Valley geeks were already hopping onto Wi-Fi hotspots and playing with "smart" phones, but most people were still dialling up to connect to the Internet and using mobile phones only for talking.

Each day began with a meeting at 7.25am, meaning I had to be up before 6am, with representatives dialling in from Japan and Australia - sales and trading and researchers, for example.

The technique did not allow them to target individual neurons, but the researchers could vary the intensity of the effect on the cell membranes by dialling the intensity of the light up or down.