Founded several decades ago, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab has had far-reaching effects. The lab's work is featured in the smartphone likely sitting right next to you.
In the late '60s and early '70s, researchers at MIT began experimenting with the idea of touch computing.
"How does a piece of glass know it's being touched, where it's being touched and what happens when you hit it with multiple fingers?" said Nicholas Negroponte, co-founder of the MIT Media Lab, of those early experiments.
Image: In this 2003 photo, Richard W. DeVaul, a MIT graduate student, wears a tiny computer display mounted on eyeglass frames at the MIT Media Lab. // Chitose Suzuki/AP
