Tip of the Week: (Digital) Easter Eggs
What is an Easter Egg?
As well as the sweet / decorated types of easter egg, you can also find “easter eggs” hidden in websites and software. The first one dates back to 1979 (Happy 40th Birthday!) – and was found in an Atari game – Adventure 2600. Today, they are in a variety of websites, programs and on some DVDs.
Perhaps the most well known are in Google – try searching for askew, or asking it to “do a barrel roll”. A much more interactive one is to go to Google Images and search for Atari Breakout.
Still looking at Google – there are several fun animations you can see in Hangouts. Make sure you put the / at the start, and spell correctly! (These aren’t the only ones – there are others.)
There are more in Google generally- which is your favourite?
Websites
If you’re a gamer, you’ll probably already know the Konami code. If you don’t, then pressing the following keys on a number of websites gives you a hidden easter egg.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A. (Use the arrow keys on your keyboard)
Try these sites to start with:
- Buzzfeed (http://www.buzzfeed.com)
- Lockfale (http://lockfale.com)
- Kuppiya (http://kuppiya.com)
Phones
On your phone, you’ve probably got some easter Eggs. If you’re an Android user, go to Settings | About device (or about Phone) then find Android Version – then tap that 4 or 5 times. The next thing to happen varies depending on your software version – if it’s a letter, try tapping it 5 times and see what happens.
If you’re an iOS user, try asking Siri why Fire trucks are red.
Over to you
What other Easter Eggs do you know?