Google celebrates anniversary of bar code patent

57th anniversary of ubiquitous identification/data collection method coincides with Nobel Prize news

Google's "doodle" Wednesday on its search home page is a bar code that presumably translates into the word "Google".

It also says happy 57th anniversary to the awarding of a patent for the bar code by Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver. Yes, that invention that now allows so many of us to avoid human interaction at supermarket self-serve check-out lines.

And that's not all. It coincides with the announcement earlier this week of the Nobel Prize for Physics to Charles Kao for his work on fiber-optic communications and Willard Boyle and George Smith, who invented imaging technology using a digital sensor dubbed a CCD (Charge-Coupled Device). The CCD has enabled developments such as bar codes/bar code readers to come along.

Google has a history of celebrating notable achievements, anniversaries and holidays via the doodle above its search box, most recently marking the 140th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi's birth last week.

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