YouTube's Cat Easter Egg

YouTube's app for iOS has also been updated and added many of the features from the Android app. You can watch a video while searching for the next one, just like picture-in-picture, search for playlists and use the "play all" button.

There's something that only works in the iOS app for iPad: an Easter Egg. Open the YouTube app (make sure you have the latest version - 2.0), keep a finger on the left sidebar and use another finger to swipe right until the list of videos because almost empty. You'll see a funny cat with a play button.

{ Thanks, Jonah and Max. }

YouTube's Geeky Easter Eggs

YouTube has some cool Easter Eggs that are related to the Geek Week. Here are some of them:

* start playing a random YouTube video and then type 1980. You'll need to defend the video and "blow those missiles out of the sky".

* start playing a random YouTube video and then type 1337. Comments will be translated into the leet "language" and will look like this: "w0w th1z 1z pr3ttj $w33t".

* open this video and click the POW! button from the player. The video now looks like a comic.

* search YouTube for [Fibonacci] and you'll learn about Fibonacci sequences and the golden ratio from a YouTube animation that uses video thumbnails.

* search for [ponies] and you'll see some cute ponies that are running.

* search YouTube for [Use the Force, Luke] and you'll see a crazy animation.

* search YouTube for [Beam me up, Scotty] and you'll see a Star Trek effect. "'Beam me up, Scotty' is a catchphrase that made its way into popular culture from the science fiction television series Star Trek. It comes from the command Captain Kirk gives his chief engineer, Montgomery "Scotty" Scott, when he needs to be transported back to the Starship Enterprise."

This page shows all the Geek Week videos and a list of badges you can unlock. You need to find Easter eggs, take the Geek IQ test and watch videos to unlock all the badges. Follow YouTube's Google+ page for clues.

Google Play Easter Egg: Dancing Robot

Here's a nice Easter Egg from the old Google Play interface. You can still find it in Google Cache: scroll to the bottom of the page, click the colorful bar next to the footer and you'll see the Android mascot. Click the robot and it will start dancing.

I uploaded a video that shows this Easter Egg:

Music: Teddybears - Cole (Zero Gravity Reveal Mix). The song was also used in the Google Music tour and it's available for free here.

{ Thanks, observant tipster. }

YouTube's Geek Week Easter Egg

YouTube has a new Easter Egg: search for [/ geekweek] and the interface changes to look more like a command-line Linux app.

What's Geek Week? "On August 4-10 we'll celebrate this content with a special programming event: our first-ever YouTube Geek Week at YouTube.com/GeekWeek," informs YouTube. "Produced in conjunction with geek powerhouse Nerdist in the U.S. and Channel Flip in the U.K., Geek Week will showcase more than 100 channels that fans love, unveiling new videos, series premieres and creative collaborations, as well as highlighting some of the best geek videos and shows already on YouTube." Sci-fi, fantasy, animation, superheroes, supernatural, video games - an entire week for geeks. "For our 3l33t geeks out there, keep your eyes out for Easter eggs all week, and you'll also be able to collect badges from the eggs and select #geekweek videos when logged in and visiting YouTube.com/GeekWeek."

Update: As Enrico Altavilla noticed, the Easter Egg works for any query that starts with "/ ":

{ via TechRadar. Thanks, Mati. }

AdSense's Ping Pong Easter Egg

If you log in to the Google AdSense site and mouse over the "10" banner from the lower-left corner for a few seconds, Google will start a retro Ping Pong game. Google celebrates 10 years of AdSense and this is just a small gift. "AdSense has helped over two million partners grow their businesses in the last 10 years," says Google.

{ Thanks, Mark. }

Google's Atari Breakout Easter Egg

Is this the first Google Image Search Easter Egg? Search for [atari breakout] and you can play Atari's Breakout game. It's an arcade game introduced in April 1976. The game has an interesting story that involves Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak and it influenced Steve Wozniak's design for the Apple II computer.

"In the game, a layer of bricks lines the top third of the screen. A ball travels across the screen, bouncing off the top and side walls of the screen. When a brick is hit, the ball bounces away and the brick is destroyed. The player loses a turn when the ball touches the bottom of the screen. To prevent this from happening, the player has a movable paddle to bounce the ball upward, keeping it in play."

Google uses image search results for [atari breakout] instead of bricks, so the game is self-referential.

{ via TechCrunch, thanks Florian K. }

YouTube's Tape Mode Easter Egg

YouTube's player added a "tape mode" button for many videos to celebrate "the 57th birthday of the first commercially available video recorder". The tape mode uses some VHS-like effects that add noise, distortion, pixel blocks, video compression artifacts. If you press the "pause" button, you'll see a shaking effect that simulates what happened when a VHS tape was paused.

To try this feature, you can add "&vhs=1" to the URL of a YouTube video, like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2XmymhCdHU&vhs=1.

{ Thanks, Sterling. }

YouTube's Harlem Shake Easter Egg

If you search YouTube for [do the Harlem Shake], the search results page will actually illustrate your query: the Harlem Shake song will start playing, YouTube's logo will start moving and the search results will "dance" chaotically.

It's an Easter Egg based on the Harlem Shake meme. "The Harlem Shake is an Internet meme in the form of a video of various groups of people performing a comedy sketch accompanied by a short excerpt from the song 'Harlem Shake'. As a meme, the video was replicated by many people, using the same concept, and this rapidly led to it becoming viral in early February 2013, with thousands of 'Harlem Shake' videos being made and uploaded to YouTube every day at the height of its popularity."

