So Jobs called the CEO of Corning to find out if that company could develop a super-hard, scratch-resistant glass for Apple products. Corning brought the old '60s project back to life and called it Gorilla Glass. Now, it's the standard for mobile devices and found in 600 million devices.

A new version introduced this year, called , which is just as strong but 20% thinner, will help smartphones and continue to get thinner and lighter without sacrificing durability.

Corning has another glass technology that could really change things for consumer technology. The new glass is both . The flexibility enables the manufacturing process to resemble how plastic is made, on factory rollers. It has all the scratch- and heat-resistance of glass.

The company envisions the use of this technology to make wall-size touch displays, for example, and tiny mobile phones that are very thin, light and low cost.

The company also announced this week a new glass technology that , including scary antibiotic-resistant super bugs. This will be great for medical tablets, and possibly for consumers.