eye candy

/i: kand`ee/ , n. [from mainstream slang ear candy ] A display of some sort
that's presented to lusers to keep them distracted while the program
performs necessary background tasks. Give 'em some eye candy while the
back-end slurps that BLOB into core. Reported as mainstream usage among
players of graphics-heavy computer games. We're also told this term is
mainstream slang for soft pornography, but that sense does not appear to be
live among hackers.
