1-Probably the finest - and certainly the most childish - Google easter egg. Using the arrow keys, type "up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A" while using the firm's RSS feed reader, and a little ninja appears on the left of the screen, which turns partially blue.
2-Most of the 3D buildings that appear in Google Earth have been sketched by independent designers, some of whom managed to sneak in easter eggs of their own.
Spin round to the waterfront side of the Sydney Opera House in Australia and you'll find a model of the late wildlife expert and adventurer Steve Irwin wrestling a crocodile.
3- The search engine's "did you mean" feature helps even the worst spellers locate useful results. But type "recursion" into the search box and it suggests "recursion" as an alternative, sending you on a loop of clicks that all generate identical results. Word play, Google-style.
4- The Mars feature of Google Earth 5 allows users to explore the surface of the Red Planet - and chat to the locals. Typing "Meliza" into the search box takes you to an area of the planet where you can strike up a conversation with a martian.
But don't expect anything too deep. The martian's chat is powered by Eliza, a rudimentary artificial intelligence application that aims to replicate human interaction, but doesn't really succeed.
5- Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is the geek bible, and it seems that Google's engineers are big fans. Type "answer to life, the universe and everything" into the query box and "42" comes out as the top result.
Other phrases that generate tongue-in-cheek answers from Google Calculator include "number of horns on a unicorn" and "once in a blue moon".
6- As if soaring above the planet wasn't enough, Google Earth allows users to fly an F-16 fighter jet anywhere in the world.
Simply press Ctrl + Alt + A to activate the rudimentary flight simulator; you can learn the controls here. The simulator was originally inserted as an easter egg but has since become one of the official features of the program.
7- This easter egg is almost impossible to stumble upon, but fortunately Google employees have spilled the beans. Search for "Niniane kicks ass" in Google Maps are you are directed to the tech firm's headquarters in Mountain View, California, where an engineering manager called Niniane Wang worked until this year.
As Mrs Wang explains on her personal website, her name was inserted into the Google Maps coding after she won a dinner-time bet with a colleague.
8- Early versions of Google Maps took an optimistic approach to long-distance travel. If you requested a route between locations separated by expanses of water - say Paris and New York - the software dutifully provided road directions to the west coast of France before suggesting that you "Swim the Atlantic Ocean (3,500 miles)".
Whether a genuine easter egg or just a programming error, the swim option has now been withdrawn.
9- If you spent years designing something, it's only fair that you get to be in it. Dozens of Google employees lined up to be captured by the Google Street View camera car as it passed their California headquarters.
One even dressed up as "pegman", the draggable Street View icon.
10- Typing "about:internets" into the search box of a Google Chrome browser brings up the old pipes screen saver.
It is believed to be a reference to Senator Ted Stevens' much-derided 2006 description of the internet as a "series of tubes". His clumsy words, in a speech to a Senate committee opposing network neutrality, were seen to illustrate the poor understanding of some politicians about how the internet worked.
Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/6201814/Google-easter-eggs-15-best-hidden-jokes.html
