The icon has a datestamp of when created, or when attached to the application/data that it is representing. As time passes by, this icon should fade, lose color, lose a few pixels here and there (especially at the edge) and altogether show its age.
It would make for more respectable information, and also give you an indication of time. Of course there will be those frauds who intentionally wish to look old although they are not, but as to the fresh fruit, you are promised not to stumble on an old apple.
For example (in order to take this halfbidea a bit further) if you stare for too long at a halfbidea page, not interacting with the page, the background starts turning yellowish, the page starts crumbling, losing some menu items, some letters, and becoming less functional altogether. You would have to click the [-] three times before you could bone it.-- pashute, Jun 05 2008 Not so much fade as become dust-covered and cobweb-strewn.-- phoenix, Jun 05 2008 (+) I'd like this to apply to avatars on bulletin-board systems (the little pictures representing users, often shown next to their comments), with the fading proportional to the time since that person last logged in.-- jutta, Jun 05 2008 thats creepy [jutta] complete with cobwebs...-- po, Jun 05 2008 Even more creepy - the avatar of Dorian Gray.-- Canuck, Jun 05 2008 "I'd like this to apply to avatars..." Eventually they'd turn into skeletons, then just crumble into dust.-- phoenix, Jun 05 2008 Now I crave myself a little avatar for the Halfbakery, which I would keep fresh as the morning dew, and which could grace my annos, winking, smirking and twirlings its moustachios.-- bungston, Jun 06 2008 pretty cool, and what they all said...+-- xandram, Jun 07 2008 //apply to avatars//
Kind of like the photograph in "Back to the Future"...?-- Jinbish, Jun 07 2008 I'd like a version of this for wikis. The text of a new edit would start as a particular color and would slowly transition to black with time.-- xaviergisz, Jun 07 2008 random, halfbakery