qualcomm

While it lacks the bombast and sheer size of major technology trade shows such as CES and the Electronic Entertainment Expo, the annual Game Developers Conference has quietly become one of the most important events on gaming's calendar.

This relatively small conference, held in San Francisco, is where game designers and programmers, as well as publishers, developers, and the third-party technology companies they work with, come together for panels, classes, and keynotes. As the show has traditionally been (until a few years ago) largely under the press radar, you're just as likely to rub elbows with actual game … Read more

As the Apple iPad and its A4 chip get ready to ship on April 3, the competition is not standing still--and, by all appearances, there's plenty of it.

As reported back in January, the A4's central processing unit, or CPU, design, as it stands now, is thought to be based primarily on technology from U.K.-based ARM. Linley Gwennap, who is the president and principal analyst of The Linley Group, believes the A4 uses a fairly common ARM CPU designed by Intrinsity and manufactured by Samsung.

Where Apple, instead, may have chosen to enhance the A4's … Read more

Normally, when we hear about a Compaq product, we associate it with entry-level computers. HP apparently remembers the days when Compaq first released iPAQ smart devices, because it chose to announce the AirLife smartbook device under its Compaq brand instead.

Though tablet PCs are getting the lion's share of attention lately, "smartbooks"--laptop-like devices with advanced smartphone processors and pared-down operating systems--are attempting to build some momentum, too. The Compaq AirLife 100 looks like many Netbooks, but it differs in several ways: it has a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor instead of an Intel Atom, comes with 3G … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Before CES, one of our predictions as to what would be a big story on the show floor was the emergence of smartbooks, or mini-notebooks as they're sometimes called. The term was coined by Qualcomm in referring to tiny laptop-like devices using processors that are derived from smartphone-level CPUs, but are in many cases even more powerful. The two most common CPUs seem to be the Snapdragon from Qualcomm and the Tegra/Tegra 2 from Nvidia, both using ARM-based processors.

Consider the concept, ideally, as a device somewhere between a smartphone and a Netbook--hence "smartbook." Unfortunately, … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs is about to speak here at CES 2010. We'll be posting frequent updates once he gets started, in about five minutes.

Update 11:20 a.m.: Jacobs opens his speech with a prediction: that all consumer electronics devices will essentially be phones one day. Because inside they'll have chips from cell phones for downloading books, apps, and connecting to other devices. This is what he'll be talking about today.

Update 11:25 a.m.: A lot of computing power is going into mobile phones, and that will impact the user experience, Jacobs … Read more

The Qualcomm Snapdragon processor is on a tear. It has appeared in the high-profile Google Nexus One and a Lenovo laptop all in a span of about 12 hours.

Last June, the Snapdragon debuted in the compelling but low-profile Toshiba TG01, a big-screen (4.1 inches) smartphone.

That was then. Now it's in the Google Nexus One, which is quickly rivaling the Apple iPhone and Motorola Droid for device star power. Google prominently lists Snapdragon on its specification page as the "Qualcomm QSD 8250, 1GHz."

Previous Qualcomm silicon powered the T-Mobile G1--the first phone to run Google's Android OS--… Read more

Do you believe in smartbooks yet? Smaller than Netbooks, running custom OSes and miniature smartphone processors, these newly-coined devices are supposed to offer the best of smartphone convenience with the form factor of a Netbook. They're ready to start appearing on the scene, and Lenovo has one of the first with their Skylight.

With a 10.1-inch screen, it's not exactly a supersmall device compared to an iPhone--but it is much thinner than nearly any Netbook. With built-in 3G and Wi-Fi, Lenovo promises a seamless browsing experience. The OS, however, is not Windows, or even Ubuntu: it's … Read more

UPDATE: Hands-on impressions added below. The IdeaPad U1 Hybrid is our Best of CES 2010 Award Winner in the category of Computers and Hardware. Also be sure to check out our hands-on impressions of Lenovo's other Netbooks and smartbooks from CES.

Tablets are rapidly becoming the hot chatter-buzzword of 2010. Netbooks were very 2009. Combine them both and perhaps you end up with a great idea--at least, so hopes Lenovo. In one of the boldest moves in laptop technology at CES, the IdeaPad U1 Hybrid doesn't just flip its screen to become a tablet--the screen detaches completely as … Read more

The Google phone may use what is probably the fastest smartphone chip on the planet and could become the first non-Windows smartphone to tap into this kind of processing power.

Conspicious among the Google phone's leaked specifications is the Snapdragon processor from Qualcomm. Snapdragon is the first gigahertz-class ARM-based processor to be used in smartphones. (In current implementations, Snapdragon runs at 1GHz.)

And the Google phone (aka, Nexus One) would--if it becomes an actual product--have some interesting company, though both of the rival phones that use the chip are in the Windows Mobile camp: the Toshiba TG01 and … Read more