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Under glass print reader ready to go

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Under glass print reader ready to go

Under glass print reader ready to go

Biometric authentication technology has been around for awhile, but it’s about to come to a phone, tablet or laptop near you. Several technology companies are working on under glass fingerprint readers that will be incorporated into trackpads in the near future.

Glass fingerprint readers ready to go

Last month, LG Innotek unveiled its entrant into the biometric authentication sweepstakes. LG’s fingerprint reader sits just under the screen surface of a phone or other mobile device. Current fingerprint readers are separate buttons that reside awkwardly on the front, back or side of a mobile device. They’re either too small, too big or in the way. Which is why the under glass approach is so interesting.

When the fingerprint reader isn’t being used to read fingerprints, the glass surface is available for other functions, so it doesn’t monopolize a section of the device’s touchscreen (or trackpad) surface. Better still, the under glass readers are highly accurate. (That’s always a plus for security technologies.)

LG’s under glass fingerprint reader is likely to hit the market as part of the company’s smartphone line, but other manufacturers could license the technology for use in other devices.

Synaptics has also been working on an under glass fingerprint reader that is meant to be incorporated into laptop trackpads. The company, which has been promoting the technology for about two years, is ready to release it to OEMs. The Synaptics track pad is made of glass, and sits under the track pad surface. Previous iterations of the technology incorporated a glass window in the trackpad, which “reserved” that space for fingerprint reading.

With the new arrangement, the entire trackpad is made of glass, so when the fingerprint reader isn’t active, the entire trackpad surface is available for mousing around. This approach allows OEMs to incorporate the technology into their laptops without sacrificing trackpad space or changing the way it operates.

Synaptics, which makes about 100 million trackpads annually and makes all of Samsung’s smartphone fingerprint readers, believes that biometric authentication will be a standard part of mobile hardware within just a few years.

At Glassprimer™, we’re familiar with some pretty inventive things that go on under glass. If you’re looking for some under glass inspiration, we invite you to check out the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: Andre de la Gare, via Flickr.com

Why doesn’t glass crystallize?

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Why doesn't glass crystallize?

Why doesn’t glass crystallize?

Glass isn’t characterized as either a liquid or a solid. Unlike other truly solid objects, glass doesn’t form a crystal structure when it achieves a room temperature. At the same time, it also doesn’t retain the characteristics of a liquid when it cools. Instead, glass gets “stuck” in what’s known as an amorphous state – neither solid nor liquid, but something in between.

German researchers at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz used a light technique to try to explain why glass doesn’t crystallize like other solids do. For years, scientists have been split on what happens when glass hardens. Some scientists believe that the cooling glass molecules “freeze” their thermal motion, which prevents them from attaining a crystallized form. Others believe that the glass molecules clump together as they cool, which produces the same result – a non-crystalline structure.

The scientists discovered that in their liquid state, materials form hard spheres. The concentration of the hard spheres is important, because hard spheres can form either crystals or glass under the right conditions.

In their experiments, the scientists discovered that the concentration of hard spheres is the key to determining whether crystallization or glass formation will occur. A lower concentration of hard spheres leads to crystallization, where a higher concentration of hard spheres in the molten liquid leads to the formation of glass. As one scientist explained, the higher concentration of hard spheres actually prevents crystallization, and results in the formation of glass.

The research is important because it can be applied to other amorphous materials. In addition, being able to impose a crystalline structure on glass may lead to important changes in the strength and performance of glass under specific circumstances. The random arrangement of particles in cooled glass explains why glass shatters or breaks in random pieces, and why glass can contain weak areas that make it more prone to spontaneous breakage.

Regardless of the material state of the glass it coats, Glassprimer™ glass paint cures within 24-72 hours of application. Unlike other paints that either won’t dry or won’t stick, Glassprimer™ glass paint forms a permanent bond with the glass surface, and provides exceptional UV resistance for years.

If you’d like more information about Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: Alexey Kljatov, via Flickr.com

Glass particles in liquid increase light diffusion

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Glass particles in liquid increase light diffusion

Glass particles in liquid increase light diffusion

5D data storage.jpg_SIA_JPG_fit_to_width_INLINEResearchers at MIT have discovered that they can significantly increase light diffusion by suspending glass particles in liquid. They believe that eventually, the work could lead to the creation of holographic video screens and tunable optical displays.

Glass particles and liquid both increase diffusivity

The scientists were surprised by the diffusion they achieved using the process, because it was significantly greater than what current theory predicts. Their experiments involved using glass particles and fluid that have similar refractive properties. This is key because under ordinary conditions, light travels through the experimental media at very similar speeds. When two materials that have different refractive properties are paired, light transmitted through the materials changes directions. They also knew that changes in temperature of the liquid would change its refractivity.

