Selfie-proof smartmobes will hit stores for Christmas Corning has revealed version 5.0 of its Gorilla Glass, the ubiquitous covering for smartphones. And this time around it says the substance has been toughened up again and will now remain intact “up to 80 percent of the time when dropped face-down from 1.6 meters onto rough surfaces”. The 1.6m figure is an improvement on …
Poor show, El Reg. When I read the headline I had a vision of a smartphone that actively prevents selfies - by exploding, or perhaps poking the idiot user in the eye with a suddenly-extending antenna ("I've got your SELFIE STICK right HERE, FOOL!").
Reality, as usual, is far tamer and less satisfying than my febrile imagination.
"This should improve the Darwinian selection properties too - as the likelihood of damaging the phone continues to decrease, the likelihood of the moron yielding it to capture that "one last moment" being eliminated out of the gene pool continues to increase."
Great idea, a human black box people will willingly carry around with them. It'll increase the knowledge of human stupidity....
I'm all for anything that makes the glass more resilient - but the first one that I ever broke (Galaxy SII back in the days) was a corner impact onto tarmac - not flat.
My daughter cracked her phone glass - strangely - corner impact on tarmac.
So... could they test that please - and in the mean time, I 'll keep on buying bumpers/cases to protect the phones.
Is how much I paid for coffee this morning.
It is also the amount that the NHS will get every day after we escape the evil clutches of the EU.
This is the New Language, invented by people who want to dupe others with promises which mean nothing. There's a lot of it about.
@smartypants
Started about 10 years ago.... Proctor and Gamble got told off by the ASA for an untenable 100% claim. Head & Shoulders adverts knocked
Seems Early sightings of the "Up to 100% flake free" were noted later that year.
Even my 9 year old figured it for the meaningless crock that it was back then.
"Started about 10 years ago.... "
No, it goes back way earlier than that.
Back about 1970 or so I had a copy of the "Brand New Monty Python Papper Bok" which had an ad in it for what I seem to remember was a body building plan that would, among other benefits, make 'up to' some large number of ladies want to sleep with you every day - with an asterisk and footnote to the effect that the term 'up to' quite clearly included the number zero.
On a side note, I got this book at a good discount because the book shop wasn't able to clean the dirty marks off the front cover - no problem, I wanted the book and it was the last copy. It was many years later I saw another copy with exactly the same dirt marks - and realised that they were actually printed on the cover.
All the claims they make about how shatterproof it is aren't worth sh*t.
As can be seen in the video on this BBC report, the phone is uncharacteristically accelerated towards the ground EXACTLY parallel to the surface.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-36863055
ABSOLUTELY NO-ONE EVER DROPS THEIR PHONE LIKE THIS !!!
Its all to do with the surface area of impact. When the phone lands flat, the impact pressure is spread across the screen, so the force on each square centimetre is small.
When it lands on a corner, all the force is concentrated into a fraction of a centimetre, therefore increasing the impact force, hence the screen shatters.
http://www.scienceclarified.com/everyday/Real-Life-Physics-Vol-2/Pressure-How-it-works.html
I would like to see them do the test where it is dropped normally and lands on one corner, as happens in the REAL WORLD. I bet it shatters then !
I (luckily, touch wood) have never broken a phone by dropping it, I have owned one since they were analogue and briefcase sized !.
I don't use phone cases, what's the point of buying a super-sexy slim phone if you are going to wrap it in 5mm of tacky rubber.
However ... its practically impossible to NEVER drop your phone.
I have dropped them a few times even though I am really, really careful with them, always putting them on a stable surface or back in my pocket.
Luckily they have been from short heights or soft landings and they only suffered scratching.
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