That watch has been tipped to have a curved glass screen. Before a device with a curved screen can come to market, glass suppliers have to be able to provide flexible glass. Corning has announced that it sees a three-year wait before companies start making flexible display units using its Willow glass material.

Willow glass is a type of glass that is made in a roll in a method similar to how a news press works. The flexible glass will allow manufacturers to create curved or flexible displays. Corning also notes that it is currently producing the glass and is putting forth “a lot of effort” to teach “very big name” customers how to handle the glass rolls.

Considering that Corning is a supplier for Apple, and Apple is trying to make a curved screen watch, you have to wonder if one of the first products we see using Willow glass might be the iWatch. A Corning executive did say that the company’s Willow glass would be used in some similar products this year such as a flexible barrier for solar panels or a thin film behind some touch panels. The executive noted that samples of Willow glass were sent to makers of smartphones, tablets, and TVs last summer.

[via Bloomberg]

Corning revealed its Willow Glass technology last June, but the tough, flexible glass has in fact been in development for more than ten years. The material can be just 100 microns thick – making it thin enough to wave in the wind – which also helps with broad viewing angles: that could come in handy if you can only briefly glance askew at your wrist to check, say, on your latest iMessage pings.

Corning Willow Glass overview:

It’s not just the flexibility that makes Willow Glass special, however. The material can also be processed at very high temperatures – up to 500 degrees centigrade, in fact – which makes it suitable for roll-to-roll production. Such systems, where assembly of display components is carried out continuously rather than in individual sheets, would likely be essential for productivity if Apple was to go into mass production for what would likely be an affordable and popular accessory.

Corning Willow Glass roll-to-roll production:

According to the NYT’s sources inside Apple, the smartwatch would “operate on” iOS, though it’s unclear whether that means the digital timepiece would have its own, standalone operating system, or merely act as a conduit for iPhone and iPad notifications. The colloquially-named “iWatch” is expected to use Bluetooth 4.0, the low power iteration of the short-range wireless technology, to connect to a nearby Apple device.

Exactly what it could do with that connection is unclear, though there’s plenty of potential for a discrete, wrist-worn way to access data. Beyond the usual notifications for email, calendar alerts, messaging, and calls, the Bluetooth link could be used to remotely command Siri, Apple’s virtual personal assistant. That would help bypass the presumed absence of a complex touchscreen interface, and address one of the biggest ongoing criticisms with smartwatches in general: that though they allow wearers to check alerts, they usually fall short when it comes to acting on them.

With Siri, however, iWatch users could reply to messages, establish new appointments, search the internet, and get navigation guidance, all by asking for it out loud. Previous rumors have suggested Apple might use a roughly 1.5-inch display – akin to the sixth-gen iPod nano, perhaps, which many buyers wore on their wrist using special third-party watch straps – though how much information would be displayed on-screen and how much would be audibly reported is unclear.

A timescale for Apple’s iWatch launch is still something of a mystery, and both the company and manufacturer Foxconn have declined to comment on the speculation.

[Concept image by ADR Studio]

Now this isn’t anything extremely exciting, and it won’t make your computers USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt port rock faster speeds than usual, but it has a few important things that make them stand out. Just like others from earlier this week, Corning and Optical Cables will be delivering Optical Cable thunderbolt options ranging from up to 100 feet and more.

Most Thunderbolt cables use copper, and that severely limits it in terms of distance and at longer range can cause speed to suffer. As a result Corning and Optical Cables is here to offer a solution. Their cables convert the signal into Optical and their lightweight and extremely durable cables then transfer your files and more with ease to those long distances many need. It’s also extremely durable and can bend, fold, kink, get knots and more without a problem. Transfer speeds will never suffer. Check it out.

Corning has added their durable technology and development into these new cables, and should provide extreme durability and longevity to all Optical Cables. If Thunderbolt ports aren’t your thing at the moment, don’t worry because Corning also has full USB 3.0 options available as well. Corning and Optical Cables states Thunderbolt will be available in lengths of 12ft, 18ft, 10m, 30m, 50m and 100m (last is longest available) while USB 3.0 will come in 5.5m, 10m, 15m and 30m. As fart as pricing is concerned, we aren’t sure at the moment. Corning stated that they’ll be releasing further pricing details soon, as well as their respective retail partners.

