Willow Glass: ultra-thin glass can ‘wrap’ around devices

A new type of flexible ultra-thin glass has been unveiled by the company that developed Gorilla Glass.

Dubbed Willow Glass, the product can be “wrapped” around a device, said the New York-based developer Corning.

The glass was showcased at the Society for Information Display’s Display Week, an industry trade show in Boston.

Besides smartphones, it could also be used for displays that are not flat, the company said.

But until such “conformable” screens appear on the market, the glass could be used for mobile devices that are constantly becoming slimmer.

“Displays become more pervasive each day and manufacturers strive to make both portable devices and larger displays thinner,” said Dipak Chowdhury, Willow Glass programme director at Corning.

The prototype demonstrated in Boston was as thin as a sheet of paper, and the company said that it can be made to be just 0.05mm thick – thinner than the current 0.2mm or 0.5mm displays.

The firm has already started supplying customers developing new display and touch technology with samples of the product.

Lots of potential outside technology products, of course: interior, textile and jewellery design could benefit (curved glass walls, wearable glass etc?)

(Read more at BBC News – Willow Glass: ultra-thin glass can ‘wrap’ around devices: .)

Hi-tech car aid for older drivers

A team at Newcastle University is developing new technology aimed at helping older drivers stay on the road.

Many give up because their reaction times have slowed down – but this means they become more isolated and inactive.

One of the Intelligent Transport team’s developments is a “Granny-Nav” which identifies the safest route, such as avoiding right turns.

The Age UK charity said such developments could help the elderly maintain their independence.

[…]

Many avoid turning right because they do not feel confident about judging the speed of oncoming traffic.

It also uses pictures of local landmarks, such as a post box or public house, as turning cues for when people are driving in unfamiliar places.

(Read more and watch video at BBC News – Hi-tech car aid for older drivers)

Maybe she’s born with it

The Page Turner

The future of books (real books) lies in design

An interesting snippet in a preview of 2012′s upcoming attractions:

I was intrigued by a conversation I had with the winner of this year’s Man Booker prize, Julian Barnes. He expects to see more care and attention lavished upon hardback book design over the coming year, as publishers attempt to differentiate the printed word from its electronic sibling.

“At a point when the physical book is under threat from e-books, one of the ways for the physical book to continue is to make it a very beautiful object. And so paper quality goes up and cover design is more important,” he said.

This is something I’ve been thinking about for a while, and I noticed that while I’m now buying most of my books on the Kindle, there are certain titles that I will either buy as a physical copy, or I’ll get both and, increasingly, the physical book will be a hardback.

Apparently (I can’t find the source for this just now) hardback sales have been increasing and it’s guessed that this is people buying a copy for the shelf alongside a copy for the Kindle. It seems we want a physical avatar for the eBook, a way of displaying what it is we’ve read.

Books used to be expensive and those who had the money and education amassed libraries that were on display to everyone as a sign of their learning and status. Perhaps that’s where we’re going again – the embarrassing Katy Price biography stays on the Kindle, while the Steve Jobs biography sits proudly on the shelf.

(I don’t have the Katy Price book, by the way – that’s just an example).

We’ll be looking at taste and how we display it to others in the new semester, so make sure if you’re on the new module you take a photo of your shelves…

via BBC News – Look ahead to 2012.

23 Years On, Apple Releases The Knowledge Navigator

23 years ago, back when Apple used to make such things, they released a concept video of what a computer of September 2011 would look like. Well they were only a few days out…

If you’ve seen the demo of the new Siri software on the iPhone 4S announced yesterday you’ll notice the similarity. Play the video – it’s quite interesting (I remember seeing this a couple of years later – it seemed like a bit of a fantasy, to be honest. They’ve only gone and done it…

Now all they need is a badge you can pin to your chest and touch to start talking to the communicator, like in Star Trek: The Next Generation…

Oh, wait!

How long before someone makes it work with the iPhone?

Should you worry if your jeans go smart?

What if those new jeans you’ve just bought start tweeting about your location as you cross London Bridge?

It sounds far-fetched, but it’s possible – if one of your garments is equipped with a tiny radio-frequency identification device (RFID), your location could be revealed without you knowing about it.

RFIDs are chips that use radio waves to send data to a reader – which in turn can be connected to the web.

This technology is just one of the current ways of allowing physical objects to go online – a concept dubbed the “internet of things”, which industry insiders have shortened to IoT.

Read the full story (and related articles) at BBC News – Internet of things: Should you worry if your jeans go smart?.