Corning: Enough LCD screen glass to make four-lane highway from Seattle to Boston

You might have known that New York-based Corning is responsible for the hardened glass on your Motorola Droid smartphone.

What you may not have known is that the company is the world's leading glass supplier for LCD displays, supplying half the total glass in the market for cell phones, notebook computers, computer monitors and televisions.

Add up how much glass Corning shipped in 2010, and you could build a four-line highway from Seattle to Boston.

That's more than 3,000 miles of glass.

But Corning doesn't just make glass for smartphones. It has also invested in glass for e-book readers, solar cells, retail displays and the next-generation of LCD display technology -- yes, a flexible, roll-able display for what could be a future iPad or other tablet device.

Interested in what the company is up to in its research lab? Head over to SmartPlanet's Pure Genius blog for the whole story.