found a couple of options worth enabling right now.

• Drag 'n' Zoom: Click the Drag-and-Zoom button, then draw a box on the map to immediately zoom into that place.
• Aerial Imagery: Available for certain areas, aerial imagery "gives you rotatable, high-resolution overhead imagery presented in a new perspective."
• Back to Beta: This will simply add a "Beta" icon to the Maps logo.
• Where in the World Game: Guess the name of the country from satellite imagery.
• Rotatable Maps: This puts north facing downwards, for instance.
• What's Around Here?: This will trigger a search for anything ("*"), showing the top places for a given location.
• LatLng Tooltip: Shows the latitude/ longitude of where your cursor is positioned.

Some of the new options clearly fit more in the category of "just for fun" - like the one that adds the "beta" label back to the service's logo or the "Where in the World" game which lets you guess where you are based on satellite imagery.

Our Favorite New Features

However, a few of the other features are more intriguing. For example, the "Aerial Imagery" feature sounds suspiciously like Bing Maps' "Bird's Eye view." In Bing, Bird's Eye view lets you see aerial imagery in an angled view. Using four different angles, the perspective is more useful for seeing detail than traditional aerial imagery which looks straight down on the rooftops. In fact, Bing's unique Bird's Eye view feature has been one of the service's key selling points for some time. But now, it sounds as if Google plans to add the same - especially since the Labs description notes "currently imagery is only available in certain areas, but we're adding more all the time."

Another interesting option is the "What's Around Here?" feature. Enabling this experiment adds a second search button next to the search box. When you have a map pulled up on your screen, all you have to do is click that button and thousands of round markers appear on the map denoting places of interest. This is a handy way to explore an area when you don't necessarily have something in particular that you're searching for. It's easy to imagine how a future version of this feature could tap into other Google location-based services like the new Google Buzz or Google Latitude, for example, in order to add layers of social activity to the map, similar to Bing's Twitter "mapplication."

The two features described above registered as the stand-out options worth enabling right now, but we'll definitely be watching the Labs section to see what other options show up later on. Do you have any feature requests you would like to see appear in Labs? If so, let us know in the comments.

As ReadWriteWeb has said in the past, "Whereas MySpace is still a website, Facebook has become an entire eco-system." With the new Prototypes site, Facebook is not only leveraging its users to create new applications, but also crowdsourcing their reviews to improve the development environment.

To access Prototypes, users can visit the Application Directory and filter by "Prototypes" to find new projects. Some of the current Prototypes for users to review include the Mac Desktops Notifications application, search by "Similar Posts", Photo Tag Search and Recent Comments Filter. The project will begin rolling out gradually beginning this afternoon.

We do like the idea of these features. But in a way, these features are walking a line that Gmail has carefully been avoiding in directly marking up the information inside an email. Of course, we realize these features are optional and that Google already mines email contained within Gmail for keywords to power their contextually-sensitive ads, but these tools go a step further and modify the content of the message.

We would also like to note that the enhanced content is not in the printable view, so if you were thinking you could quickly print out that email with the attached Yelp review, you will find the additional content isn't there. That said, these features are fun and are another stepping stone for Labs in their continuing quest to find ways of constructively enhancing the Gmail experience.

Now, you can. Thanks to Google Labs.

But what if you're simply inspired by the email and not its contents? Create a Document can help you there, too. Once the feature and keyboard shortcuts are enabled, you gain the ability to start a new blank Doc directly from Gmail. Simply, hit the G and W keys at the same time and you'll have a new blank document. Ta dah!

Now, granted, this may not seem like a huge leap forward in technology. But it does mark yet another step that enhances the interoperability among the Google offerings. And that provides a glimmer of hope - and a reason to seriously consider Google's suite of tools - especially for those of us who constantly bemoan the lacking interoperability among the components of other more popular office productivity suites.

At the very least, it makes more sense than Google Mail Goggles.

To try the new feature, log into Gmail and then visit Google Labs to enable Create a Document.

Now, you may have the option to rectify that situation with a new Gmail Labs feature that adds SMS messaging to Gmail chat.

How do you use it? After activating the feature through Google Labs, simply establish a mobile phone number for the contact with whom you want to exchange SMS messages. And begin firing messages their way.

The mobile user will receive a message from a unique phone number beginning with the 406 area code. So they'll be able to save it to their contacts and send you messages in the future. If they don't want to be getting messages from you, they have the option to block them.

With the new feature, you'll be able to continue conversations with people who have left their computer mid-conversation. What's more, the next time you get an inbound SMS message while you're sitting in front of your machine, you'll also be able to jump into Gmail chat to converse using your full keyboard - instead of your mobile. And that may mean a more meaningful conversation for both of you.

Google Code Reviews

Google Code Reviews is, as the name implies, aimed at developers. It allows developers to share code for review and propose changes.

Google Moderator

Google Moderator is an application that Google first released for the App Engine just about a month ago. Moderator is basically a forum for group discussions and Q&A sessions, with the ability to vote questions and answers up and down.

Google Short Links

Short Links is a URL shortener like TinyURL or snurl, but works with your own domain name. This allows you to turn complicated and long URLs into short, more memorable ones.

More to Come

According to Google, these are just the first three in a long list of products that will make their debut in Labs for Google Apps. Google also intends to open this platform up to all App Engine developers, but it hasn't provided a timetable for this yet.

One interesting twist to the story is that Almaer used to be at Google.

What's New About This?

Mozilla already has a "Labs" section, and the relationship between that and this latest development isn't terribly clear. We suspect, though, that Mozilla Labs will continue to build and launch Mozilla specific projects that can be coded against - software like Weave, Snowl, Ubiquity and Geode, for example. The new Open Web Developer Tools Lab will be building tools that can be used in development processes anywhere, not just in projects incorporating Mozilla software.

Update: Almaer responds in comments and explains that this work will go on inside of the existing Mozilla Labs. Thanks Dion!

What Do Developers Say About the Project?

In quickly talking to a few developers about the announcement, it's apparent that the Lab's leaders Almaer and Galbraith are widely liked and admired. The project is one that Open Web advocates seem enthusiastic about so far.

Scott Kveton, Chairman of the Open ID Foundation, told us that he thinks "this is great news and Mozilla is the perfect place for it. Tools are the key to proliferation of open web technologies." Tools, in this case, are contrasted with talk - something that many in the Open Web community have complained there's an excess of relative to tools development.

We asked Eran Hammer-Lahav, Open Web Evangelist at Yahoo!, a participant in the newly launched Open Web Foundation and one of the leading voices in support of standards based safe-login protocol OAuth what he thought of Mozilla's announcement and he articulated very specifically the dire need for better tools.

"The quality of open web libraries is generally poor and lacks enough resources to support it. For example, OAuth has libraries in many languages but the implementations are buggy and completely inconsistent. Many developers find it easier to implement from scratch than use available code, and bugs are found on a weekly basis so to have dedicated resources working to bring these technologies to the mainstream by making them available as reliable and supported tools is a very promising proposition.

In terms of the Open Web Foundation, having running code available before specifications are completed is critical. This is by far the most difficult part of any spec-work - getting it up and running. You don't know if something will interoperate until you do it. If Mozilla is going to keep their leadership position in the industry, this sounds like a great way to apply their resources and influence."

We couldn't have said it better. We are very excited to see what comes out of Mozilla's new Lab.