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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+.

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!

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. }

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 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.

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 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. }

"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+ 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:

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 }

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. }

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 }

Google Play has a cool Easter Egg: click the search button without entering a query and you'll get results for "unicorns". This works for books, music, movies, magazines, apps and even devices.



{ Thanks, D4Ni. }

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 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.