RIM and T-Mobile have announced the BlackBerry Curve 9315, and new rumors are saying that the LG Optimus G2 might get a reveal at CES 2013. Facebook has added free Voice Messaging and limited VoIP to its Messenger app, and GameStick reached its Kickstarter goal today, just one day after launching the campaign. The ASUS ME301T 10-inch tablet leaked today, complete with a Tegra-3 processor and Jelly Bean, while Corning announced that it will be debuting Gorilla Glass 3 at CES 2013.

It looks like Pebble will be hosting a CES event of its own, and Archos has announced TV Connect, which turns any HDTV into a smart Android TV. comScore’s market share results for November 2012 are here, with Samsung, Google, and Apple at the top, and we learned today that Angry Birds was downloaded 8 million times on Christmas Day. Chicago has agreed to a new deal with Microsoft for city-wide cloud service, and Samsung has announced the NX300 mirrorless camera.

We found out that Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition was downloaded 5 million times in 2012, while one analyst is saying that the Wii U underperformed at GameStop during the holiday season. Sony has a patent application on the books for technology that would allow it to block access to used games on its future consoles, and Samsung has delivered a patch for the Exynos security hole that is present in Galaxy S III handsets. Finally tonight, we have reviews of the HTC One VX and the EliteBook Folio 9470m ultrabook for you to check out, while Chris Davies tells us why he thought Apple would jump on Leap Motion first instead of ASUS. That does it for tonight’s Evening Wrap-Up, we hope you enjoy the rest of your night folks!

Gorilla Glass 3 is not only the thinnest iteration yet, but it’s also Corning’s most durable. Of course, it isn’t going to do much if your device takes a spill onto a hard surface like concrete, but it’ll do quite a bit to keep your display scratch-free. That’s especially handy considering that scratches inevitably happen with everyday use, so if Gorilla Glass 3 can cut down on the frequency of those scratches even more than Gorilla Glass 2 did, then we have a lot to look forward to.

One benefit of making the glass thinner is that your display will be sharper, which is always welcome. Corning says that it has improved Gorilla Glass on a molecular level, improvements which the company is calling Native Damage Resistance. With everything tallied up, Corning says that Gorilla Glass 3 will be three times stronger than Gorilla Glass 2, 40% better at preventing scratches and hiding the ones that do show up on your screen, and 50% stronger once the display becomes flawed. That’s especially important, since deep scratches can lead to shattering later on.

Unfortunately, we won’t be seeing devices outfitted with Gorilla Glass 3 for a little while. Corning says that there won’t be any Gorilla Glass 3 devices available to check out at CES 2013, and they actually won’t begin popping until a couple of months after the show wraps. We’ll see if we can’t spend a little time with Gorilla Glass 3 at CES, but in the meantime, be sure to check out our hands-on with Gorilla Glass 2 for a bit of a refresher.

[via Android Community]

Hardware

I had major reservations about the LG Nexus 4 after having experienced the strangely slippery hardware of the LG Optimus G (see our full review here). I’m not talking about any sort of slipperiness in an ephemeral sense – I mean the plastic and glass that makes up the bulk of the device is literally slick. As it turns out here with the LG Nexus 4 though, any little bit of grip friendliness lost is more than made up for by the fabulously well-crafted curved edges of the front-facing panel.

Both the front and back panels on this device are made of Corning Gorilla Glass 2, the newest in undeniably tough glass action from the biggest name in reinforced glass panels for mobile devices today. Under the back panel you’ll find the same Crystal Reflection pattern that the LG Optimus G has, many different squares of reflective material creating an ever-changing pattern of light and dark. The name “NEXUS” sits on the back in big clear letters so you know what you’re using, too.

The display on this device is a lovely 768 x 1280 pixels across 4.7-inches of IPS PLUS LCD. That’s 320 PPI, just above Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus at 316 PPI (PenTile* in that case), and the Nexus S which was all the way back at 235 PPI. For comparison purposes: the iPhone 5 (and 4/4S) sit at 326 PPI and the highest sharpness on the market today exists on the HTC DROID DNA at a massive 440 PPI (across 5-inches of display, no less).

