As India gets ready for one if its biggest festivals of the year — Diwali, Google has released an Easter egg, or a hidden feature, on its search engine to dive in to the spirit of the festival of lights. People who now type ‘Diwali’ on the search will see an animated earthen lamp that is already lit, as part of the result. Clicking on the traditional ‘diya’ would cause the screen to darken as multiple earthen lamps float onto the screen. Swiping the cursor over them would light them up as well. The cursor, in the form of a lit diya, also exudes a yellowish flame around it wherever it is made to move on the screen.
In a tweet via its Twitter account, the search engine giant hinted at this surprise feature was rolled out in India. An Easter egg is an undocumented addition to software that must be activated by the user to be visible or usable.
just here to say
:diya_lamp: :diya_lamp:
:diya_lamp: :diya_lamp:
search “Diwali”
:diya_lamp: for a :diya_lamp:
surprise
:diya_lamp: :diya_lamp:
:diya_lamp: :diya_lamp:— Google India (@GoogleIndia) October 16, 2022
Screen-recordings of the floating earthen lamps on the Google search results page were posted by users on Twitter.
Once all the animated lamps on screen are lit, they arrange themselves to appear as a constellation made up of burning lamps before vanishing from the screen.
A nearly identical feature was rolled out by [Google(https://gadgets360.com/google)] in time for Diwali 2020.
Remember how that first diya is always used to light up the rest?
See it come alive on search, today. Type “Diwali” on your Google search and click on the Diya icon
pic.twitter.com/3eiFBJgBWa
— PG (@PGAditiya) November 13, 2020
Google often treats its users with quirky animations and hidden features that can be activated with specific keywords.
If one was to search for the characters of popular sitcom series Friends, for instance, each search result will show different floating animations.
For Chandler Bing’s character played by actor Matthew Perry in the 1994 show, Google displays the iconic-to-the-show BarcaLounger. Clicking on the icon releases Chandler’s pet chick and duck from the show to pace around the screen.
For Monica Geller’s character, a soap-soaked sponge cleaner appears on screen and wipes all over it. In the show, Geller, played by actress Courtney Cox, was obsessed with cleanliness, which appears to have inspired the hidden feature on the search engine.
