Although smartphones do many things well, their screens are highly vulnerable. The technological asymmetry is absurd: phones can stream high-quality video from a moving vehicle, but can’t handle a fall from the height of a coffee table.
That could be about to change, thanks to US-based materials manufacturer Corning, which Thursday announced the coming release of Gorilla Glass 4.
Gorilla Glass screens are on 3 billion devices, including phones from Apple, HTC, Motorola, Nokia, and Samsung. Gorilla Glass 4 claims to be a big step forward, with Corning focusing on preventing the cracks that result from the sharp, focused impact of falls.
It’s not perfect: in a test that involved dropping devices from a height of one meter on a rough surface, Gorilla Glass 4 survived 80% of the time. That’s a whole lot better than the generic soda-lime glass screens, which broke nearly 100% of the time.
That’s a glass four-fifth’s full… or one-fifth empty.
Feature image from Flickr user Jeff Turner under a Creative Commons commercial license. Image was cropped for this article.