qualcomm

For AT&T, it's been a week of lose some, win some.

The wireless carrier said late Thursday that it now has the green light from the Federal Communications Commission to acquire 700MHz licenses from Qualcomm, in a deal valued at $1.9 billion. The companies expect to complete the transaction, which was originally announced a year ago, "in the coming days," AT&T said.

"This spectrum will help AT&T continue to deliver a world-class mobile broadband experience to our customers," said Bob Quinn, AT&T's senior vice president … Read more

Dish Network is sitting pretty right now.

The demise of AT&T's $39 billion deal to acquire T-Mobile leaves AT&T in a vulnerable position, that of a company in need of wireless spectrum but with few sources from whom to acquire it.

Verizon Wireless has only exacerbated the dilemma with its own move to acquire spectrum held by the cable providers, which shores up its own position. The broadcasters, meanwhile, have been sitting on a stash of spectrum and have been fighting attempts by the Federal Communications Commission to repurpose it for the wireless industry.

AT&… Read more

Qualcomm expects the first Snapdragon-powered Windows 8 PC to arrive a year from now, marking the entry into a lucrative new business for the wireless chip company.

Qualcomm is already working with Microsoft to ensure that computers running on the next-generation operating system will be able to run on its chips based on ARM's technology, which sacrifice processing power for more energy efficiency and ability to always remain connected. Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs said he sees a majority of the Windows 8 products coming after the end of fiscal 2012, which comes in September.

"We're going to … Read more

Now that Apple has its full holiday lineup for this year, rumors of next-gen products should start heating up. One such rumor follows a press release from Qualcomm, which makes the 3G chips in iPhones, saying that it seems likely that its 4G LTE Gobi 4000 chip is destined to be included in the iPad 3.

"Embedded modules based on our new Gobi 4000 technology are designed to give consumers an uncompromised mobile connectivity experience, both in terms of download speeds and flexibility," said Cristiano Amon, senior vice president of product management for Qualcomm CDMA Technologies.

Though Apple was not specifically mentioned in the press release as a partner for the new chip, Qualcomm did list several of Apple's competitors in the mobile space including Windows and Android, and noted that the Gobi 4000 API is perfect for personal computing as well as tablet and e-reader operating systems.… Read more

If Qualcomm Atheros President Craig Barratt had his way, the whole world would work like his house in Silicon Valley.

Barratt lives in the ideal vision of the connected home. He has precise control over things like temperature, energy consumption, the TV, stereo, and security system--all accessed remotely through his laptop. There's no remote control at home; he and his family can switch on the lights, open and close the curtain, and make sure the lawn is watered by using a connected iPod Touch.

Of course, it helps that Barratt actually wrote the software that powers everything in the … Read more

Augmented reality in smartphones is just getting started.

If you have a smartphone or Nintendo 3DS, you've probably played with some form of augmented reality, which superimposes graphics, words and other useful information over real-life images.

Yelp, for instance, offers its Monocle feature, allowing you to see local listings superimposed over the image captured by the phone's camera. It uses the compass and gyroscope to locate the specific listings, which move in and out of view depending on where you hold the device. The augmented browser Layar came to prominence by accomplishing the same feat on Android smartphones. … Read more

I've often used this column to talk about how developers can get their apps noticed, so it's appropriate that the issue of discoverability was a key topic at a recent panel that I moderated.

Discoverability, it turns out, is not just a dilemma for small developers but in the minds of wireless and media executives as well. They approach it in many different ways.

Brad Duea, senior vice president of value-added services for T-Mobile USA, said his company's research indicates consumers prefer apps that are preloaded by the carriers. Jim Eadie, senior vice president for digital business … Read more

Hooking up every device to a cellular or wireless connection is the "next big thing" that will drive growth in the industry, according to Glenn Lurie, head of emerging devices for AT&T.

Lurie has been responsible for creating new revenue opportunities by connecting everything from medicine bottles to dog collars at AT&T. He believes the industry is just starting to realize this opportunity.

"Everything that has a current running through it will be connected," Lurie said. "They need to be smarter."

A study conducted by Machina Research and funded by … Read more

An Apple phone branded as the iPhone 5 won't arrive until "4G" LTE technology is ready for compact smartphones, according to analysts.

Needless to say, the iPhone 5 did not make an appearance today. Will Strauss, president of wireless chip market research firm Forward Concepts, says there is a very good reason that it was the 4S that showed up today and not the 5.

"They're saving iPhone 5 for the LTE version and that won't be out until next spring," said Strauss, who tracks companies like Qualcomm that supply the chips that … Read more