Urgent.News

What's breaking now, across thousands of outlets.

Tech

Googling "Zelda" today offers a glimpse of how search worked in 1998

Googling "Zelda" today offers a glimpse of how search worked in 1998

In 1998, the world witnessed the release of Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for the Nintendo 64. At the same time, a search engine named Google was born. Fast forward to 2026, and Google is commemorating the imminent release of the Ocarina of Time remaster by taking us on a nostalgic journey back to that fateful year.

To access this time portal, one simply needs to search for either "Zelda" or "Ocarina of Time". As Google loads its standard 2026 results page, an animated Master Sword appears in the lower right corner, visible on both mobile and desktop devices. Upon clicking the sword, a time-skipping animation and a Link shout transport users back to 1998.

The search page, now adorned with retro Google branding, displays a simple list of blue links, reminiscent of the time-shifting mechanics in Ocarina of Time.

Written by urgent.news from Ars Technica's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.

Read the original at arstechnica.com →

More in Tech

Mastering Background Tasks in Flutter: Efficient Data Sync & UI Updates

1. Introduction & The Problem Modern mobile applications are expected to be fast, responsive, and data-consistent. However, meeting these demands often involves performing complex, long-running operations like data synchronization, image processing, or heavy computations.

  • Offload CPU-bound tasks to Isolates for smooth UI
  • Use Riverpod for efficient task progress and result communication
  • Platform services integrate background execution APIs for persistence

More from Monday 2 November →