*See more on Samsung’s PenTile choices here: “PenTile keeps you happy for Longer” – as spoken by Philip Berne for Samsung (Philip is also a columnist for SlashGear, mind you.)

The Nexus 4′s display is as bright, sharp, and vibrant as your eyes can handle – so says DisplayMate. Touch sensitivity on this display has been nothing less than top-notch, and viewing angles are essentially perfect. This device works with an RGB subpixel arrangement rather than the PenTile we’ve seen on several recent device including the Galaxy Nexus. LG’s choice here means that that any pixelation you might have noticed in the Galaxy Nexus is gone here and the display experience is easily one of the best you’ll find on any smartphone or tablet out today.

This device also works with not just wireless mirroring in the near future with Miracast, but SlimPort as well. With SlimPort accessories you’ll be able to mirror your display via full-sized HDMI while your device charges at the same time – quite similar to what the HDMI converter accessories for MHL-compatible devices do. Here though you’ve got compatibility with HDMI, VGA, DVI, and DisplayPort too – though just the HDMI accessory exists at the moment.

Also note that the Miracast standard wireless technology exists on several devices at the moment, also including the Samsung Galaxy S III. You wont find so much as a peep from this technology in the Nexus 4 at the moment, though – we must assume that it’ll show itself once more accessories working with the Miracast standard hit the market. It is strange that Google would market the device as having said abilities without them being utilized right out of the box – isn’t it? Have a peek at a column by the name of Miracast Accessories: don’t jump in head first just yet for more information on the future of this technology – the imminent future, that is.

Camera

The camera is a vast improvement over the Samsung Galaxy Nexus’ clunky 5-megapixel shooter, and not just because you’ve got a few more megapixels to toss around here. It would appear that LG, Qualcomm, and Google have come together to create a camera experience here that’s sharp and clear. It’s not perfect, and we’re not quite ready to say it beats out the Samsung Galaxy S III, Nokia Lumia 920, or iPhone 5, but it’s certainly a contender.

The panorama mode as well as Photo Sphere create images that are impressive to behold, but again, are not perfect. While the stitching of images together to create a whole are rarely done without error, the final product is almost always worth keeping. Have a peek at a couple of Photo Spheres in action in the following: [Mall Parking Lot], [Gas Station], [Arcade] – each are posted to Google+ in full-on exploration mode so you can see them in their natural state. Google cross-promotes their social network and the software here as Android 4.2 Jelly Bean+ will bring on this Sphere ability to all devices that run with it from that point onward – fun stuff!

Initial Cost and Data Plans

Once again, let’s not forget that you literally get the same device from T-Mobile that you’d get from Google here, packaging and all. That said, the off-contract price for the T-Mobile-sold Nexus 4 is up at $499, that being approximately $150 more than the off-contract model you can buy from Google Play. Considering the fact that the Google Play online store is completely sold out of the device right now, with a 4 week wait (for some) before device delivery, you might want to drop that $150 to get it sooner.

The device is available from T-Mobile attached to a 2-year contract for $199.99 (this being that $150 less than the Google Play $349.99 price), which you might as well go for if you’re planning on working with T-Mobile one way or another. T-Mobile has a large collection of monthly plans for data, text, and talk, with the largest being a lovely $124.99 per month for unlimited action for all services with 10GB of data working at full speed (with throttling after that). This plan also includes hotspot abilities so you can share data from your smartphone to your other devices as well as 10GB of cloud storage.

Though T-Mobile does have several unlimited data plans, its worth mentioning that you will be “throttled” after the specified amount of data is used each month. Throttling data speed means you’ve got significantly slower data delivery than, in this case, T-Mobile’s 4G HSPA+ network normally delivers. You’ve also got a $79.99 per month plan that includes unlimited data, text, and talk, this time with 2GB of high-speed data before throttling.

Wrap-up

The LG Nexus 4 is just as awesome a Nexus device as any that’ve come before it. Google continues to bring forth stronger and stronger devices, amalgamations of power here in addition to standardization for developers. With this generation comes one of the most powerful processors on the planet along with one of the strongest cameras on the market and a rather top-tier experience for not just the expert Android user, but the average smartphone lover as well.

