But instead of using Google's Gears, Jolicloud relies on Mozilla's Prism and Firefox to run various web-based applications.

ECONOMIST: Google goes in search of an instant operating system

Unfortunately, far from instilling confidence, Dr. Rice's throw-away line about her arms control pedigree offers a prism through which one can see clearly what increasingly is wrong with American foreign policy, over which she exercises virtually unchallenged sway.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Arms controllers return

Using a bottom-up approach to his research, as opposed to Mr McCullough's top-down method of looking at the project through a geopolitical prism, Mr Parker has written the Panama story for a new generation.

ECONOMIST: The Panama Canal

It's highly-charged, invoking emotional ideas of American identity and religious respect through the prism of the most defining and traumatizing incident in the nation's recent history.

BBC: Obama mosque comments reflect nuanced controversy

For the past three weeks, the Ravens' playoff run has been almost solely viewed through the prism of Ray Lewis's delayed retirement, and while the 37-year-old perennial All-Pro and team motivator is entitled to a proper send-off, he's been allowed to eat the scenery.

WSJ: Super Bowl XLVII: Preparing to Be Harbaughed

The team's invisibility cloak exploits this effect, and relies on a specific geometry comprising two prism-shaped calcite crystals glued together, such that they leave a wedge-shaped gap beneath in which objects can be "cloaked" when illuminated with polarised light.

BBC: Invisibility cloaking benefits from crystal-clear idea