In their experiments, changing the temperature of the liquid by 10 degrees significantly changed the diffusivity of the materials by 10 times, but a change in temperature of 42 degrees increased the diffusivity of the material by 1,000 times. Equally surprising was that the change in temperature increased the diffusivity of both the glass particles and the fluid medium.

The discovery could eventually change the way medical imaging is conducted. The process has the potential to redefine the way health care researchers and professionals look at biological tissues. The technology could also be used to create the illusion of 3-dimensions. In medical imaging, 3-dimensional representations could help diagnose disease and help healthcare professionals visualize tissue structures in the body.

The researchers also believe the technology has other non-medical applications. They envision design applications that will allow the user (or viewer) to “tune” the appearance of solid objects like furniture to suit an interior design plan.

Until “tunable” furniture becomes a reality, you can customize your interior decorating plan with Glassprimer™ glass paint. Glassprimer™ glass paint can be tinted to match any major paint manufacturer’s color palette, and creates a permanent, UV-resistant bond with glass.

If you’re looking for glass inspiration, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: Kenneth Lu, via Flickr.com

Iconic Glass structures – Beeld en Geluid

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Iconic Glass structures - Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision

Iconic Glass structures – Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision

The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision (Beeld en Geluid) is a Dutch cultural museum that collects and archives Dutch media, located in Hilversum, Noord-Holland. Currently, the museum’s collection exceeds 1,000,000 hours of film, video and audio recordings of Dutch cultural significance. The oldest recordings date to 1898.

Building employs unique glass printed panels

The 21,500 square-foot museum is cube-shaped, only half of which sits above ground. The building, designed by Architectenburo Neutelings Riedijk, is clad in 2,100 multicolored glass panels. Dutch graphic artist Jaap Drupsteen designed the building’s façade.

The panels are not simply colored glass. They contain nearly 750 relief images that were printed using a process that took three years to develop. The Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) developed the printing process and equipment. French glass manufacturer Saint Gobain Glass was instrumental in producing the panels over a six-month period.

The images were randomly chosen from among the museum’s collection, and were digitally printed onto the glass panels using a unique powder printing process that combined digital printing and slumping. The images are UV resistant and have proven to be exceptionally durable.

The powder printing process involved the deposition of red, yellow and blue colored glass powder, using a specially developed printer. The process also requires special software that converts an image’s cyan, magenta and yellow colors into the proper amounts of the colored glass powder. The process deposits the colored glass in three separate layers, and then heated to the point of melting. When the powders melt, they produce the desired color and the relief in clear glass.

The museum project was completed in 2006, and consists of the museum and offices, a shop, a theater, parking spaces, and a green roof that covers the underground parking structure. A multilevel pond with fountains and waterfalls provides a significant water reservoir for firefighting, should it become necessary to protect the museum’s collection.

If you’d like inspiration for your glass project, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: Pieter van Marion, via Flickr.com

All Glass Office Debuts in Hong Kong

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All Glass Office Debuts in Hong Kong

All Glass Office Debuts in Hong Kong

MVRDV, a Dutch design firm, recently unveiled its latest all-glass project: 133 Wai Yip Street in Hong Kong. The firm converted a former East Kowloon factory into office space. A repurposing of space isn’t all that special, but the former factory was stripped to the bare essentials and refitted with an all-glass interior -as in, glass walls, glass floors, glass furniture.

Glass office is designed for transparent businesses

The firm says the space is designed for the business that has nothing to hide. The 13-story building is a mixture of retail and office space, with the first three floors being devoted to shops. The firm added large glass windows to flood it with natural light.

The actual floors are painted white. Each story is outfitted with a floating glass floor supported by steel – much like what you’d find in a data center. The building is outfitted with glass elevators and glass elevator shafts. The offices are furnished with glass work tables. The fire escape, which was held over from the building’s former design, is also encased in glass. Although individual offices are also made of glass, they also have window coverings to provide privacy when necessary.

The building features a roof deck for office employees, and the designers used low-e glass to help reduce solar heat gain. According to MVRDV, the building uses about 17% less energy than neighboring buildings do. It also uses about 15% less electricity. The energy savings may not be entirely attributable to the glass, however. The firm also installed a new, energy-efficient HVAC system during the building remodel, which may account for part of the cost savings. Even so, it’s notable that the building uses less energy, given the increase in window size.

MDRDV has been experimenting with glass designs for quite awhile. The firm boasts several successful projects, and as many – if not more –proposed designs that make heavy use of glass. If you’d like some inspiration for decorating with glass, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: MVRDV

Light emitting glass glows

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Light emitting glass glows

Light emitting glass glows

An Australian team comprised of researchers from the University of Adelaide, the University of Melbourne and Macquarie University have developed a glass that glows in the dark without the use of photoluminescent coatings. They embedded photoluminescent nanoparticles into glass in what they call a “direct doping” approach. The nanoparticles are invisible – so they preserve the transparency of glass – but they glow when struck by ultraviolet and near-untraviolet light.

