Lauren Goode

Recent Posts by Lauren Goode

Coming to a Smartphone Near You: Gorilla Glass 2

Corning, maker of specialty glass that is used in many newer consumer electronics devices like mobile phones and tablets, will show off a new version of its super-thin, chemically-strengthened Gorilla Glass next week at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Aside from the fact that this magic glass is being labeled Gorilla Glass 2, we don’t have many other details at this point. But in this MSNBC.com video from last year, Corning says the next big thing in glass will be a Gorilla Glass that can be formed into 3-D shapes so it can be used in products like keyboards and kitchen countertops. (The company also said at the start of 2011 that Gorilla Glass would be a $1 billion business; it later had to scale back that estimate.)

Corning says its Gorilla Glass is currently used in more than 575 product models across 30 major brands, totaling more than 500 million units worldwide.

Devices with Gorilla Glass displays include Motorola’s Xoom tablet, Nokia’s newer smartphones and Android smartphones (with the exception of the Galaxy Nexus).

While it’s unclear whether Apple’s latest iPhone and iPad displays are made using Corning’s Gorilla Glass, Walter Isaacson’s recently published biography of Steve Jobs includes an anecdote about how Jobs used his “reality distortion field” to get Corning to bring its specialty glass to market in time for the first iPhone launch.

Meanwhile, an IHS iSuppli teardown of the iPad 2 last year suggested that the device’s screen is made of Dragontrail Glass, manufactured by Japan’s Asahi Glass.

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