Researcher Dr Andrew Lippman, one of the contingent the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab brought over for a two-day symposium to launch MediaLabEurope on Monday, expressed delight at seeing that little baskets of miniature Milky Ways had been provided for delegates to snack on.

"As any computer scientist knows, Milky Way and Snickers bars are the engine of the computing revolution," he quipped, noting that espresso and Coca-Cola also had a pivotal role in keeping researchers bashing out computer code until the small hours at MIT.