Easter Eggs for Google Maps UK Directions

Google Maps has a few funny Easter Eggs for UK directions:

* a dragon can get you from Snowdon to Brecon Beacons in only 21 minutes

* the Loch Ness Monster can get you from Fort Augustus to Urquhart Castle

* you can use the Royal Carriage between Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle

* "If you've ever ventured to Oxford or Cambridge, you'll know that punting – steering a flat-bottomed boat on a narrow or shallow river – is a defining characteristic of both cities. If you want travel between Magdalene College and Mathematical Bridge (Cambridge) or Magdalen College and Wolfson College (Oxford) by water, Google Maps has got you covered," found The Next Web.

{ via The Next Web }

Konami Easter Egg in Google Voice Search

There's a cool Easter Egg in Google Voice Search: if you say "Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right", Google will answer: "Cheat mode unlocked, unlimited free Google searches". This is the Konami cheat code originally used for Nintendo games.

You can try this Easter Egg in the Google Search app for Android and iOS and in the Google Search site if you use Chrome for desktop.

The Konami code was also used as an Easter Egg in Google Reader, Google Docs (create a new document and press "Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right", then type ba and press Enter), Play Games and even for the Chromebook Pixel.

{ via Search Engine Land and Pierre Far }

Google's Blink Easter Egg

There's a new Google Easter Egg: search for [blink html] and the words "blink" and "html" will start to flash slowly. It also works for [blink tag] Google uses CSS3 animations to emulate the <blink> HTML element because it is no longer supported by modern browsers.

"The blink element is a non-standard presentational HTML element that indicates to a user agent (generally a web browser) that the page author intends the content of the element to blink (that is, alternate between being visible and invisible). Despite its initial popularity amongst home users in the 1990s, it has since fallen out of favor due to its overuse and the difficulty it presents in reading," explains Wikipedia.

{ via Search Engine Roundtable and Ilya Grigorik }

Google+ Easter Egg for Valentine's Day

Google+ has a special Easter Egg for Valentine's Day. Mr. Jingles, the Google+ mascot, transformed into a heart. You can find the animation in the Google+ notification box: in Google+ for desktop, Google+ mobile apps and most Google services.

Here's the animation that's displayed when you click the icon. This is the "retina" double-sized version:

"I <3 you, people of Google+! You've made me feel like your Valentine many times over," says Mr. Jingles.

You can also check the costumes for New Year's party, Christmas, Thanksgiving Day, Halloween, 15 years of Google and 2 years of Google+.

Happy New Year From Google!

Mr. Jingles, the Google+ mascot, has some special yellow glasses for the New Year's party. It's a joyful way to wish everyone a Happy New Year.

"I'll be up late tonight looking forward to 2014. Have fun and stay safe tonight," says Mr. Jingles.

Click the icon and you should see some fireworks. Here's the animation:

And here's the disco doodle from the Google homepage:

Happy New Year!

Google+ Easter Egg for Christmas

Mr. Jingles has a special Christmas costume. You can find it in the Google+ notification box: in Google+ and most Google services and in the Google+ app for iOS and Android.

Here's the animation that's displayed when you click the icon. This is the "retina" double-sized version:

There's also a reindeer version:

I like the alternative text for Jingles icons: "Jingles - Mascot of a bell with a smiley face".

{ Thanks, Mukil. }

Google Maps Easter Egg for Christmas

The Pegman icon from the new Google Maps looks different: it now has a Santa hat. The classic Google Maps still shows the standard icon.

Check this Google+ album to see almost 200 outfits created when Pegman was added to the new Google Maps.

{ Thanks, Mukil. }

Google's Christmas Carols Easter Egg

Google has a new Easter Egg for Christmas, but this time it's only for mobile devices. Search for [let's go caroling] using an Android or iOS device or use voice search and say "let's go caroling" and you'll see a list of 5 carols you can play: "Jingle Bells", "Up on the House Top", "Deck the Halls", "O Christmas Tree" and "We Wish You a Merry Christmas". Tap one of the carols and Google will start playing the karaoke version of the carol, while also displaying the lyrics.

Maybe this Easter Egg will actually be useful.

Google's Animated Decorations for Christmas

Last month, I mentioned that Google's search results pages got some special decorations when searching for [Hanukkah] and [Festivus]. Nothing for Christmas? Todd Kuk, a reader of this blog, says he noticed an animated image when searching for [Christmas], [A Christmas carol] and other queries that include "Christmas". I tried these queries, but I don't see the ornaments.

