Post Last Edit by ninja9 at 6-6-2012 00:10
Willow Glass: ultra-thin glass can 'wrap' arounddevices
The new glass could be both for rigid and flexible displays
A new type of flexible ultra-thinglass has been unveiled by the firm that developed Gorilla Glass, currentlyused to make screens of many mobile devices. Dubbed Willow Glass, the product canbe "wrapped" around a device, said the New York-based developerCorning.The glass was showcased at theSociety for Information Display's Display Week, an industry trade show inBoston.
Besides smartphones, it could also be used for displays that are not flat, the company said.
But until such"conformable" screens appear on the market, the glass could be usedfor mobile devices that are constantly becoming slimmer. "Displays become more pervasive each day and manufacturers strive to make both portable devices and larger displays thinner," said Dipak Chowdhury, Willow Glass programme directorat Corning.
The prototype demonstrated in Bostonwas as thin as a sheet of paper, and the company said that it can be made to be just 0.05mm thick - thinner than the current 0.2mm or 0.5mm displays.
The firm has already startedsupplying customers developing new display and touch technology with samples of the product. Next-gen gorilla glass?
The material used to make WillowGlass is the result of the firm's glassmaking process called Fusion. The technique is melting the ingredients at 500C, and then producing a continuous sheet that can be rolled out in a mechanism similar to a traditional printing press.
Corning unveiled Gorilla Glass 2 at CES this year, sayingthat it will make screens thinner
This roll-to-roll method is mucheasier and faster for mass production than the sheet-to-sheet process normallyused to make super-thin glass, the firm said.In future, Willow Glass may replace the already widely-used Gorilla Glass, found on many smartphones and tablets.
At this year's CES trade show in Las Vegas, Corning unveiled Gorilla Glass 2, said to be 20%thinner than the original product but with the same strength. The first-generation of GorillaGlass, launched in 2007, has so far been used on more than 575 products by 33 manufacturers - covering more than half a billion devices worldwide.
It was first spotted by the Applefounder Steve Jobs, who contacted Corning when the firm was developing thescreen for its first iPhone in 2006. Other developments
Willow Glass is not the firstattempt to produce a futuristic flexible display.
During the past few years,scientists around the world have been working with amaterial called graphene, first produced in 2004 - a super-conductive form of carbon made from single-atom-thick sheets.
Canadian and US researchers developed prototype of aflexible smartphone in 2011
In a past interview with the BBC, aresearcher from Cambridge University, Prof Andrea Ferrari, said that proto types of flexible touch screens made out of graphene have already been developed - and that besides being ultra strong and flexible, in future such displays could even give the user "sensational" feedback.
"We went from physical buttonsto touch screens, the next step will be integrating some sensing capabilities," said Prof Ferrari.
"Your phone will be able to sense if you're touching it, will sense the environment around - you won't haveto press a button to turn it on or off, it will recognise if you're using it or not."
In a separate project, scientists from the Human Media Lab at Queen's University, Canada, and Arizona State University's Motivational Environments Research group, created a millimetres-thickprototype flexible smartphone in 2011, made of a so-called electronic paper.
The scientists said they used thesame e-ink technology as found in Amazon's Kindle e-book reader, bonded to flexsensors and a touchscreen that interpreted drawings and text written on it.
"This computer looks, feels andoperates like a small sheet of interactive paper," said one of theresearchers, Dr Roel Vertegaal.
"You interact with it bybending it into a cell phone, flipping the corner to turn pages, or writing onit with a pen."
dah ada alasan untuk tunggu dan tukar handphone baru.........
Last edited by midory on 30-3-2013 11:21 PM
| 
Post time 6-6-2012 12:03 AM
变色卡
Post time 6-6-2012 11:52 AM
