Google Never Misses Important Dates

   Google celebrates the anniversary of the bar code today, which was patented on 7 October 1952, by putting a decorated logo on its site.

Photo: Google Never Misses Important Dates

  Bar codes, known as the black and white rectangular mark that enables products in a supermarket to be tracked, represent data using the spacing of parallel lines.

  The special date coincides with the announcement of the joint winners of the Nobel prize for physics, without whom bar codes could not be read.

  The trio - Charles Kuen Kao, George Smith and Willard Boyle - triumphed because of their in developing "charge-coupled devices" or CCDs.

  A silicon-based integrated circuit that converts light energy into an electronic charge, a CCD was crucial to advances in digital imaging technology.

  The devices provide video imaging for a wide range of uses everywhere from the internet to the NHS.  They are used in broadcasting, in digital cameras, endoscopy, desktop videoconferencing, fax machines, CCTV cameras, as well as bar code readers.

  Google has tweaked its site for special occasions before.

  Last week, it marked the 140th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi's birth with a sketch of the man who led the campaign for India's independence from Britain.

  Other Google doodles have featured Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Confucius and Michael Jackson, upon his death.

  The doodles are overseen by Dennis Hwang, who joined the company in 2000 and has gradually been using the logo to remind people of particular dates or events, according to Guardian.co.uk.'s report.