Next-Gen Gorilla Glass: Smartphones Could Have Antibacterial, Anti-Glare Display 175
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.'"
Anti-reflective with fingerprints? (Score:5, 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.
Re:Next step (Score:5, 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!
Seeing the sreen in the sun (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:How about (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
I own a 2011 Xperia Play, which I bought used. I'm $50 into the phone counting a new back, which was needed. Sony abandoned it before providing the promised software update; before that they abandoned the platform in general and didn't release a tenth of the software they implied would be available. Good thing I didn't buy it new, or I'd be pissed. But I know better than to give Sony my money.
Does anyone make an actually waterproof phone? With useful waterproofing? And no Sony logo?