Computer programs such as
ICQ store lots of information about your friends, including their
date-of-birth. This enables the computer to give you a
reminder when someone's
birthday is looming. So you can send the birthday-girl/boy your best wishes etc.
Now this is all very well but wouldn't it be nice if the program automatically sent one of these standard electronic birthday cards without you telling it to. Do you see where I'm going yet? :) It would then be possible for computers all over the world to be wishing each other Happy Birthday without us worrying about it. The computer could even send presents automatically based on the person's details.
It would seem that as the computer itself would be doing all the work, the computer's birthday should be more important than the user's. Our computers therfore need Birthdays which should be celebrated with a defragmentation of disk and maybe the odd upgrade.