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Next-Gen Gorilla Glass: Smartphones Could Have Antibacterial, Anti-Glare Display

Posted by samzenpus on from the coming-to-a-phone-near-you dept.

MojoKid writes "It's not too often that upcoming glass technology is worth getting excited over, but leave it to Corning to pique our interest. During a recent talk at MIT's Mobile Technology Summit, Dr. Jeffrey Evenson took to the stage to reiterate what it is about Gorilla Glass that makes it such an attractive product (something well evidenced given the majority of smartphones out there today implement it), as well as to give us a preview of what's coming. Having pretty much mastered Gorilla Glass where strength, scratch-resistance and general durability are concerned, the company is now looking to improve-upon it (possibly for Gorilla Glass 4) by making it non-reflective and germ-resistant. Imagine your smartphone sporting this — you'd finally be able to see the screen regardless of how bright the sun behind you is. Unfortunately, it appears that it won't be hitting our phones or tablets that soon. The estimate is 'in the next two years.'"

21 of 175 comments (clear)

  1. How about by jkflying · · Score: 5, Insightful

    To be honest, what I'd really like is anti-shatter.

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    1. Re:How about by Thanshin · · Score: 3, Funny

      The losses to the mobile phone industry if that invention was released would be incalculable.

      It would be like creating regenerative cars or eternal batteries.

    2. Re:How about by jkflying · · Score: 5, Informative

      The new Sony Xperia Z is waterproof to 1 meter for 30 minutes. Try again.

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      Help I am stuck in a signature factory!
    3. Re:How about by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Informative

      Galaxy S4 Active is waterpoof and is tested for submersion for 30 minutes.

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    4. Re:How about by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      To be honest, what I'd really like is anti-shatter.

      And what I'd really like are wings so I can fly. Just thought I'd point that out, since we aren't being realistic.

      To answer you more seriously, what you are asking for just isn't something that's going to happen predictably. They can't just focus on making it anti-shatter. If it ever happens, it's going to be more or less on accident. And even then, unless it's a HUGE breakthrough, you probably wouldn't be satisfied with it. The reason I say that is because look at what we currently have. The closest you'll currently find to what you are asking for is bullet proof glass, and despite the fact that it has no real restrictions for thickness, weight, scratch resistance, or clarity, when it does take a big impact it still leaves a tremendous scar (much like a rock chipping your car's windshield).

      Arguably, it isn't that 'anti-shatter' is unrealistic; but that it is unrealistic without sacrificing the other things that people want. Your old school, now-downright-shameful Nokia candybar was pretty damn shatter resistant. The screen portion of the outer shell is some sort of plastic(PC or PC+ABS, I think, don't have one in front of me), modestly thick, with a bit of curvature. The relatively soft plastic doesn't have that 'I am a slab of unobtanium carved out of the future by laser robots' thing going, and it scratches and dings pretty easily; but, if dropped, it usually just flexes a bit and dissipates most of the force harmlessly. A nontrivial gab between the outer shell and the (much more vulnerable) LCD also helps(as does the fact that, in their heyday, a replacement for a cracked/damaged faceplate was ~$5 at your local skeezy phone kiosk and could be installed by hand in seconds).

      Once you impose the requirement that the material be substantially scratch/ding resistant(thus demanding a very hard material), and the phone be very thin and the screen very bright(thus, along with the touch-sense requirements, demanding that the screen be packed closely against, or fused directly to, the outer shell, and that the outer shell be dead flat, with no room for strengthening geometry or flexing, even if it were flexible) You want something maybe a mm thick, dead flat, and optimized for hardness, to survive impacts without cracking? Now that is where you get into 'serious breakthrough' territory.

    5. Re:How about by c · · Score: 5, Insightful

      One meter? So that's just enough to stand in water up to your head

      It's enough to survive a dunk in the toilet (and subsequent washing in the sink) or a drop into a puddle. In other words, it'd cover 95% of water damage a typical phone might be subjected to.

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    6. Re:How about by rvw · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well, reception kinda sucks 30m down, so....

      Ha ha, but if I drop my phone in a pool, I want it to still work when I pick it up. 1 meter won't give me that. It's useless, like most Sony products.

      Most people don't have to dive deeper than 10cm to pick their phone up - from the toilet.

    7. Re:How about by scheme · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If you want a surface that is scratch resistant, you need to get something that's really hard. If you want something that is shatterproof, you want something that is soft or can flex enough to absorb impacts. You'll need a breakthrough to find something that's both. Manufacturers went the scratch-proof way because it's more likely that your phone would be in your pocket with keys, coins, etc. than being regularly dropped.

      --
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  2. Phobia... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Really... anti-bacterial? I knew Americans had an obsession with bacteria but this is getting ridiculous. The do realize that the rest of the phone, yaknow the part you hold, is not going to be anti-bacterial? What would happen if the average American were to realize that his/her own body contains ten times more bacteria than cells? Ewwww, ewwww bacteria.....

