Corning claims Gorilla Glass 4 is up to twice as tough as any competing hardened glass display covers, being designed to handle the top mobile device customer concern-- screen breakage from everyday drops.

“With Gorilla Glass 4, we have focused on significantly improving protection against sharp contact damage, which is the primary reason that mobile devices break," the company says. "Dropping and breaking a phone is a common problem, and one that our customers have asked us to help address.”

According to Corning Gorilla Glass 4 survives 80% of face-down falls on rough surfaces, and retains most of its strength following a shatter-free fall, thanks to manufacture via proprietary "fusion draw" process. In comparison non-hardened soda-lime glass (the kind used in bottles and windows) breaks nearly 100% of the time in similar tests.

ARM reveals the Cortex-M7, a 32-bit addition to the Cortex-M processor family promising to deliver double the compute and digital signal processing (DSP) capability of current ARM-based microcontrollers.

Designed for use in high-end embedded applications such as next-generation vehicles, connected devices and smart buildings, the M7 runs at 400MHz (in comparison the previous M4 runs at 168MHz), allowing for faster audio and image processing, as well as demanding embedded applications.

"The addition of the Cortex-M7 processor to the Cortex-M series allows ARM and its partners to offer the most scalable and software-compatible solutions possible for the connected world," ARM says. "The versatility and new memory features of the Cortex-M7 enable more powerful, smarter and reliable microcontrollers that can be used across a multitude of embedded applications."

One of the alloys found in CDs and DVDs might be key for the thin and flexible displays of the future-- University of Oxford researcher discovered one can "draw" images on a thin layer of GST alloy sandwiched between two transparent electrode layers.

GST (aka Ge2Sb2Te5 or Germanium-Antimony-Tellurium) alloy is a phase change material (PCM), meaning it is able to change between two states with the application of heat, light or electricity. It finds use in rewritable CDs and DVDs, where laser pulses cause it to switch between amorphous and crystalline states.

"We didn't set out to invent a new kind of display," research leader Professor Harish Bhaskaran says. 'We were exploring the relationship between the electrical and optical properties of phase change materials and then had the idea of creating this GST "sandwich" made up of layers just a few nanometres thick. We found that not only were we able to create images in the stack but, to our surprise, thinner layers of GST actually gave us better contrast. We also discovered that altering the size of the bottom electrode layer enabled us to change the colour of the image."

According to the researchers tiny PCM stacks can be turned into "nano-pixels" measuring just 300 x 300 nanometers. One can electrically switch these on and off at will to create the building blocks of a high-resolution display technology.

In an effort to provide the European continent with faster mobile internet in the near future the European Commission (EC) strikes a "strategic cooperation" deal with S. Korea to share 5G research and resources.

The agreement, or "Joint Declaration on Strategic Cooperation in Information Communications Technology (ICT) and 5G," covers the development of so-called "Net Futures" (5G, network and communications and cloud) and includes the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the EU's 5G Infrastructure Association and S. Korea's 5G Forum.

It follows a November 2013 collaboration agreement, and will eventually see the launch of jointly funded R&D programs during 2016-2017.

The 5G Infrastructure Association counts Alcatel-Lucent, Atos, Deutsche Telekom, Ericsson, Nokia, Orange, Telecom Italia, Telenor and Telefonica as members.