Smart glass could be shaped into optical fibers

The process can produce glass of any shape, including optical fiber, and was created using a two-stage melting process. The researchers envision the technology being used in medical imaging applications and 3-dimensional displays. The technique could be used to examine the status of individual cells in the body, bypassing the traditional luminescent dye processes used today.

The idea of using photosensitive nanoparticles isn’t new, but the production technique has been vastly improved using the new method. Prior to this, glass nanoparticles had to be created inside molten glass, which led to an uneven distribution of the desirable particles. Using the new technique, the glass nanoparticles are developed in a separate process, then added to the molten glass in a carefully controlled production process. That allows the researchers to control the distribution of the glass nanoparticles, and results in a more even (and more useful) distribution in the finished product.

The research team refers to the resulting material as a hybrid glass, and allows researchers to make a major step forward in the development of “smart glass” applications. Additionally, they believe that the two-stage approach to this glass hybrid could be used with other particles that could give glass embedded photonic, electronic or magnetic properties.

According to project leader Professor Heike Ebendorff-Heideprem, Deputy Director of the Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing, “We are heading towards a whole new world of hybrid glass and devices for light-based technologies.”

Glassprimer™ glass paint won’t make glass glow, but it does offer the ability to bring virtually any color to glass. It also offers unparalleled UV-protection, and can create translucent or frosted glass for about $1.00 per square foot. Glassprimer™ glass paint offers superior resistance to solar heat gain, as well as an excellent solution for sites where privacy is desired or required without interfering with natural light transmission.

If you’re looking for inspiration for decorating with glass, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Jon, via Flickr.com

All glass iPhone has consumers thinking

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All glass iPhone has consumers thinking

All glass iPhone has consumers thinking

The next generation of Apple’s seemingly ubiquitous iPhone is slated for 2017, but Apple seems to have set that device up for a short, quiet life. Leaks – including patent applications – seem to indicate that Apple is going for gold –or more accurately “glass” – when it releases the iPhone 8.

All glass iPhone has nothing to hide

Patent applications filed by Apple describe a device with an all –glass display that pulls double duty as the device’s case. That information is exciting to iPhone owners and prospects, even if studies have shown that nearly a quarter of the devices made between 2007 and 2013 experienced a cracked display screen.

The patent application doesn’t specify which kind of glass the phone factory plans to use for case duty, except to say that the chosen formula would be “chemically strengthened.” It also describes coatings that would make the glass resistant to the Four Horsemen of the Phone Apocalypse: water, fingerprints, glare and scratches.

The patent application has quite a history. The glass iPhone patent was actually submitted in 2011, but was only granted last month. That’s more than twice as long as the average patent application spends under the US Patent and Trademark Office microscope.

The all-glass iPhone – rumored to be the iPhone8 – will include a wrap-around front display, like the Samsung Galaxy Edge, but also a second, curved display on the backside of the device. That extra display real estate makes it impossible to use an aftermarket case on the device – like what current iPhone users favor.

In addition, the glass iPhone patent application describes a device that has virtual function buttons for volume and display control, as well as the Touch-ID fingerprint identification system currently available on the iPhone 6. Although the patent application shows a device with old-style Apple connectors (a throwback to the patent application date), presumably the device would be marketed with the latest connectors available, currently the Lightning port.

We don’t really know what an all-glass iPhone would look like or when it might be available, but we do know that you can do a lot with glass as a decorating surface. Using Glassprimer™ glass paint, you can incorporate glass into both your interior and exterior decorating plans. Glassprimer™ glass paint is highly durable and UV-resistant, which gives it points for both form and function. If you’d like some inspiration for decorating with glass or glass paint, please check out the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: darklordspet, via Flickr.com

The perfect beer glass?

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The Perfect Beer Glass?

The Perfect Beer Glass?

Cobra, a brand owned by brewer Molson Coors, says it has invented the “perfect beer glass.” The glass was the result of a collaboration among specialists at Birmingham University and Imperial College in London, along with Karmarama, a London-based advertising agency. Designers specializing in hydrodynamics and fluid dynamics worked together to develop the glass, which holds a pint of beer.

Beer glass was designed to improve taste, aroma and appearance

The “toughened” glass features a channel built into the interior surface, which guides the beer to the bottom of the glass. The channel wraps around the glass in a helical shape, creating a “whirlpool” effect inside the glass while the beer is being poured. The channel has a specific purpose; the agency claims that the channel releases aroma and flavor, and leaves the beer with a perfect head when the pour is finished.