    1. Re:Phobia... by ebno-10db · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Really... anti-bacterial? I knew Americans had an obsession with bacteria but this is getting ridiculous.

      For phones it's ridiculous (though possibly harmless) but what about ATM's and other touch screens that can be used by hundreds, possibly thousands, of people each day?

    2. Re:Phobia... by bickerdyke · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No. I've had luck here so far.

      But I'm quite sure that if I ever will catch one, it won't be from pressing my cellphone display against my ear. I'd me worried much more worried about those earbuds on my mp3-player or touching my keyboard before scratching my ear.

      But it might still be a valid point for ATM-Touchscreens.

      But always keep in mind that exposure to microorganisms is vital to develop a healthy immune system. sanitizing everything is bad for your long-term health. Anyone still thinks long-term at all nowadays?.

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      bickerdyke
    3. Re:Phobia... by jellomizer · · Score: 4, Informative

      Many Metals have Anti-Bacterial properties to them.

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    4. Re:Phobia... by Xest · · Score: 3, Informative

      "Yes, because it's not like there have ever been problems with spread of bacteria in the past and it also doesn't seem like it will ever be a problem in the future either! Who needs to worry about bacteria! Nature wouldn't make something that could hurt me, would it?"

      So what are you saying exactly, that you believe that if we could just bacteria proof mobile phones, and ATMs and such that nature will no longer produce anything to hurt you? It's precisely that naivety that I'm pointing out the idiocy of. All it means is that we'll end up with bacteria that evolves mechanisms to defeat the anti-bacterial technologies we implement making them even more difficult to deal with.

      I didn't claim that bacteria can't be harmful, but simply that we don't need to go to absurd extremes to try and eliminate all bacteria that we may encounter because that's frankly fucking stupid and nonsensical. There will always be bacteria and there will always be some degree of chance that it will evolve into something very dangerous. Bacteria "proofing" ATMs and so forth without all also wearing masks to stop the spread of airborne bacteria and bacteria proofing our clothes, any handrails we may touch, any food we may eat and everything else isn't going to magically change that at all, there'll still be an ever present threat of a dangerous form of easily spread bacteria however you cut it, the difference is that when it does come it'll have already had to evolve to defeat the low hanging options for dealing with it that we might otherwise have had if we didn't engage in paranoid splashing of said technologies left right and centre to no practical benefit at the time.

    5. Re:Phobia... by slashmydots · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Really? Americans? It's a phobia? You ever notice how all major plagues recently started in Asia, where their health standards and practices are summed up by raw meat hanging on a wooden peg on an open street market?

  3. Anti-reflective with fingerprints? by hankwang · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Anti-reflection coatings by themselves are nothing new. AR coatings that are scratch-resistant might be more tricky. But I would be really impressed if they can make it anti-reflective even when covered with fingerprints.

    AR coatings are based on thin layers with thicknesses tuned and accurate to 20 nm or less and well defined refractive indices, matched to the refractive index of the air on one side and the glass on the other side. It's hard if not impossible to make a coating that keeps working even with an undefined number of micrometers of skin grease on top.

    My glasses (eyewear) have a very nice AR coating, but fingerprints turn it into a colorful reflector.

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  4. Anti-Glare by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    That'll stop people glaring at me when my phone rings during the pianissimo of Haydns Surprise Symphony.

  5. But what about the telephone cleaners? by SuricouRaven · · Score: 3, Funny

    What are we going to do with them now?

  6. Re:resistance by Cenan · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The article isn't clear on what the antimicrobial coating does, but I'd hazard a guess that it is not an antibiotic but a surface that is too slippery for bacteria to attach to. An antibiotic agent would be pretty stupid and would degrade rapidly compared to the lifetime of the device (think: ATM), as opposed to a surface where bacteria just doesn't stick.

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    ... whatever ...
  7. Re:Next step by LordLucless · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Why use a mirror when you can capture an image with your front-facing camera, digitise it, route it through state-of-the-art computing and image processing trips, break it into millions of pieces and feed it simultaneous to an equal number of tiny diodes.

    So much simpler!

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    Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
  8. Seeing the sreen in the sun by Zorpheus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    My Nokia 5630 had a transflective LCD. This was always readable in the sun and even when the backlight was turned off. It works by having a partially reflecting layer between the LCD matrix and the backlight.
    I really miss that feature on today's phones. I think they stopped selling this kind of displays because they look less good in the light conditions that you have in shops, since the partially reflecting layer also reflects some of the backlight.

  9. Re:Next step by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Funny

    Why use a mirror when you can capture an image with your front-facing camera, digitise it, route it through state-of-the-art computing and image processing trips, break it into millions of pieces and feed it simultaneous to an equal number of tiny diodes.

    So much simpler!

    Kids these days... Don't you realize that you can just scan a mirror and set that as your background?