How often do you see a phone with a cracked screen? This, along with water damage and fading battery life, is the Achilles’ heel of the modern smartphone and can severely affect the use of a touchscreen.

Do not fear! Motorola have a solution… No, it’s not a new and even stronger gorilla glass (elephant glass anyone?), but a screen that repairs itself when cracked.

The new invention, the patent application for which has just published, is a screen made from a shape memory polymer that has an adjacent or integrated heater to activate the screen into reversing the damage.

Whether this is a bright idea created just to catch the media’s attention that will ultimately end up on the cutting room floor or a workable solution that will make it into smartphones of the future, only time will tell. However, it could be that the age of the cracked screen is over for good…!

“The patent, published recently, details a “method and device for detecting fascia damage and repairing the same”. It would work through a number of thermal elements integrated into the screen, which – when activated – could heat up and repair cracks in the glass.”

https://www.dezeen.com/2017/08/21/motorola-files-patent-for-phone-that-can-repair-own-screen-design-technology-news/