All 22 Google’s April Fools Jokes in 2012

Google has never failed to amuse us with its pranks on April fool’s day for years. This has become part of the culture of the high tech company which is innovative enough to make Google Glasses, but at the same time humane enough to play these pranks. In between these jokes it keeps of adding new easter eggs to remain popular and showcase its technical capabilities.

Just like last year, this year also individual Google teams from various regions had pranks on different products. Let us see all 22 of them them one by one –

1. YouTube Collection

YouTube offered all its videos in DVD form for offline viewing. Once you place an order, they will deliver each one of video ever uploaded in a fleet of 175 trucks. For commenting, you can fill out paper forms and mail them to the uploader address. Check it out here.

2. Google Really Advance Search

Google Really Advance Search
Google search makes to an all-new level with Really Advance Search where you can find sites with words that “almost, but not quite entirely unlike” or “rhyming slang for” or “this exact word or phrase, whose sum of unicode code points is a mersenne prime” the word you have entered. You can also narrow down search by font, background texture and all impossible options. Though, this prank page in now taken off, you can still view its cached copy from here.

3. Underwater Image Search

Google Underwater Image Search

Google Chine team has come up with underwater image search which is an excellent example of HTML5 and JS interactivity. Clicking on “I’m feeling lucky” button drops Google gold coins and other treasure in the ocean. Don’t forget to play with waves and search results here.

4. Qingming Search on Google China

Qingming Easter Egg

When searched for Qingming in Google China, you will notice a beautiful animated background. [note: it works only in Chrome]

5. 8-bit Google Maps

The low resolution graphics version of Google Maps for NES is the funniest of all jokes. These 8-bit maps also have some hidden monsters. Check them out here.

6. Google Translate IME

Japan team also came up with an IME prank which uses only a single key to input in Morse code for transliteration. Check out the below video with English subtitles by clicking cc on the player.

7. Gmail Tap

Inspired by the Japanese IME prank, Gmail team came up with better form of typing via Morse code through Gmail Tap. They went too far by introducing 2 sets of tap buttons to type 2 mails at once!

8. Google Street Roo

Google Street View Roo Project

Google Australia came up with the unique concept of installing 360 degree cameras on heads of thousands of kangaroos to capture the street view of inlands. Read the official announcement here.

9. Adwords – Click to Teleport

Adwords Click to Teleport

Adwords team had developed a new ad extension Click to Teleport that lets advertisers to teleport customers to business location.

10. Site Optimization for Rotary Phones

Rotary Phone Google Prank

Google recommends webmasters to optimize their site for smart phones as well as rotary phones.

11. Google Apps Jargon Bot

Google Apps understand the pain of normal users that fails to comprehand the complex jargon of business world. Therefore they have introduced Jargon Bot that translates your docs, chats and emails into plain English.

12. Search Option Era-wise

Kingdom era of Google Search

On 1st April 2012, various users have noticed “Jurassic Era”, “Victorian Era”, “Enlightenment”, “Once Upon a Time”, “New Kingdom Era” in their search options depending on the queries.

13. Chrome Mutlitask Mode


Chrome team has introduced a new promising feature Multitask Mode that lets you increase productivity by letting you use multiple mice at the same time.

14. Google Onebox – Change the Weather

Google One box change weather

So for you had the ability to see the current weather conditions, now Google lets you change it.

15. Google App Engine – Cloud API

Cloud API from the App Engine gives developers the control over the actual clouds and naturally on the rains.

16. Google Analytics – Interplanetary Reports

Interplanetary Reports

Google Analytics team is all set to help webmasters by providing details of alien visitors. Currently GA provides information of site visitors from earth but now they are expanding their capabilities to the whole galaxy by offering interplanetary reports.

17. Google Self-Driving Cars to NASCAR


Google cofounder Sergey Brin nearly scared everyone by announcing that their real self-driving cars will now participate in NASCAR. They named the project as Google Racing.

18. Google Fiber Bar


Everyone was wrong. Google wasn’t laying fiber cables in Kansas city for ultra-fast internet of 1Gbps but they were actually making Fiber Bar that have 100 times more fiber than any source of fiber available today.

19. Google Voice for Pets

Google Voice for Pets

Now record a voice of your dog/cat directly via special voice communications collar around pet necks with Google Voice for Pets.