The only thing you’ll want to keep your eye on is the fact that this device does not work with 4G LTE – if you need data speed in a mobile way, this isn’t your best bet – not yet, anyway. If you’re in the shade of the great wi-fi gods on the regular: no worries. Outside of data speed, this is easily one of the most fabulous smartphones on the market today.

AT&T delivered its earnings results for Q3 2012 today, and though they were a touch disappointing, they weren’t nearly as bad as Zynga’s report. Facebook’s stock was riding high today after the company’s great financial report yesterday, while Nintendo was another to report underwhelming results for the quarter. Despite the rather negative earnings report, Nintendo still has high hopes for coming quarters, and today one analyst was warning that there will probably be an iPad Mini shortage after launch.

Microsoft is in more hot water with the European Commission over browsers today, and Samsung was given a boost at its Galaxy Note II event this evening by none other than Kanye West. Chevrolet was spotted showing off the engine in the new 2014 Corvette, while we heard a strange assessment that claims Android will surpass Windows in terms of OS market share by 2016. Apple has launched its new Lightning adapters and they aren’t exactly cheap, and we learned that those sexy new iMacs sadly can’t be upgraded.

Corning says that it has Gorilla Glass on 1 billion devices around the world, and Star Citizen reached its Kickstarter funding goal today. Microsoft will be live streaming the keynote from its Windows 8 event tomorrow, and today the company announced the War Games Map Pass for Halo 4. SplashData has released its list of the 25 worst passwords for 2012 and the name of a certain religious big-wig is present on it, and we learned today that the Windows Phone Marketplace has surpassed the 125,000 published apps milestone.

Finally tonight, we have a number of new original articles for you to have a look at. Chris Davies compares the HTC One X+ to the Galaxy S III in a series of benchmark tests, while Chris Burns goes hands-on with a selection of Lenovo Windows 8 convertibles. He also gives us his review of the Galaxy Note II from T-Mobile, and Don Reisinger asks if Apple has simply stopped loving the Mac Pro. That does it for tonight’s Evening Wrap-Up, enjoy the rest of your night folks!

Corning released their Q3 2012 earnings today, and along with the earnings, they touted that over 1 billion (with a “B”) devices are equipped with Corning’s toughened Gorilla Glass. Furthermore, 33 major brands are using Gorilla Glass on at least one of its products, and 500 individual models of devices are equipped with the glass technology.

The trend of toughened glass isn’t only spreading on smartphones, but tablets, laptops, and even televisions are equipped with Gorilla Glass. These are fairly impressive numbers, and they should continue to rise as the popularity of scratch-resistant and toughened glass rises. It may even become the standard one day.

As far as sales figures, Corning earned a revenue of $2.04 billion during Q3, which is up 7% from last quarter, but down 2% from last year. The company ended up with a net income of $521 million, up from $462 million last quarter. However, it’s 36% down from last year, which saw a net income of $811 million.

This next-generation glass will allow curved displays to be a reality and will support the creation of thinner backplates as well as brighter displays. Dr. Dipak Chowdhury, division vice president and Willow Glass program director spoke this week on the creation of this glass and how it will move the industry forward.

“Displays become more pervasive each day and manufacturers strive to make both portable devices and larger displays thinner. Corning Willow Glass provides the substrate performance to maintain device quality in a thin and light form factor. Currently manufacturing in a sheet-to-sheet process, we expect Corning Willow Glass to eventually allow customers to switch to high throughput, efficient roll-to-roll processing, a long-awaited industry milestone.” – Chowdhury

Have a peek at what Corning means when they describe a roll-to-roll process here:

Then take note that Willow Glass will be made using Corning’s proprietary fusion process, this process making it possible to create glass that is just 100 microns thick – as thin as a sheet of copy paper! Stay tuned as we find out which devices will be working with Willow Glass first!

