Posts Tagged ‘Qualcomm’
By Om Malik
|
Thursday, November 12, 2009 |
8:42 AM PT |
|
Qualcomm has just released a new chip family focused on smartphones, including one that breaks the gigahertz barrier. The chips’ capabilities make clear that the line between phones and low-end notebooks are blurring. They’re based on the Scorpion CPU that is at the heart of Snapdragon chipsets and uses an 800 MHz to 1 GHz custom ARM-based CPU.
This new chip family, the horribly named MSM7×30, can do 720p HD video (encode/decode), 2-D and 3-D graphics, and has surround sound, integrated GPS and a 12-Megapixel camera as well as all the usual trimmings like Bluetooth and Wi-fi and FM Radio 3G (both flavors). On the multimedia front, Qualcomm is playing catch-up Texas Instruments and Nvidia. The new chips work with all smartphone operating systems except Apple’s iPhone OS. They will be launched sometime next year and are optimized for the web experience.
By Stacey Higginbotham
|
Monday, November 9, 2009 |
5:00 PM PT |
|
The FCC has had conversations with Qualcomm and Skyterra in the last few weeks about an effort to use a combination of satellites and a terrestrial network known as ATC (Ancillary Terrestrial Component), which could make 100 MHz of spectrum available for mobile broadband. Given that both the wireless industry and the FCC are unified in calling for more spectrum for mobile data services, the satellite companies are setting themselves up for a potential payday, but I still think it’s a sucker’s bet. Continue »
By Stacey Higginbotham
|
Monday, November 2, 2009 |
9:25 AM PT |
|
Samsung's CDMA Femtocell
Femtocells, micro-base stations placed inside the home to improve cellular coverage, are supposed to be the answer to operators’ bandwidth constraints. They’re also a new source of revenue for carriers and the startups and large equipment-makers who are building the devices. But so far, the market has failed to materialize, not least because consumers don’t want to pay a monthly fee or buy equipment in order to help carriers improve their networks. But as Wi-Fi gets embedded on phones and hotspots proliferate, are femtocells even necessary? Continue »
By Colin Gibbs
|
Monday, October 26, 2009 |
9:23 AM PT |
|
Qualcomm has joined its rival Intel in jumping aboard the open source bandwagon. The San Diego-based chipmaker today unveiled the Qualcomm Innovation Center, a subsidiary created to “optimize open source software with Qualcomm technology.” The QuIC, as Qualcomm has dubbed it, will be headed by Rob Chandhok, who serves as senior vice president of software strategies for Qualcomm CDMA Technologies. Continue »
By Om Malik
|
Tuesday, October 20, 2009 |
8:58 AM PT |
|
We’ve gone back and forth on the existence of a Google phone for a long time now. In the beginning, there was a talk of a Google Phone that turned out to be Android, Google’s mobile operating system targeting handset makers such as HTC, Motorola and Samsung. Now there is word that Google might actually be looking to make its own handset. Again! This comes from Ashok Kumar, a veteran technology analyst with Northeast Securities. In a note to his clients, Kumar notes that “Google is expected to launch a self branded -smartphone by year end followed by –netbook (sic) early next year.”
Continue »
By Om Malik & Stacey Higginbotham
|
Friday, October 2, 2009 |
10:53 AM PT |
|
A stabilizing economy, companies with larger cash piles, a general need for newer technologies (and products) and most importantly, revenue growth are among the reasons that we expect to see strong technology M&A activity in the coming months, as we noted two weeks ago. Since then, three major deals totaling more than $13 billion have been announced: Continue »
By Stacey Higginbotham
|
Wednesday, September 30, 2009 |
7:18 AM PT |
|
Qualcomm COO Len Lauer talks to Stacey Higginbotham on stage at Mobilize 2009 in San Francisco.
Qualcomm may have to change its licensing agreements related to its chips in Japan after
the country’s Fair Trade Commission today ordered it to change the terms of those agreements that give it free access to patents held by manufacturers that use its chips. Qualcomm has 60 days to dispute the order, which it said in a statement that it plans to do in the form of an appeal — and possibly through the Japanese courts. Several Japanese phone makers have licensing agreements with Qualcomm, including Panasonic, Sharp and NEC.
Continue »
By Stacey Higginbotham
|
Tuesday, September 15, 2009 |
8:40 AM PT |
|
Qualcomm’s MediaFLO mobile television network hasn’t met the chipmaker’s expectations, according to COO Len Lauer, whom I spoke with at the Mobilize 09 event last week in San Francisco. I interviewed Lauer about Qualcomm’s FLO network for broadcasting mobile television, about which he said, “We’re not where we need to be. We’re not meeting our expectations.”
But if mobile TV isn’t the right use for the separate network that Qualcomm has built at a cost of more than $800 million, Lauer thinks it might be used by carriers to help offload demand for video on the 3G and 4G networks — kind of like a mobile content delivery network. For more on that and a competing mobile broadcast technology from the GSM Association for network offload, see our report over at NewTeeVee.
By Katie Fehrenbacher
|
Thursday, September 10, 2009 |
2:37 PM PT |
|
Qualcomm is one of the companies that is most identified with 3G cellular technology. After all, the San Diego-based company, founded in 1985, holds key patents on CDMA-based 3G handsets, enabling it to slice a single-digit royalty off every phone. But what will Qualcomm do as carriers transition to higher-speed 4G networks, where the company doesn’t necessarily have such a catbird seat? Well, according to Qualcomm COO Len Lauer, who spoke today at the Mobilize conference in San Francisco, the company is betting on 3G staying around for a good long while and helping extend 3G’s life by offering ways to offload high-bandwidth services.
“Were still saying hello, hello, hello to 3G,” said Lauer. There are still a lot of opportunities left for 3G, and as the world transitions to 4G it will be done in a multi-modal rollout, meaning 4G networks will still work in tandem with the existing 3G network, said Lauer. “We have years and years ahead of us,” he added.
Continue »
By Jennifer Martinez
|
Thursday, September 10, 2009 |
1:56 PM PT |
|
While smartphone sales have proliferated, netbooks are a burgeoning market that was put in the spotlight when Google announced its Chrome OS this summer. Though netbooks aren’t a new player in the tech space, it’s undeniable that consumers’ interest in these devices is rising — but why now? Sure, netbooks are cheap, which is a positive, given the struggling economy, as Mark Spoonauer, editor in chief at LAPTOP Magazine, noted today during a panel at our Mobilize conference. But netbooks also bring together the portability and wireless connectivity that consumers are craving, each of the panelists agreed. While smartphones are a quick fix for information gathering, netbooks are designed for people who want to do more than three minutes of web browsing, said Brian Pitstick, GM of Ultra Mobile Devices at Dell. Continue »
