IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser.

Google+ profiles now support animated GIFs, look like Harry Potter's newspaper

Google
If you were viewing the pictured profile on Google , you'd see its owner move his head and smile.Google

The folks at Google seem to have taken some inspiration from Harry Potter, in whose world most photographs are in motion. Thanks to freshly added support for animated GIFs, your Google+ profile photo can now move around.

Matt Steiner, who leads the Google+ photo team, revealed the news by updating his own profile photo on Monday. "It will animate on the profile page on both desktop and mobile," he writes. This is a fairly significant detail since it means that you won't have motion distracting you while viewing any other part of Google+. (Can you imagine trying to scroll through your stream while countless friends wink, wave, and smile in their photos?)

The addition of support for animated GIFs in Google+ profile photos follows the release of a Google Search feature which lets you specifically search for animated GIFs. All that's missing is a tool that'll allow us to make GIFs even more easily. (Get on it, Google!)

Want more tech news or interesting links? You'll get plenty of both if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on Twitter, subscribing to her Facebook posts, or circling her on Google+.