[alexscheelmeyer]

I think they are entirely right in shutting down this outward facing display of unfinished ideas/projects.

I also think they could have done much better than just redirecting it to google.com. Instead of trying to emulate Apple, they should acknowledge that their culture is different and very nerdy. So I think what they should have done instead is to highlight that and use "labs" to instead show off their technical prowess, much in they same vein as what Festo has done : http://www.festo.com/cms/en_corp/9617.htm

A flapping wings robot, how cool is that?!

Google could really do something similar, and the world would love them for it. Instead they look more and more like a big corporation with all the boring "common sense" and mediocrity that comes with it.