You can access the new features by clicking the green "Google Maps Labs" icon at the top-right your screen when visiting Maps. Like Google's other experimental features, they range in utility from being incredibly useful, to total novelty.
Here's a breakdown of the nine features we have available so far:
- Drag 'n' Zoom: After clicking the Drag 'n' Zoom button, you can choose a specific region of the map, and (you guessed it) drag and zoom.
- Aerial Imagery: Offers high-resolution overhead imagery for a few areas of the country.
- Back to beta: Puts the "beta" tag back into the Maps logo. (It's a novelty, but Google already offers it for other services as well.)
- Where in the World Game: A game that tests your knowledge of geography by asking you to identify countries based on satellite imagery.
- Rotatable Maps: Allows you to make other directions the top of the map, instead of North.
- What's Around Here?: Adds a second search button that searches for "*" -- basically everything near your current location.
- LatLng Tooltip: Shows you latitude and longitude right below your mouse cursor.
- LatLng Marker: Adds the ability to drop a pin to mark latitude and longitude from the right-click context menu.
- Smart Zoom: Prevents you from zooming in too far into a map so you don't get the dreaded "We don't have imagery at this zoom level" message.