20. Google HR – Canine Hiring Process

Dog Job Interview at Google

Google HR department revealed the details of its Canine Hiring Process and claims that it is so rigorous that it equals the processes involved in getting a human job at Google. They quote

Bloodhounds are a natural fit for Search, while Rottweilers are often drawn to our corporate security positions.

21. Google TV Click

Who says you can’t control the television? Change the course of Titanic or make Neo chose the blue pill in Matrix or anything that you want with Google TV Click.

22. Google Play on Android

Android Easter Egg

The Android team deliberately messed up with the search of the popular artists. I think Rihana will be offended by this prank.

My favorites are 8-bit maps and YouTube collection. Tell us in your comments what do you like the most.

Binary and Hexadecimal Geeky Easter Egg for Google

This post was originally shared in Gtricks Forum – Google Fans Community, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to all.

Google never fails to amuse us. We still remember it’s recursion easter egg which tricked us clicking over it multiple times. From all the possible ways it can charm us with its Easter Eggs this one comes bit geeky. Mark from our Gtricks Forum points out that when you search for Hexadecimal or Binary, then the numbers of results are displayed in that format.

google binary hexadecinal easter egg

Binary is a denoting number system with only two symbols 1 and 0. This is the basic language that runs inside all our computers. So, if you see the number of results 0b1101111011000111010000000 means that there are 29,200,000 web pages for that search query.

Similarly, Hexadecimal is another number system with base 16 instead of ubiquitous 10. This number sytem is mostly used in digital electronics and has alphabets from A-F in addition to numbers 0-9 as symbols. When you search for Hexadecimal from Google, it will display 0xfbc520 results meaning 16,500,000 web pages of that search string.

Is Google doing this on some purpose? What would be the use of such fun elements like do a barrel roll trick? If you have ever tried programming then you might know the complications you face with different type of user data and displaying output according to them. For Google which handles more than 1 billion search queries daily, changing the output for very few of them demonstrates the flexibility they have built over the system. A lot of workload must have undergone to change their internal code to adapt to the queries on run time basis as per their needs. Possibly, this is another effort from them making the system different that has never been thought before and extending to the future.

Hats off to Google for this approach.

“Let It Snow” Google’s New Easter Egg

If you search for “let it snow” on Google, you will witness the new holiday easter egg. HTML5 Canvas and JavaScript make some beautiful animation to the page with snowflakes and frost covering up the screen.

google-let-it-snow

Interestingly, you can write on the screen covered with fog with your mouse once it is all frozen. It gives an actual feeling of playing on real windows like on those good old days. The search button turns into a defrost button, which clears all animation. I wish it was replay button. The share button at the top lets you instantly share this easter egg with friends on Google Plus.

Google is also celebrating Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights. Search for Hanukkah to se series of light below the Google bar. Well played Google.

This is another of those search tricks like “do a barrel roll” where Google changes its behaviour based of search queries. Last year, Google added seconds to New Year countdown with the ‘I am feeling lucky button’, this year with advancement of technology, we can expect some good animation for the New Year.

Google Plus Chat Easter Egg for Nyan Cat

nyan cat in google plus chatNyan Cat, a famous internet meme is the new hidden easter egg of Google Plus. You can have this cat by typing ~=[,,_,,]:3 in your Google+ chat window. The emoticon is of an animated cat with a body of cherry pastry, flying through space and leaving a rainbow behind it. This lovely meme has a huge fan following and is quoted in thousands of forums and entertainment sites. You can also find its numerous videos on YouTube singing “Nyanyanyanyanyanyanya!”. To leverage its popularity, Google Plus team made this easter egg which works only in G+ chat.

Just type ~=[,,_,,]:3 in your Google+ chat window and you will see instantly see a running nyan cat. Possibly this is the first of the undocumented emoticon for Google+ chat. And we believe more will be revealed soon just like we have discovered hidden Gmail chat emoticons.

Hidden emoticon of gmail chat

Unfortunately, this works only for Google+ chat and not for Gtalk or Gmail Chat. However, we have other secret emoticons like V.v.V for crab, }:-)for devil, :(|) for monkey and many more for Gmail chat or gtalk gadget mentioned here.

(via)

Do A Barrel Roll – Latest Google Easter Egg

Do A Barrel Roll search is another master piece easter egg from Google. This time, while searching for the specific pharse ” Do A Barrel Roll ” [try here] the result page does a complete 360 degree flip before showing you the results. The same page rotating effect can also be achieved by searching for ” Z or R twice ” [try here].

