Vibrant Gorilla Glass has arrived

In April, Corning announced that it had developed a new product, which it calls Vibrant Gorilla Glass, for use in mobile devices. If you’re familiar with Gorilla Glass, you know that it’s widely used in the mobile device industry – there are (literally) about 4 billion mobile devices that use Gorilla Glass today. Gorilla Glass is a specially formulated glass that is exceptionally good at resisting breakage, which is why it’s so heavily used in mobile devices.

Gorilla Glass claims more mobile real estate

Vibrant Gorilla Glass is a bit of a departure from Gorilla Glass. First, it’s not a new and/or improved version of Gorilla Glass. It uses the current version of the product. Second, it’s not meant for the front of a mobile device, where the other 4 billion pieces of Gorilla Glass have gone. Vibrant Gorilla Glass is meant for the cases, covers and backsides of mobile devices.

The company is betting that the value of putting Gorilla Glass on the backside of a device is that it will allow manufacturers to customize their cases and covers in a way that wasn’t possible before. In short, Corning is bringing back painting to mobile device cases. Using specially designed ink that bonds to glass, manufacturers can incorporate low-glare, photorealistic images into their mobile device cases and covers. Because the image is applied to the backside of the glass, the customized images and branding designs won’t chip, wear or fade.

Acer has already announced that it intends to offer Vibrant Gorilla Glass as an option on its new Chromebook 14 for Work, but also says that a minimum order of 1,000 units is required for customized orders. Ultimately, that means that highly customized images won’t be filtering down to the individual level anytime soon, but Acer may still offer a range of cover options for individuals that include the Vibrant Gorilla Glass product.

Corning also says that it is in talks with a number of other manufacturers who are interested in offering a Vibrant Gorilla Glass cover or case. The company is also considering extending the technology to after-market cases that are designed to slip over ordinary device covers.

Backpainting is nothing new, but it does point to a rise in interest in backpainted displays. You can make your own backpainted designs, using Glassprimer™ glass paint on glass surfaces around your home. You can also use Glassprimer™ glass surface molecular activator to improve the results of digital printing on glass surfaces.

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

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