Every car can accelerate, brake and turn. But only the Tesla Model X can put on a three-minute dance performance.
The windows open, the speakers blast a holiday carol, the exterior lights flash in sequence, the front doors open and close, and the gull-wing doors rise, arch and flap to the music.
That roboshow is an Easter egg: an undocumented feature in a tech product, set in motion by a sequence of commands that nobody would hit accidentally.
Over the years, Easter eggs in tech products have largely disappeared (except in video games). Like any other software, Easter eggs, so named for the hunt to find them, cost time and money to design, build and debug. Why would a tech company develop features it can’t advertise or even reveal?
Google’s Mario maps
At Google, there is a long tradition of Easter eggs, which have the full support of the company.
“It helps establish software as an art form, following in the footsteps of painters and musicians and craftspeople sneaking little jokes and references into their work for literally centuries,” said Dan Sandler, who works on the Android smartphone software.
Mr. Sandler has built an eggy surprise into every version of Android since 2011. For the current version — Android P — he created a secret painting app.
“One of the themes in the P release was ‘digital well being,’ the idea that you should be able to choose a balance of screen time and non-screen time,” he said. “In my paint app, over time, the strokes you draw fade away to nothing, like a Zen drawing board.” (He notes that you can tap the hourglass to pause the timer, “if you must.”)
There’s no Save command, either. “This is another Zen thing: Don’t cling to your creations,” he said.
In the Google Maps division, the best-known Easter egg appeared on March 10, 2018. It was International Mario Day (Mar10, get it?), celebrating the goofy Italian plumber from Nintendo’s video games.
