At Google Hangouts it is easy to send someone an animated gif. Consequently Google have chucked in a few special animations, just because they can (via Mental Floss)

Typing in “/Pitchforks” in a Google Hangouts dialogue box will launch a stream of angry townspeople racing across the screen with pitchforks. “/ShyDino” will feature a green dinosaur hiding behind a small house in your chat window, while typing “/BikeShed” will also change the background color. And they didn’t forget My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic in Google Hangouts, either: Typing in “/Ponies” or “/Ponystream” will make animated ponies dash across your chat window.

You’ve probably noticed by now that Google Search has an auto-complete function. Start entering a search query, and Google gives you a few popular choices that will save you typing all the keywords.

You can use this to complete statements, such as “Barack Obama is…” – first choice from Google is Barack Obama is the devil. So obviously for certain searches this is being gamed. With that in mind, here’s a story from the Daily Mail about auto-completes of “I’m [age] and ”

A YouTube video posted by Marius Budin shows what words are automatically completed by Google Instant when you type the word ‘I’m’, followed by your age.

The most common phrase across all age groups was ‘I’m [age] and still a virgin’, yet ‘and pregnant’, ‘never kissed a boy/girl’, and ‘don’t have a career’ were also popular.

By the time you have read this, Google will have most likely fixed the “bug”. While it certainly isn’t a feature, or an Easter Egg, it is curious:

The Verge highlighted a Quora post about the bug, where doing some searches for “contradictory” or impossible to solve queries brings back porn listings.

For example, queries like the ones below currently do this (and be forewarned, you’re going to get porn results at Google if you click on these links):

 

• -s “s 2″
• -3 “1 3″
• -4 “1 4″
• -title “title 4″

Found at Search Engine Land

If you use the iGoogle service, AND you are running the Beach theme, you might be able to catch a glimpse of the famous Loch Ness Monster!

All you need to do is stay up until 3.14 AM. If that’s too difficult, just fiddle with your system clock.

This is a very elaborate Easter Egg hidden within Google. It only works if you follow the precise instructions:

Go to Google Reader, then use your cursor keys thus: up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A. A ninja then pops onto your screen and into your search box.

If you can’t be bothered, here’s a screenshot:

If you do a search for “Ascii Art” you get to see a special logo made with… Ascii Art!

Some other Easter Eggs:

• Search for recursion and Google will cheekily ask if you meant recursion
• The Mentalplex April Fool’s page still exists – google.com/mentalplex
• And you can actually play Pacman at google.com/pacman

Google knows all about Chuck Norris and his special powers. Search for his name by hitting the I’m Feeling Lucky button, and you should see this:

Do a Google search for “Google Gravity”. Click on “I’m feeling lucky” (or you might find it on right hand side of the suggested searches). Then watch your screen collapse:

Or just search for “askew” to make the results page lean…