Super-Thin 'Gorilla Glass' Could Help Your Smartphone Survive a 120 Pounds of Pressure Smashing

Cracked smartphone or tablet screens could someday be a thing of the past. In fact, depending on the device you have, it may already be using an extremely strong version of glass. Corning's first generation of Gorilla Glass, which can withstand more than 100 pounds of pressure, is topping the screens of some smartphones, tablets and televisions.

If your smartphone is not made with Gorilla Glass (full list of products featuring Gorilla Glass here), it's likely it could end up like this:

As if 1 mm thick Gorilla Glass, which can withstand about 120 pounds of pressure, wasn't cool enough, Corning is showcasing its next generation of Gorilla Glass at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Gorilla Glass 2 is 20 percent thinner than the original version, coming in at 0.8mm according to Gizmodo, but still maintains the same resistance to pressure.

Watch a review of the glass including footage of the pressure test:

Want to see a version of the 0.8 mm Gorilla Glass survive a baseball traveling 50 mph? Take a look at this test in slow motion:

Corning states that the benefits of such a thin glass include increased touch sensitivity and more design flexibility in the ultra-thin device market. According to Gizmodo, no products on the market have been made with Gorilla Glass 2 yet but "you can be sure even more anorexic thin gadgets are on their way."

“We knew Corning Gorilla Glass could get even better. So, in response to our customers’ drive toward thinner form factors, we designed this new glass to enable meaningful reduction in thickness without sacrificing the outstanding glass performance for which Gorilla Glass has become highly recognized. This glass, along with Windows operating system innovations from Microsoft, will help deliver exceptional beauty, performance, and toughness for new Windows PCs. You will see this early this year with Windows-based PCs which we expect to be the first in-market laptops designed to leverage the performance of our new second-generation glass,” James Steiner, senior vice president and general manager, Corning Specialty Materials,remarked in a press release.

Here's a final example of Gorilla Glass 1's strength demonstrated with a four pound metal ball dropped from a meter high:

Correction: We originally referred to Corning's Gorilla Glass as also the maker of Gorilla Glue. This is not the case. Gorilla Glue is the property of The Gorilla Glue Company based in Cincinnati, Ohio.