Your Next Smartphone Screen Will Be Able To Disinfect Itself

Your Next Smartphone Screen Will Be Able To Disinfect Itself

Your phone is filthy. Anything that’s getting rubbed by your grimy little fingers on a ridiculously regular basis is going to be far from pristine. But Corning can help. Its newest revision of Gorilla Glass is not only ridiculously resilient, it also kills pesky germs all by itself.

Corning discussed its upcoming display tech at the MIT Mobile Technology Summit, and it sounds incredible. The anti-microbial coating being used on the new glass — a first for the display industry — can kill virtually all nasty microbes on the screen’s surface over a course of two hours. It’s not instantaneous, but it’s way better than having a pocket petri dish.

And that’s not all either. Corning is also whipping up a new transparency treatment that will make the next revision of Gorilla Glass tens of times more transparent than purified water. What’s that really mean? Seeing your phone in broad daylight is about to get way easier. Here’s what that improvement looks like, the circle in the centre is the new stuff:

Your Next Smartphone Screen Will Be Able To Disinfect Itself

And, of course, that’s all on top of the ridiculous strength we’ve come to expect from Gorilla Glass. Unfortunately, there’s no word on exactly when these sort of features will be rolling out to new devices; Corning has simply said some time in the next two years. Until then, licking your phone screen is probably a good habit to stay out of. [Technology Review via Phone Arena via Talk Android]

Picture: Michelangelus/Shutterstock


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