Microsoft is always working on new projects. At any given time Microsoft Research has hundreds of projects in the hopper. If you've never perused their site, I highly recommend checking it out. It's pretty fascinating.

But the development teams are also constantly moving forward. Not only are they focused on the next version of our dev tools (Visual Studio, Expression, etc) but they have other pet projects that they are exploring. Because Microsoft now shares bits in their very early stages, and we have to find them in myriad locations, a new site has been created on MSDN: DevLabs.

The premise of DevLabs is that discussion and feedback are an important part of the innovation process.

Any truly remarkable software innovation that introduces a paradigm shift is based on solid inventive ideas. But it also needs discussion, trial, collaboration, and a critical eye.

Explore the projects that we are experimenting with in our labs, and let us know if they inspire you.

The site only launched this week with an announcement on Somasegar's blog - Inspiring through Innovation - DevLabs.

Currently there are 4 projects shared on the site.

PopFly, which has been out in Beta since early 2007 (or earlier).

Small Basic: A trimmed down programming language to allow new programmers to get started without being overwhelmed by the vastness of the more mature languages.The image next to Small Basic shows very young children playing with it, so that is likely it's target market. Perhaps the next step after Baby Einstein?

Pex: Automated White Box Testing for .NET

Chess: For finding issues in concurrent programming code. CHESS can find assertion violations, deadlocks, livelocks, data-races, and memory-model errors. CHESS works both for managed and for unmanaged code

Small Basic is the one that has piqued my interest the most, but all new exploration is on hold for me (oh the torture) until I get my book out the door.

So check out the DevLabs and keep an eye for more releases!