Sunday 31 March 2013

10 cool internet Easter eggs (part 3)

Another batch of hidden internet tricks for Easter.


Humpty Dumpty, the original Easter egg.
I love weird tricks and novelties you can sometimes find hidden on the internet, so from time to time I like to feature a selection of my favourite tricks (more commonly known as Easter eggs) on this blog.

As it's Easter this weekend I therefore thought it would be the perfect time to round-up another batch of cool internet Easter eggs in a post which I've creatively titled '10 Cool Internet Easter Eggs (Part 3)'.

1) The Harlem Shake on YouTube


First up is a really cool hidden internet Easter egg found on YouTube which gets into the spirit of the latest craze for uploading Harlem Shake videos to YouTube.  Go to YouTube and type 'do the Harlem Shake' into the search box, and as well as listing a selection of Harlem Shake videos, you'll find that YouTube also does a Harlem Shake of its own.

(Update: Sadly, this Easter egg is no longer active, but as you can probably guess, basically the whole screen shaked.)



2) Mini USA in reverse


Next up is a cool hidden internet Easter egg found on the Mini USA website.  Go to the Mini USA website and type 'reverse' into the search box in the top right hand corner of the page.  A gearstick will now appear at the bottom left hand corner of the screen and if you hold shift and click the gearstick weird things start happening on the website...
Mini USA website



3) Konami Code tribute to Blue (Da Ba Dee)


This next hidden internet Easter egg involves the Konami Code which for the benefit of the uninitiated is basically a button pressing sequence which allows you to enter a cheat mode on early Konami games. To enter the cheat mode players would have to press 'up up down down left right left right b a' and the special features would then be unlocked.

'Up up down down left right left right B A'

Nowadays several websites have kept the Konami Code spirit alive by hiding amusing and entertaining features in their website which can be triggered by typing out the Konami code. This first one is a cool animated tribute to the song Blue (Da Ba Dee) by Eiffel 65 found on the BlueWorld website. I usually find the song quite annoying but I found this hidden animated version quite amusing.

Anyway, click the link below to go to the BlueWorld website, then type the Konami code (up up down down left right left right b a) and enjoy the animated tribute:
Type the Konami Code to see a tribute to Blue (Da Ba Dee)



Real life Easter eggs.  Even better than internet Easter eggs!

4) Konami Code tribute to A-ha


The Konami code seems to be quite popular with website developers because next up is another internet Easter egg which is triggered by the Konami code.  This one features the song Take On Me by A-ha and this time it's the reverse of the previous Easter egg, as I liked the original video to Take On Me but this hidden version is quite headache inducing.

It's found on Nik Daum's website and once again just type the Konami code ('up up down down left right left right b a') to open up his creative tribute to Take On Me by A-Ha:
Psychedelic tribute to Take On Me by A-ha



5) Konami Code for hungry people


I'll just squeeze in one more using the Konami code before moving onto a few internet Easter eggs with a Google theme.  This one is found on the SoundClick website and if you type in the Konami code followed by 'enter' three times in quick succession (i.e. type 'up up down down left right left right b a enter enter enter'), it triggers a hidden Easter Egg which made me feel a bit hungry...
Internet Easter egg for the benefit of anyone feeling a bit peckish




6) Weirdness on Google Maps


When it comes to tricks and hidden features, Google have got a great sense of fun and over the years they've included numerous hidden Easter eggs in their search engine and also on other Google products such as Google Maps.  However, I'm not sure whether this next example is a deliberate inclusion on Google's part or just something weird and unexplained.  Go to Google Maps and type: "47.110579 9.227568" then click on the green arrow.  Next click on Street View, then click up twice then left twice...
A deliberate inclusion or just something weird and unexplained?



Stare at the rotating image and mentally project your search term.

7) Google MentalPlex


Staying on the Google theme, here's another Google Easter egg that featured in the Google search engine a few years ago on April Fool's Day which can still be found at the link below.

The April Fool's joke involved an alleged new search feature called Google MentalPlex which required the user to stare at a rotating image on the screen and mentally project the webpage they wanted to search for.  Google MentalPlex
would then cleverly analyse their brainwaves to deduce what the internet user wanted to search for.

You can find the Google MentalPlex
search engine at the link below:
Google MentalPlex™


And to really complete the joke Google even added a Frequently Asked Questions page:
Google MentalPlex™ Frequently Asked Questions




8) Do a barrel roll...


To round off the Google theme, this next one is really cool but it only works in Firefox and Chrome (not Internet Explorer).  Go to Google and type 'do a barrel roll' into the search box, then watch what happens to the screen...



9) Hidden Easter eggs in facebook


It's not just Google who have a sense of fun, though.  Here's an Easter egg which shows that facebook have also got a sense of humour when it comes to including cool hidden features.  Go to your facebook profile page, hover the cursor over the top right hand corner of your profile photo and then quickly update your status with one of the following statuses:

Some carrots, yesterday.
"It can't be a barrel of laughs being a carrot."
"Killing an ant only attracts more ants."
"Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end."
"Laughter brings delight to the world."

Copy and pasting sometimes causes problems so make sure you actually type the status exactly as it appears in the quotation marks, then keep an eye on your profile photo.  Within a few minutes you should see some strange goings-on which vary depending on which of the above statuses you typed.

Facebook plan to add additional 'status triggers' every few months and phase out others, so check out the following link for a revealing interview with Mark Zuckerberg where he hints at a few of the forthcoming plans facebook have for soon-to-be introduced Easter eggs over the coming months.
A few hints from Mark Zuckerberg regarding Easter eggs soon to be featured on facebook



10) Spot the Easter eggs for yourself


Finally, this last website features quite a few Easter eggs but sometimes the fun comes from discovering the Easter eggs for yourself, so check out the next link and see if you can spot the Easter eggs.
Look carefully to see if you can spot the Easter eggs on this website




Anyone looking for a further fix of internet Easter Eggs can also check out my other posts in this series:
10 Cool Internet Easter Eggs
10 More Cool Internet Easter Eggs... The Sequel!
10 Cool Internet Easter Eggs (Part 4)

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