Revolutionary Coating Could Kill Touchscreen Glare Forever [Guts]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5920275/revolutionary-coating-could-kill-touchscreen-glare-forever

If Sony manages to perfect its fantastic new low-reflection display coating, one day you may never fear using your touchscreen device in a bright room, too close to overhead lights, or even outside when it's sunny. Because glare will be a thing of the past.

Previously, touchscreen manufacturers have tried to reduce glare on their displays by using layers of different materials with varying refraction indexes. And working together, they help minimize the reflection of external light sources into your eyes. But Sony's new approach involves a special film it's developed that was inspired by how a moth's eyes work. Across its surface is a pattern of microscopic concave and convex structures that serve to evenly bounce light away from the user, reducing glare. And apparently the approach works on an even wider range of wavelengths than the anti-reflective coatings currently in use.

The improvement means less squinting for the user, or having to awkwardly angle their device away from a light source. And since increasing the display's brightness is one way to reduce glare in current devices, it will also let users increase their battery life by turning down their displays. Next step: actually getting this stuff from being just a fancy trade show tech demo to actually on devices.

[Tech-On! via Geek.com]