BONUS: Have a peek at how Ultra-slim flexible glass will benefit displays here:

Gorilla Glass 2 was first unveiled at CES 2012 earlier this year and was touted as being 20 percent thinner than its predecessor, while being just as strong. The thinner material not only allows for thinner form factors for mobile devices but also brighter displays and greater touch sensitivity.

The company announced that since unveiling Gorilla Glass 2 last month, it has qualified the glass with more than half of its current customers and its first orders having already been shipped. Among these first customers are Acer and Asus, the latter of which plans to use the new material on the Transformer Pad Infinity. Hence, this could mean the new tablet will launch within a few short months, although other devices sporting the new glass may land in the meantime as well.

[via MarketWatch]

Corning continues by showing off Electrochomic Glass, this being a type that in the future will be used for windows to insulate houses, shade or become transparent on command, and is of course, durable. Along these same lines is Architectural Display Glass which allows you to move through your hallways with touch-sensitive boxes galore. Automotive Design Glass will be photosensitive like the Elecrochromic Glass, lightweight, and touch sensitive if need be. Wall-Format Display Glass has the gigantic wall ready to move with a professor, touch-sensitive of course, and Specialty Tablet Glass has your future hand-held book-sized displays ready to roll with anti-microbial, scratch, and chemical resistant formulas to bring you the best overall experience.

The video above is just the short format presentation. Corning has also provided a long-format vision for the future in an explanatory segment that’s twice the length. Enjoy with us the vision Corning has for the glass-filled world of tomorrow in A Day Made of Glass 2: Same Day. Expanded Corning Vision. Head to our timeline below as well to check out extended coverage once again with Gorilla Glass and beyond!

Lotus Glass is an interesting product from Corning that is a glass substrate that goes over the top of an OLED display and can be flexed without breaking. That allows it using curved handsets and should make it last longer in the real world by being able to deform when dropped or hit rather than breaking. The joint venture will supply the OLED backplane glass substrates for Samsung Mobile Display along with the broader Korean market.

The OLED market is expected to grow rapidly with many smart phones moving to the screens for the superior color reproduction and image quality. At the same time, the screens tend to use less power than traditional LCDs making for longer battery life. Larger OLED screens are also being used in TVs, and we saw several sets of this sort during CES. It’s not clear exactly when Samsung Mobile Display and Corning screens will begin to hit the market.

[via Corning]

Perceptive pixels has been shipping these large-scale displays since mid-2011 but what makes this one special is the outer layer on the screen. This prototype device represents the largest touch display to feature Corning Gorilla Glass, adding Corning’s thin, visually stunning and durable glass to the world’s largest projected capacitive flat-panel display technology.

With Perceptive’s class-leading technology and Corning’s new Gorilla Glass 2 measuring just 2mm thick they are able to make these entire screens just 6 inches in depth. Adding the strengthened glass from Corning allows these panels to be used in a wide array of situations and horizontal positions. You can see right on video the demonstrator uses the stylus with force and near the end even punches the display to demonstrate the strength from the glass –something that will surely protect these expensive screens from impact damage.

For more information regarding Gorilla Glass 2 check out our timeline below for the details. In the future we can expect even more from both of these companies as things progress.

Tonight at the CES Pepcom event we gave it a try and even pushed our hardest but it just wouldn’t give. The new and improved Gorilla Glass 2 has more than a few improvements. According to our tests, and Corning, their new formula and fortified glass is around 20% stronger and 20% thinner. This will bring us thinner and smaller devices from tablets, smartphones, and everything else in between. They didn’t mention scratch tests, or show them — but I was told the compacted process should help preserve those precious screens even better than before.

I do the occasional workout (other than a keyboard workout), and it didn’t crack even under a good 121 pounds of pressure. Just like previous tests the “competition” fortified glass cracked at around 74 pounds or less, and Corning’s original fortified glass held up well past 100 pounds of weight.

So what can we expect from Corning and Gorilla Glass 2? Smartphones and tablets that are stronger, sturdier, and more durable. All while coming in at around 20% thinner in the glass department. It’s up to the manufacturers to make the rest sleek. According to Corning we can expect to see their new glass appear in devices in late Q3 2012 — so for now the original will still have to do.

The photo’s below show competitors glass all the way through the new Gorilla 2 so check it out.