Do a barrel roll - page rotates

Recently this new easter egg news broke down on Twitter where people spotted saying that it was best 3 seconds of their search at Google and that they loved this nerdy Google tricks. These phrases are a nod to the classic Nintendo game, Star Fox.

“Today’s fun query, ‘do a barrel roll,’ was created by a Google software engineer with the primary goal of entertaining users — while showcasing the power of CSS3, a presentation feature of modern browsers. The “do a barrel roll” query, which causes the search page to spin, will remain in place for a while.”

- A statement from Google to ABC News.

If you liked this, you might also like the tilt easter egg which actually tilts your screen when searching for it.

Note: This easter egg won’t work on old browsers. Latest version of chrome or Firefox is recommended.

5 Geeky but Official Google Language Interfaces

This is an old one but for those who don’t know, Google offers funny n’ geeky language interfaces just for the sake of enjoyment. According to Google; Bork, Elmer, Hacker, klingon and Pirate are languages interfaces that you can use and set as homepage. You can consider them as Easter eggs or funky terminology because they do not solve any purpose rather used only to amuse you.

Bork, bork, bork ! – The Muppets Language

Google-bork-bork

Bork, bork, bork! is the language of Swedish Chef from the Muppet Show. [source]
The page says, “Google-a Seerch” and “Ee’m Feeleeng Loocky” for the standard buttons. If you try to search something that does not exist, it says:

Yuoor seerch – deed nut metch uny ducooments. Um gesh dee bork, bork!
Sooggesshuns:
• Meke-a soore-a ell vurds ere-a spelled currectly. Bork bork bork!
• Try deefffferent keyvurds. Um gesh dee bork, bork!
• Try mure-a generel keyvurds. Um gesh dee bork, bork!
• Try fooer keyvurds. Um gesh dee bork, bork!

Damn funny, isn’t it?


The Elmer Fudd Interface

Google-elmer-fudd

Elmer Fudd is a famous cartoon character from Looney Tunes or Bugs Bunny show.[source] This interface changes all the L’s and R’s to W’s. Hitting empty “I’m Feewing Wucky” button says:

De “I’m Feewing WuckyTM” button automaticawwy takes you to the fiwst web page wetuwned fow youw qwewy.
An “I’m Feewing Wucky” seawch means wess time seawching fow web pages and mowe time wooking at them.
Feewin’ wucky? Enter a search and twy it out!


Google Hacker – with Leet Language

Google-hackor

Leet is the language of hackers made up from ASCII characters and numbers. Some of the leet speak and their English translations are:

normal search – n0rM4L s34rCh
I am feeling lucky – EyE Am ph33|1n6 |u(ky

More on Google Hacker here.

Interestingly, there is official mirror at http://600673.com/ that is Google written in leet.


Klingon – For Star Trek Fans

Google-klingon

Klingon is language of fictional klingons race in the popular TV series Star Trek.[source] It’s very cool of Google to create such dedicated page for ST fans. The Google search is GoogleDaq ylnej and I’m feeling lucky is jlSuDrup. Gosh, how did they come to this tranlation?


Pirate – Aye Mate, Lets have a Ruckas

Google-pirate

Do you love the pirate language? Google loves it too. That is why there is an option for Pirate speech in its language selection tool. If something couldn’t be found in search, it says:

Yer treasure map – didn’t lead t’ any loot.
Google home page is no Google Home Port and About Google is Who be this Google.


Bonus: The Pig Latin Hidden Language

Though there is no official announcement on Pig Latin and even language tool does not display it but there is a hidden page built for Pig Latin fans. The language is framed by altering the alphabets of English words.

Go to this page and try to understand or better decrypt the text.

Google’s New Year Countdown for 2010

2010 is coming and probably Google is planning something special. Last year, Google taught few tips and tricks from “Google’s Countdown to 2009”. This year, Google has made a hidden countdown for 2010. To see this easter egg, you need to visit Google.com and without entering and words in search box, you need to press “I’m Feeling Lucky” button.

google-countdown-2010

After hitting “I’m Feeling Lucky” button, you’ll see a timer at top of the page, telling you how many seconds are left for the New Year. Its working for me on IE7 and FF. Let’s see, what Google has in store for its user coming year?

Funny Easter Egg In Moon Module Of Google Earth

Moon module on Google Earth is a blessing for scientists and researchers to study and explore Apollo mission history and moon surface. Google has however included some hidden Easter eggs to popularize it in general public.
Continue reading