qualcomm

As Google's Android continues to experience birthing pains in tablets, Windows 8 has emerged as an attractive, albeit still distant, alternative.

By the time Windows 8 tablets hit the market in 2012, Microsoft will have had ample time to analyze the initial missteps of the Android platform, not to mention its own unimpressive attempts at "slate" operating systems over the years. Generally speaking, Microsoft may miss with the first few whacks at something new but they're usually good at eventually nailing an operating environment. If only because of their tenacity. They will persevere for years, even … Read more

Though the iPad got the ball rolling, Windows 8 may be the catalyst that finally brings about the "post-PC" era, as Apple likes to call it (and others prefer not to).

While many digirati were attending a conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., I was further down the coast in San Diego attending a less glamorous but hardly less important Qualcomm conference. Qualcomm is, after all, the enormously profitable company (with a market cap just shy of $100 billion, rivaling Intel, which is at about $115 billion) that supplies the guts of many of the world's feature … Read more

Nvidia and Qualcomm have very different schedules for putting chips with four processor cores in tablets, smartphones, and laptops. Nvidia's CEO and a Qualcomm vice president spoke to CNET recently on the topic.

Qualcomm announced that it is developing quad-core chips this week for Windows 8. Nvidia made a similar announcement earlier this year. And this week at Computex, Microsoft even floated the concept of a laptop running Windows 8 on top of an Nvidia quad-core processor, according to Anandtech (see photo below).

Analysts are even beginning to mention Apple's future A6 processor as a possible candidate for … Read more

SAN DIEGO--Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs said a potpourri of devices will tap into the goodness of its Snapdragon chips, as the company also said Wednesday that it is working with Microsoft on the next version of Windows.

Qualcomm's dual-core Snapdragon processor will make its first high-profile appearance in Hewlett-Packard's TouchPad tablet, due soon. Like chips from Texas Instruments and Apple, Qualcomm's APQ8660 is based on the ARM architecture.

The company also began sample shipments this month of its next-generation "Krait" MSM8960 processor, which is designed to run at speeds up to 2.5GHz and integrates … Read more

Microsoft is placing "troublesome" restrictions on hardware makers working on Windows 8 tablets, according to both Acer's president and its CEO.

Speaking yesterday at the Computex trade show in Taiwan, Acer President Jim Wong said Microsoft had chosen five chip manufacturers--Intel, Advanced Micro Devices, Nvidia, Qualcomm, and Texas Instruments--to provide processors for the next generation of Windows tablets, according to The Wall Street Journal. Taking it a step further, Microsoft then decided to limit each chipmaker to supplying chips to no more than two hardware makers, a move that Wong sees as restrictive.

"The industry does … Read more

AT&T is pinning its future on getting its hands on more wireless spectrum. But should regulators allow AT&T, which owns more wireless spectrum than any other wireless operator across the nation, to gobble up even more of this scarce resource?

That's the big question that the Federal Communications Commission is grappling with as it scrutinizes the planned merger between AT&T and T-Mobile, which will transfer all of T-Mobile's spectrum to AT&T. The FCC is also in the middle of considering AT&T's plan to buy spectrum in the lower part of the 700MHz band of spectrum from Qualcomm.… Read more

The iPhone 5, expected later this year, likely won't have 4G capability--or what is more precisely described as LTE. Here's why.

First, a quick preamble. Because of the liberal use of the term by carrier marketing departments, the definition of 4G is fuzzy, meaning different things (e.g., performance, specifications) for different carriers. For the sake of this discussion, 4G will be described as LTE, or Long Term Evolution, which offers, among other things, higher download and upload speeds compared to 3G.

I asked Will Strauss, president of wireless chip market research firm Forward Concepts, why the iPhone … Read more

A leaked version of Netflix for Android has been uncovered on the Net, but so far it doesn't seem able to actually stream any content.

Reportedly stripped off a prototype of LG's Revolution Android phone, according to Business Insider, the APK (Android package) for Netflix found its way onto the Internet this week for anyone to download.

The Revolution was spotted running Netflix at CES in January. According to Engadget and other sources, people who've actually tried the app are able to launch it and browse the various titles easily enough. They just can't watch anything. … Read more

Qualcomm announced this week that future Android devices running Qualcomm's Snapdragon platform will have support for streaming television shows and movies through Netflix. The on-demand service has long been a desired feature for phones and tablets.

Currently, the only Netflix option for Android users is to watch through Google TV. According to a press release issued yesterday, the holdup was due to security concerns within the platform. Thanks to its optimized Snapdragon chipset, Qualcomm claims it can deliver dynamic performance and DRM protection to content providers while giving Netflix the necessary security.

There is no indication just yet as … Read more