Gizmodo says that "YouTube puts the final meta nail in the Harlem Shake's coffin," but I think the Easter Egg will make the meme even more popular.

{ Thanks, Sterling. }

A Disrupting Google Easter Egg

You might remember the [do a barrel roll] Easter Egg which rotates Google's search results page. The query is so popular that it's the first suggestion when you type "do a" and Google Instant automatically shows the results for [do a barrel roll] and triggers the Easter Egg.

"The issue is, if you search for just [do a] in Google with Google Instant on, it will show you the search results for [do a barrel roll] and just spin the screen before you can complete your query. So if you meant to search for [do a hop skip and a jump], good luck because before you know it, the search results will take an unexpected turn," reports Search Engine Roundtable.

Actually, you can continue entering the query and the Easter Egg will disappear, but few people will do that. This is an example of Easter Egg that disrupts the user experience and makes Google Search more difficult to use.

Google could trigger the Easter Egg only if you type the entire query or if you select the first suggestion. Another option is to delay the Easter Egg animation.

The "I'm Feeling Lucky" Easter Egg

The "I'm Feeling Lucky" button from Google's homepage is no longer useful when Google Instant is enabled. When you click the button, Google usually sends you to the doodle gallery, but now the button is more special.

Mouse over the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button and you'll see one of these labels: "I'm Feeling Puzzled", "I'm Feeling Artistic", "I'm Feeling Playful", "I'm Feeling Hungry", "I'm Feeling Wonderful", "I'm Feeling Stellar", "I'm Feeling Trendy", "I'm Feeling Doodly". Each button sends you to a different Google site, so you can explore Google Trends, the Google Art Project, the World Wonders Project and more.





{ Thanks, Jérôme Flipo. }

The Game of Life Easter Egg

Google shows a clever Easter Egg when you're searching for [conway's game of life]. It's a low-key simulation of John Conway's model devised in 1970. "The universe of the Game of Life is an infinite two-dimensional orthogonal grid of square cells, each of which is in one of two possible states, alive or dead. Every cell interacts with its eight neighbours, which are the cells that are horizontally, vertically, or diagonally adjacent," explains Wikipedia.

It's not an actual game because it doesn't require input. There's an initial configuration and all the other configurations are obtained by applying 4 rules:

"Any live cell with fewer than two live neighbours dies, as if caused by under-population. Any live cell with two or three live neighbours lives on to the next generation. Any live cell with more than three live neighbours dies, as if by overcrowding. Any dead cell with exactly three live neighbours becomes a live cell, as if by reproduction."

Conway's Game of Life is a cellular automaton and it can emulate a universal Turing machine.

You can pause Google's simulation and even hide the search results by clicking the maximize button. If you don't like the Easter Egg, click the close button and it disappears. There's also a simplified version of the Easter Egg for smartphones and tablets, but the controls are missing.

{ Thanks, Dan. }

Google's Zerg Rush Easter Egg

Google has a new Easter Egg: search for [zerg rush] and you'll notice that search results will start to disappear, destroyed by zerglings. Your mission is to save the search results and kill the zerglings using your clicks, but it's not easy.

According to KnowYourMeme, "Zerg Rush is a popular online gaming term used to describe an overwhelming scale of attack carried out by one player against another in real time strategy (RTS) games. The term originates from the popular RTS game Starcraft, in which the Zerg race is notoriously known for its ability to mass-produce offensive units within a short time frame, thus allowing the player to overpower the opponent by sheer number."

When the game is over, Google lets you post your results to Google+ and shows the message "GG", a cryptic way to say "Good Game".

{ Thanks, Mati. }

Google's Easter Eggs for Binary and Other Number Systems

Google has some new geeky Easter eggs. When you search for [binary], [octal] and [hexadecimal], Google writes the number of results using the numeral system from the query.

Make sure that "search plus your world" is disabled to see the Easter eggs. Either click the "hide personal results" button below the search box or sign out.




{ Thanks, Abhishek. }

The Easter Egg from Android.com

Android.com hides a very simple game at the bottom of the page. Just click the Android logo next to the page's footer and you'll start the game: use your mouse to throw snowballs at the snowman.

The game works in Chrome and Firefox, but it doesn't seem to be optimized for mobile devices.

After hitting the snowman three times, you get a medal.

Here's a video that shows the game in action:

{ via WebSonic.nl }

Google's Snowy Easter Egg

If you search for [let it snow] using Google, you'll have a hard time checking the search results. Google uses a JavaScript animation that adds some snowflakes and covers the entire page with snow.

Fortunately, Google added a "defrost" button that makes the search results reappear. You can also click anywhere on the page and move your mouse to "defrost" the page or draw something. Click the "+" button and you can share the Easter egg with other Google+ users.

{ Thanks, Venkat. }

Google's Barrel Roll Easter Egg

If you use Google to search for [do a barrel roll] in Chrome, Safari or Firefox, you'll notice that the search results page actually does that. It's a brilliant Easter Egg that will surprise a lot of Google users.

According to Wikipedia, "a barrel roll is an aerial maneuver in which an airplane makes a complete rotation on its longitudinal axis while following a helical path, approximately maintaining its original direction."

There are at least four other Google search Easter Eggs: ASCII art, anagram, recursion and tilt.

{ Thanks, Herin. Spotted by Jason Cross. }

Google's Tilted Easter Egg

If you search for [tilt], [tilted] or [askew] on a smartphone using Google, you might notice a strange special effect: Google's search results page is tilted to the right. It's an Easter Egg, just like the "did you mean" link displayed when you search for [recursion].


{ via Search Engine Land }