Mass production of the microchip in the 1980s brought with it the potential to create smaller and lighter computers than ever before. Steve Mann, a researcher and inventor specialising in electronic photography, began his EyeTap project in the early 1980s. At the time it was clunky and made the wearer look like a motorcyclist who'd been a pretty unfortunate event with a television, but the idea itself was astounding. Mann wanted to create a machine that would record what the user saw through their right eye, while allowing them to see through it at the same time. Over the past few decades Mann has gradually whittled it down to a sleek and simple headset which looks rather a lot like Google Glass.