Pity the glass on the front of your smartphone. It typically gets subjected to a lot of abuse through its life and sometimes even shatters if the forces are too much. But glass manufacturers are continually pushing the boundaries of what's possible with the material, and some of the latest gadget glass is on show this week by Nippon Electric Glass at the Ceatec 2013 expo.
Among the more impressive demonstrations, the company was showing off the impact resistance of its "T2X" chemically strengthened glass that's already used in smartphones and tablet PCs.
Every 30 seconds throughout the show, a 500-gram steel ball was dropping from a height of about a meter onto a sheet of the glass about the size of a small TV screen. Every time the ball fell, it bounced off the front of the glass and the sheet appeared none the worse for the demonstration.
Equally impressive was the company's G-Leaf glass, which is so thin and flexible that it is supplied on a roll to customers.
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