Internet search giant Google sprung yet another surprise on its homepage, by replacing its well-recognized Google doodle with the Bar Code, to commemorate the 57th anniversary of the invention of the bar code on Wednesday, October 7.

According to The Washington Post, the Google home page's bar code, patented to US inventors Norman Woodland and Bernard Silver precisely 57 years back, has encrypted the word 'Google' in Code 18 - a standard used to change ASCII characters into a bar code.

The inventors - who had filed the patent application in 1949 - waited for three years before being finally granted the patent in 1952, for the bar code system that would encode data in concentric circles, making it scan-able in any direction. The lines of different widths, inspired partly by Morse code, were developed later.

However, the credit for the manner in which the bar code is currently used largely goes to this year's Nobel Prize-winning researchers in Physics, namely - George Smith, Charles Kao and Willard Boyle. These three researchers facilitated the development of a technology which made the electronic reading of the bar code possible.

Google, which has, of late, been altering its logo to coincide with festivals, landmark historical happenings and special occasions, recently had doodles honoring Confucius, the ancient Chinese philosopher; and Mahatma Gandhi, the 'father' of modern India.