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

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.'"

Comments

How about

[jkflying]

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

Re:How about

[jkflying]

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

Re:How about

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

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.

Re:How about

[c]

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.

Phobia...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.....

Re:Phobia...

[ebno-10db]

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?