Google celebrates 14th birthday with animated chocolate cake (by Dara Kerr of Cnet)

Let Google eat cake. Today, the Web giant turns 14 years old, and to celebrate, it's serving up an animated chocolate cake filled with Google-colored candles on its homepage.

It seems like just yesterday that the tech company was born, and now it's old enough to go to high school.

Last year when Google officially became a teenager, it celebrated with a doodle that showed a cake, some balloons, candles, and a few party hats -- but it wasn't animated. Apparently, this year it has upped its sophistication.

Google Doodles are an integral part of the company's Web design. It has made drawings for Pac-Man's anniversary, Einstein's birthday, the World Cup, the Fourth of July, Persian New Year, the Olympics, U.S. elections, and just about everything in between. The doodlers are Google's band of artists who have the job of translating special events into colorful, whimsical versions of Google's corporate logo.

Now that Google is 14, let's hope that going forward it doesn't turn into one of those rebellious teens.