Hasta La Gadget!

The Alliance for Wireless Power (A4WP), a group created through the joint efforts of Qualcomm and Samsung, is getting ready to tackle the growing wireless charging market by introducing its very own standard to compete against the likes of the WPC. This morning the consortium, which claims TI, Powermat and Deutsche Telekom (among several others) as members, not only went into greater detail on its plans for the future but also brought along some prototype pads and embedded furniture to show us.

The A4WP’s solution is a “non-radiative magnetic resonance-based wireless power transfer ecosystem” — in short, it allows your phone, tablet or other A4WP-certified gadget (such as light bulbs, as demonstrated above) to charge from a small distance. What does this mean to you, dear consumer? In short, your device doesn’t have to be directly touching the pad in order to receive a charge; instead, you could place your phone on top of a notebook or other obstruction (heck, you could even stack your phone on top of another phone or tablet) and still power up your handset. lt will also allow you to place more than one device on the same pad — and even more than one device type, so tablets and phones can charge together in harmony despite the fact that they both have different power requirements — and move them around anywhere on the pad without interrupting the charge. These are key differentiators that make A4WP’s option a very tempting one for the general user.

Continue reading Hands-on with Alliance for Wireless Power’s charging pad prototypes

Filed under: Cellphones, Peripherals, Tablets, Wireless, Mobile, Samsung

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T-Mobile knows that the easiest way to get new customers is to give away your service for free, and it’s handing access out like so much candy with its new 4G Connect strategy. Similar to what we’ve seen for Chromebooks, the deal supplies 200MB of free data every month for up to two years, right out of the box. Those who need more than casual email checks on the road just need to pay T-Mobile’s prepaid rates to keep the broadband going. The Dell Inspiron 14z and HP Pavilion dm1 are the only devices available for now that qualify for the 4G Connect plan, but more are lined up for 2013, including (but not exclusively) devices with Qualcomm’s Gobi chipsets in PCs or its Snapdragon chips in Windows RT tablets. T-Mobile tells us that we won’t have to hunt down specific Magenta models, either — once a PC line includes 4G Connect, every American variant should carry the needed modem as a matter of course.

We had the opportunity to try a Pavilion dm1 with 4G Connect, and it’s clear that T-Mobile is largely letting the PC builder take priority. The hardware is very much vanilla on the outside. Most of what you’ll notice, apart from reasonably fast HSPA+ data when you’re away from WiFi, is a custom T-Mobile app. Both a Live Tile and the full app will show usage; diving in shows everything in a simple not-Metro layout with extra options for SMS messaging and topping up when the bandwidth runs low. Apart from having to register the PC in the first place, the service is as simple as we’d care to see. Now, where’s our LTE connection?

Continue reading T-Mobile’s 4G Connect offers free 200MB of monthly data on PCs and tablets (hands-on)

Filed under: Laptops, Tablets, Mobile, T-Mobile

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Source: T-Mobile

This shouldn’t come as a surprise after Steve Ballmer crashed the Qualcomm CES keynote yesterday, but at a follow-up briefing earlier today, the latter’s CEO Paul Jacobs reiterated his support for Windows Phone. The exec said “it’s too early to call the game” on Microsoft’s mobile OS, and emphasized that he “never counted Microsoft out” as it has a lot of resources plus benefits, especially with the tie-in with its enterprise software and Xbox. “It is growing, they are gaining traction. When you use the devices they work well. That’s pretty key,” said Jacobs. Well, we’re certainly fans of the Snapdragon-powered HTC 8X and Lumia 920, so we shall see.

Filed under: Misc

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Who hasn’t dreamed of having a Tricorder from the show Star Trek? Qualcomm announced the Tricorder X Prize last year, who’s aim is to create a Star Trek-like device. Those who are interested in fame and fortune, as well as the $10 million prize, can finally register starting tomorrow and then they have to actually make it happen. There have already been over 250 teams pre-registered for the competition, and those interested can head to the official site for the full guidelines and actually register for the site.

Filed under: Handhelds, HD

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Source: Qualcomm Tricorder X Prize

Qualcomm’s isn’t really a brand that figures prominently into the average person’s understanding of the mobile space, and that’s exactly the issue that the San Diego-based semiconductor company is trying to tackle in its newest and most prominent CES keynote to date. Cringeworthy introduction aside (facepalm material as far as the eye could see), Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs took the stage to announce some big changes to its Snapdragon line of mobile chipsets.

The S-series moniker slapped onto the chipsets of yore is now officially dead — Qualcomm has just announced a slew of new mobile chipsets complete with some new naming conventions to go with them. Sitting atop the heap is the newly announced Snapdragon 800, which Qualcomm claims will run a full 75 percent faster than the existing Snapdragon S4 Pro (you know, the crazy-fast chipset used in devices like LG’s Optimus G and Nexus 4). It’ll be quite some time before we can test those claims for ourselves (the first Snapdragon 800s won’t see the light of day until around the middle of the year), but its components paint a pretty powerful picture.

The Snapdragon 800 will feature Krait 400 CPU cores that can run as fast as 2.3GHz, an Adreno 330 GPU, and some significant upgrades in terms of connectivity. Think support for LTE-Advanced (which allows for data speeds up to 150Mbps), as well as 802.11ac Wi-Fi. Of course, Jacobs did more than just talk about the 800 series — Guillermo del Toro made a guest appearance to plug Pacific Rim, prompting Jacobs to kick off an impressive clip of the film running off of an 800 series chipset.

Also on deck today was the Snapdragon 600, a considerable leap from its predecessor, the Snapdragon S4 Pro. It sports a few significant differences in architecture when compared to the S4 Pro — it can hit clock speeds of 1.9GHz, and features a slightly snappier version of the Adreno 320 GPU. When all is said and done, the 600 is said to be roughly 40 percent more powerful than the S4 Pro.

Naturally, not every mobile device is going to get a super-fast processor. Qualcomm is prepping chipsets for those entry-level and budget-conscious smartphones, as well, though there wasn’t much detail given today. Take the Snapdragon 200 series, for instance — it’s a more basic chipset that’s geared to provide solid (if not necessarily remarkable) battery life and performance for entry-level smartphones. A 400 series Snapdragon chipset is in the works, too, but Jacobs didn’t spend too much time digging into these little guys; they’ll be fleshed out in greater detail later this year.

As it happens, some of you may have stumbled upon the news a little early — a few prominent sites seem to have pushed news of the Snapdragon overhaul out a little prematurely before hastily taking them offline. Thankfully for Qualcomm though, the accidental release of these articles doesn’t seem to have stolen much thunder (which is really the last thing Qualcomm needs at this point). For what it’s worth, anyone who doubted that Qualcomm was capable of putting on a good show was soundly proven wrong tonight — surprise appearances from Big Bird, NASCAR driver Brad Keselowski, and a video address from Archbishop Desmond Tutu were just a few of the treats the company had in store for the audience. If its forthcoming Snapdragon chips (and its push for greater consumer recognition) goes pans out as well as its keynote has, we could be in store for some very impressive days to come from Qualcomm.