Molson Coors is betting on the glassware to open the bar doors to Cobra, which has yet to develop a strong following among consumers during its 17 year history despite the brew’s accumulation of awards. Molson Coors is the world’s seventh largest brewer worldwide, but its Cobra beer is currently available only in the UK. Although the beer is made in Britain, it has its roots in India. The regional nature of consumer tastes in beer may explain why Cobra is still working toward broader brand recognition.

As a beer aficionado, you won’t get the intended benefits of the Perfect Beer Glass by pouring from a bottle. The interior channel in the glass is intended to be used with a special tap available only to commercial drinking establishments. In addition, the angle of the glass at the time of the pour factors into the “perfectness” of the result, and is also accounted for in the dispensing system.

Whether the perfect beer glass is hype or not remains to be seen, but Glassprimer™ has long recognized the specialized nature of glass. Our products are designed to take advantage of the special properties of glass, and to enhance their presence in both interior and exterior applications. If you’d like some glass inspiration, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: Molson Coors/Cobra

Scientists develop glass genome

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Scientists develop glass genome

Scientists develop glass genome

Researchers at Aalborg University and Corning have devised a way to determine what effect additives will have on glass without actually making the glass. Glassmakers have known for thousands of years that additives to the glass formula produce glass with different characteristics. The process of developing new glass “recipes” is always conducted on a trial-and-error basis.

Process will shorten glass development cycle
The resulting glass is then tested to determine what properties it possesses as a result of changes to the glass formula. With thousands of possible combinations, finding glass with specific properties is almost a random event. In addition, it is difficult to know how additives will affect the strength, density and melting point of the glass.

The researchers combined a number of computer models to determine what they’ve called the “genome” of glass. The models allow the researchers to create virtual combinations of materials, and accurately predict the physical properties of the resulting glass. The models speed the process of creating new glass mixtures, and allow the researchers to design glass formulas that will produce specific properties. The process has already been used to create damage-resistant glass.

The approach is important not only because it can predict the end-result of glass formulas, but also it can predict the manufacturing characteristics of the glass, like a particular formula’s viscosity and melting point. The ability to predict both the manufacturing requirements and the resulting product can help scientists develop “designer” glass for specific applications more quickly and with fewer surprises.

While much is already understood about glass, this represents a major advance in material development, and promises to lead to exciting advancements in glass manufacturing.
Glassprimer™ glass paint also represents a significant advance in glass coating. Glassprimer™ glass paint is specially formulated to make a permanent bond with any glass surface. Glassprimer™ glass paint can also bond permanently to other surfaces, like Plexiglas™, stone and masonry.

Glassprimer™ glass paint is easy to work with and cleans up with ordinary solvents. We also offer a water-based formulation. Both formulations are low-odor, low VOC mixtures and can be safely used in both interior and exterior applications.
For more information about Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: Alexey Kljatov, via FreeImages.com

Trapezoidal glass building opens in Beijing

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Trapezoidal glass building opens in Beijing

Trapezoidal glass building opens in Beijing

Architects are hyper-focused on energy efficiency in new construction, and glass plays a major role in that goal. A new approach to glass building design in the Beijing Greenland Center may help conserve energy while providing a unique appearance. Chicago-based architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) recently designed a glass building that uses trapezoidal glass panels to control the way sunlight enters the building.

Glass building designs display creativity

The Beijing Greenland Center is a 55-story mixed use commercial and residential space. The building’s glass façade was inspired by a bas relief technique and features angled trapezoidal panels with alternating orientations. The visual effect, when viewed from the ground, makes the building appear somewhat like a cheese grater. Thanks to the self-shading façade, the building’s solar heat gain is reduced. SOM aimed to reduce the building’s energy consumption by 30% compared to its similarly situated flat-façade neighbors, but the jury is still out on exactly how energy efficient the new design is.

SOM has been involved in a number of innovative glass building designs that experiment with shape and positioning to control solar gain without sacrificing light transmission. SOM has designed a number of glass buildings in China, including the Jin Mao Tower in Shanghai, the Jiangxi Nanchang Greenland Zifeng Tower in Nanchang, the Hebin Theater Performing Arts Center in Guiyang, the Hong Kong International Airport Terminal 2 and the China World Trade Center 3A in Beijing, among others.

The company has also produced a number of landmark glass building projects in the United States, including 680 Folsom in San Francisco; 1 World Trade Center in New York City; 7 World Trade Center in New York City; the John Hancock Building in Chicago; Burr Street Elementary School in Fairfield, CT; Cathedral of Christ the Light in Oakland; CA and the New United States Courthouse in Los Angeles, CA.

If you’re looking for inspiration for a glass project, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: SOM, via FreeImages.com