Oled tech lights the way

A revolution in lighting is on the horizon with the bendable, paper-thin technology known as Oleds, or organic light-emitting diodes - and the sky's the limit when it comes to bright ideas on how to use them, says Reliable Plant Magazine.

General Electric asked industrial design students from the Cleveland Institute of Art to imagine just how the breakthrough technology, currently under development at GE's Global Research Centres, might actually bend and stretch its way into everyday life in the years ahead.

Some of the real-world applications they envisioned include concealed, under-shelf lighting for retailers; flexible signage for advertisers; illuminated stairs for architects; light-up wallpaper for decorators; and illuminated safety outerwear for emergency services personnel.

A research student has cracked a cryptography problem that has baffled experts for over 30 years and the breakthrough may pave the way to secure cloud computing services, writes ComputerWeekly.

Craig Gentry conducted the research while he was a summer student at IBM Research, working on his PhD at Stanford University. Gentry's breakthrough, called 'privacy homomorphism', or 'fully homomorphic encryption', makes it possible to analyse encrypted information without sacrificing confidentiality.

This is important because if data is encrypted it is impossible to analyse. IT staff such as database and network administrators need to see the type of data being accessed or transported across a network to optimise the database and network to improve performance.

Investment firm Wedbush Morgan said in a report that “OnLive could change the landscape” of gaming, and that its preview of the cloud-based gaming service at GDC left onlookers “blown away”, according to VG247.

“It is not clear to us that OnLive will dominate any time soon, but we are confident that this breakthrough technology will ultimately be widely adopted,” said the report.

The firm added that the ultra-low latency system is also likely to appeal to companies making use of videoconferencing.