Corning has also detailed a few more bits that are sure to make the masses jump with glee. This new amalgamation in the glass allows for brighter images on the whole (though they don’t mention exactly how) and greater touch sensitivity. Specifically they’re touting this touch sensitivity as working really great with this year’s oncoming torrential downpour of Windows 8 devices. Touch your way to a whole new experience, essentially.

The folks at Corning have also sent along some details on what they’ve done as far as business for 2011 goes – specifically that inside 2011, once all the numbers are tabulated, they’re expected to reach more than $700 million USD in sales. That’s more than triple, they say, what they made in 2010. With simple yet fabulously effective improvements such as what they’ve revealed here, there’s no reason to think they wouldn’t bump up again this year. We’ll be checking out Corning tonight to see what they’ve got in store for us for hands-on action. Join us then!

This new forumula should improve Corning’s standing in the mobile world that, at the end of 2011, saw a few major releases with Gorilla Glass noticeably missing from the equation. The Samsung Galaxy Nexus, for example, came after waves of Samsung’s Galaxy S II devices (which had Gorilla Glass) with a surprise: reinforced glass, but not Corning’s. So the folks at Corning are releasing their second iteration – not necessarily because of the Galaxy Nexus, of course, but releasing it all the same.

Senior vice president and general manager of Corning Specialty Materials James R. Steiner had the following to say on the second wave:

“Corning Gorilla Glass has been a tremendous success for Corning, enjoying excellent market acceptance across mobile device industries. … As we did last year [at CES], we’ll provide consumers and customers visiting the Corning booth the opportunity to test first-hand the outstanding damage resistance and flexibility of this industry-leading, ultra-thin, and tough specialty glass,” – Steiner

That’s all we had to hear. Have a peek at last year’s display in the video below, and check out the [Corning portal] to see all the devices that had Gorilla Glass incorporated in their build over the past 12 months or so. An intense number, to be sure.

When you hit the search button on the term Gorilla here in our archives on SlashGear, you’ll find that Corning’s ultra-strong glass formula appears as recently as the upcoming most powerful Android device on earth, the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime, a tablet toting NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core chipset. What we must assume here is that either Samsung and Google had a special deal going on with a separate company for the glass, or they saw that Corning’s Lotus Glass would be the next big thing to have anyway, and opted for a nameless glass in the interim. Note in that Lotus Glass article that Rue suggests that its possible the high resolution has something to do with the switch as well.

Peek at a hands-on with the Galaxy Nexus next to the Galaxy Note here if you’ve not already, the Galaxy Note is another new Samsung device to refrain from having Gorilla Glass for one reason or another.

What do you think, do you need Gorilla Glass in order to have a great time with a device and not worry about it getting scratched? Have a peek at this hands-on with Gorilla Glass from earlier this year as well and see what it means to have nearly un-damageable fronts to your mobile devices. Heed the breaks.

[via Android Community]

It’s the very first invention that’s got my attention, for sure – as a woman walks up to a road in front of what must be an airport, she hears a language she does not understand coming over the intercom. At a tap of her glasses, she’s got instant translation into her own English. Sort of reminds you of a Babelfish, doesn’t it? From there’s it’s all displays, all the time. Each window to a car shows off everything the woman needs (or thinks she needs) to see such as an outline of a building that she’s passing by with a note about how she needs to go there tomorrow or she wont get the job she wants – she has a device in her hands that’s one big display connected to everything under the sun, including her kitchen fridge, and everything is full-screen.

Notice, if you will, the similarities between this “future device” and the current Windows Phone interface and it’s tiles. Sort of makes you think that, wow, Windows Phone is really advanced already, doesn’t it? Then there’s giant displays as large as a desk, made for touch interaction, and all sorts of 3D interaction that I’m not quite sure how to explain. Objects jump off the displays and can be moved around with a waft of the hand. Have a peek at this newest video here:

Then head back to the video from a bit earlier this month:

Microsoft Office Labs Vision 2019

And notice finally, if you will, now similar these videos are to the video from a few months ago made by Corning (the makers of Gorilla Glass and now Lotus Glass,) in A Day Made of Glass…

[via YouTube]