The biggest worry with smart phones is how easy they are to break. The many drop tests shown on YouTube make a good case for how easy it is to damage the screen on that new iPhone 5 or Samsung Galaxy Note 2.With slick plastic casings on the Samsung phones demanding a case to make them easier to hold and it being all too easy to pull a phone out of your pocket & lose grip of it, consumer research shows that owners of smart phones often break their phone within a few short months of ownership.
Unless you have insurance that fully covers accidental damage on that new smart phone, the costs of replacing the screen and the time lost with the phone in for repair could be considerable. Every bit of help one can receive to keep the phone in one piece should it be dropped, is always a well received advancement in making smart phones more rugged.
Corning used to be a bit of an old school, stodgy company, but their inventively named Gorilla Glass product has given them a whole new image. Just about every smart phone on the market uses their Gorilla Glass 2 product to protect the smart phone screen and ward off scratches, dents and cracks. Now Corning are getting ready to release their 3rd iteration of the product line.
Gorilla Glass 3 is a chemically enhanced glass that comes out of serious research and development in the R&D labs at Corning. Breaking down the atomic make up of glass itself and how its components bond together, Corning was able to take a fresh look at how to create a new product that could be made thinner, yet strong and less easily scratched too.
Such research is not new to Corning who are pioneering new glass development, with a flexible glass to go with the flexible screens being developed by several manufacturers including Samsung and Nokia.
.jpg "Corning Gorilla Glass 3") |
| Image source: 9to5mac.com |
Innovation with glass making is not a new thing. Bullet resistance and bullet proof glass window and wind-screen products have been available for security vehicles for VIPs and on the private security-minded consumer market for some years now.
This all comes down to learning more about the fundamentals of glass and finding new ways to create different products and uses for a product that seemingly never goes out of fashion. The Corning marketing department are in full swing with the naming of the latest version of their protective screen – Corning Gorilla Glass 3: Native Damage Resistance.
How is the glass improved over previous versions of Gorilla Glass present on more than 1 million mobile devices today? It is three times stronger when withstanding blunt force. This tries to protect against deep scratches that later can lead to an expanding spider web of cracks over time.
For more minor scratches, a special process helps to make scratches less visible by 40 percent. Overall, Corning believe screen protection is boosted by 50 percent with Gorilla Glass 3.
The new screen has been tested on a number of devices from leading manufacturers, but was not present on other demonstration products being shown at the CES show. It is expected that commercial products will start appearing over the next 2 months sporting the all new Gorilla Glass 3.
Peter MilesAbout the Guest Author:
Peter Miles likes OtterBox cases and this is because he is a bit accident prone with his iPhone 5.