The animated GIFs:

Todd also recorded this video:

Here are the decorations from 2011 and from 2012.

{ Thanks, Todd. }

Google's Festive Decorations

Google shows a lot of festive doodles, Easter Eggs and special decoration. Here are some of them:

- The Thanksgiving doodle is actually a video

Here's the video:

"Thanksgiving Day is a national holiday celebrated primarily in the United States and Canada as a day of giving thanks for the blessing of the harvest and of the preceding year."

- Mr. Jingles is hungry

Here's the animation:

- Hanukkah search results

Here's the mobile Safari version:

... and the mobile Chrome version:

"Hanukkah, also known as the Festival of Lights and Feast of Dedication, is an eight-day Jewish holiday."

- Festivus search results include the aluminum Festivus pole

"Festivus, a well-celebrated parody, has become a secular holiday celebrated on December 23 which serves as an alternative to participating in the pressures and commercialism of the Christmas and holiday season. Originally a family tradition of a scriptwriter working on the American sitcom Seinfeld, the holiday entered popular culture after it was made the focus of a 1997 episode of the program."

As Google says, "it's all about Thanksgivukkah in 2013. This overlap of Thanksgiving and Hanukkah won't happen again for another 70,000+ years, making it a once-in-a-lifetime event".

Happy Thanksgiving! Happy Hanukkah! Happy Holidays!

{ Thanks, Mukil, Emanuele, Camilo and Florian. }

YouTube Easter Egg for Doge Meme

"Doge is a slang term for 'dog' that is primarily associated with pictures of Shiba Inus (nicknamed 'Shibe') and internal monologue captions on Tumblr. These photos may be photoshopped to change the dog's face or captioned with interior monologues in Comic Sans font," informs KnowYourMeme.

YouTube has an Easter Egg that changes the search results page for [doge meme]: colorful text, Comic Sans, much wow, so hip, help plz.

{ via Phandroid, thanks Sushubh }

Google+ Easter Egg for Halloween

Google+ notifications have a special interface for Halloween. Mr. Jingles looks scary and there's a funny animation that's displayed when you click the Google+ mascot. To see Jingles, you first need to mark as read all the notifications.

Here's the GIF animation, now with infinite loop:

Halloween Easter Eggs in Google Knowledge Graph

Google's Knowledge Graph cards for searches like [zombie], [mummy], [skeleton], [witch], [vampire] or [ghost] include some Easter Eggs. For ghosts, Google informs users that the food source is "air, your fear, being remembered", you can avoid them by "burning sage; not building a pool on burial grounds; staying away from haunted places" and you can defeat them by "calling Peter Venkman and Ray Stantz" from Ghostbusters.

You can avoid skeletons by "staying away from catacombs and science classrooms" and skeletons have the following subgrouping "dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones".

To avoid zombies, "don't join a dance troupe led by a man in a red leather suit; stay out of graveyards".

Mummies use "the power of love (and curses)". Google's advice: "don't raid tombs; never read ancient scrolls" if you want to avoid them.

Vampires have only one food source: "your blood". To avoid them, "don't invite them in, keep garlic on stock, stay away from Transylvania".

Witches are easy to avoid: "don't eat red apples from strangers; hide if you see a flock of flying monkeys".

{ via Search Engine Land }

Google Maps Easter Egg for Philadelphia

Here's a cool Easter Egg: search for Philadelphia, click the map thumbnail from the right sidebar and notice that your query is replaced by "city of brotherly love", one of the nicknames of the city. "Popular nicknames for Philadelphia are Philly and The City of Brotherly Love, the latter of which comes from the literal meaning of the city's name in Greek," informs Wikipedia.

{ Thanks, Emanuele. }

Google's 15th Birthday Easter Egg

Search Google for [Google in 1998] and you'll see a search results page from 1998, the year when Google was incorporated as a privately held company. It's an Easter Egg that reminds you how much Google has evolved, while preserving a simple user interface.

The old search results includes the original Google logo that had an exclamation mark just like Yahoo!, GoogleScout - another name for the feature that returns similar pages, a drop-down that lets you pick the number of results per page, search within results, the size of the cached pages and a list of links to other search engines. All the search results link to the Wayback Machine, since most of them no longer exist.

Google's birthday is in September, but the date has changed over the years. "Google opened its doors in September 1998. The exact date when we celebrate our birthday has moved around over the years, depending on when people feel like having cake," mentioned a Google page. Google has usually celebrated its birthday on September 27 and this year is special: Google is 15 years old. Happy birthday, Google!

{ via Search Engine Land }