Technology Easter eggs are included in computer programs, websites, CDs, etc and are basically hidden messages or jokes. Let us look at some of these created by Google and Apple.
1. Recursion
Everybody is aware of the fact that if you type in a wrong spelling in the Google search engine, it will give you the right one with the help of the “did you mean” feature. However, if you type in this particular word with the correct spelling, Google will continuously suggest the exact same spelling again and again till you realize that the joke is on you!
2. Talk to a Martian
With the help of a certain application created by Google Earth 5, users were told that they could speak to Martians on Mars by entering “Meliza” in the search engine. While you will chat with something, it will not be a Martian but Eliza- an application with artificial intelligence. Eliza is not very interesting to speak to.
3. The Meaning of Life
If you are to enter the following phrase- “answer to life, the universe and everything” in the search engine, the first result you will see is “42” and a small calculator will be made next to it. There are other phrases that will confuse you just the same and probably make the engineers laugh. These include “once in a blue moon” which will give “1.16699016 × 10-8 hertz” as the answer and “number of horns on a unicorn” will give “1” as the answer.
4. Ascii Art
ASCII Art is a term used to describe any image that is created with the help of keyboard characters. Even though this style is quite obsolete, it is still as popular. Google engineers are quite fond of this art as the doodle alters when the phrase is searched for.
5. Swim the Atlantic
When Google Maps were new and somebody was to ask for directions between locations and areas that had water bodies in between them, the user would be asked to travel a bit and then ‘start swimming for 3,500 miles’. This Easter egg has been removed.
6. Google Gulp
This fictitious drink was created by Google 5 years back and it was said that it had the power to enhance the user’s intelligence and allow him to use the search engine more effectively. The user’s DNA would be analyzed and certain adjustments would then be carried out in the brain. It came in flavors like Sugar-Free Radical and Glutamate Grape.
7. Scratch and Sniff
On April Fools Day in 2009, Google told its users that they would be able to scratch and sniff the e-books. They were asked to press their noses up against their monitors and press enter.
8. Weather for Nowhere
This Easter Egg is found in Mac OS X Tiger. After opening the dashboard, clicking on the Weather Widget and pressing the Alt and command key together, if the user was to ask for the current weather, he would find that his location has been changed to “Nowhere”.
9. Text Game
If a Mac user is to click on Terminal and press enter after typing in the following phrase- emacs-batch-1 dunnet, a text game will start loading which is extremely addictive and will be the sole reason for your unproductively.
10. Knock Knock
If you own a Mac OS X and you wish to laugh, go to the Speech Recognition option and click on “Apple Speakable Items”. Hysterically enough, if you ask your computer to tell you a joke, it will do just that. Usually it comes up with not-so-funny knock knock jokes.
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