When you're mired in the day to day, you don't always take the time to look ahead, think outside of the "right now" and dream big. That's why we've launched a la mode labs.

Now everyone — including you — has a place devoted to fostering new, sometimes crazy big ideas. a la mode's role is to take the best ones eventually to the marketplace. But there's a long, long way to go between here and there. Here, you'll find ideas, a forum for hashing them out, and research supporting or knocking them down. You'll find, eventually, prototypes of the ideas that are just crazy enough to work. And you'll find feedback and better ideas from appraisers like you.

Don't confuse the labs with beta testing. Beta testers help us test pre-release versions of production software before it gets released to the general public. In the labs, we're working on truly revolutionary products and ideas, not just evolutionary improvements, and we brought on four practicing appraisers with a penchant for grand ideas and a thirst for cool technology to be involved as paid Research Fellows.

There are many exciting areas of opportunity open to us as consumers of technology now — from wireless connectivity to voice control to data and signature security to field data gathering using Ultra-Mobile PCs. Like any laboratory, we're sure some ideas will never get to the production stage at all. But they'll stimulate other ideas that will. That's always been our approach — cutting edge ideas years ahead of our competitors — but now we're just formalizing it and inviting you to join the new idea revolution.

Contact us and let us know what you think of the labs, what ideas you'd like to see us working on, and check the site often for new research articles, a blog, podcasts and much more.