Hasta La Gadget!

Truthfully, we’re having a hard time coming to grips with this. For as long as we wished that these two would stop bickering, it’s actually tough to swallow the fact that we’ll never again be able to write about “yet another lawsuit” between Qualcomm and Broadcom (in theory, anyway). After nearly three full years of fighting with pencils, papers and soulless words, the courtroom throwdowns are finally ceasing. In a shocking development, the two rivals have entered into a settlement and multi-year patent agreement that will “result in the dismissal with prejudice of all litigation between the companies, including all patent infringement claims in the International Trade Commission and US District Court in Santa Ana, as well as the withdrawal by Broadcom of its complaints to the European Commission and the Korea Fair Trade Commission.” The exact terms of the deal are posted after the break, though you should know that Qualcomm will have to shell out $891 million in cash (ouch!) over the next four years. The lawyers may be out of work, but you can rest assured that there’s no shortage of abhorrence between these frenemies.

Continue reading Broadcom and Qualcomm agree to stop suing one another, but not to stop hating

Filed under: Cellphones

Broadcom and Qualcomm agree to stop suing one another, but not to stop hating originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 26 Apr 2009 22:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NVIDIA is showing that wacky Mini 1000 / Tegra mashup at CTIA, but Qualcomm’s not far behind with its own creative ways to repurpose smartphone silicon into MID and netbook-class devices. Making an appearance at Qualcomm’s booth was a prototype PurseBook from Taiwan’s Wistron, which stuffs a Snapdragon chipset into a device looking (and weighing) a little bit like a VAIO P. That’s where the similarities to the Sony box ends, though, because Qualcomm sees the PurseBook (and devices like it) hitting in the $299 to $499 range — we’d like to see them even cheaper, truth be told — and you won’t be running Vista here. Instead, you’ve got a pretty slick Linux distro from ThunderSoft that’ll edit Office docs, give you a desktop-class web experience, and connect with social networks, which are the three things most of us spend 90 percent of our PC face time doing anyhow. It’s not going to replace your laptop by any stretch, but with a claimed 8 hours of battery life, we could totally see packing this thing as an ultra-lightweight alternative for day trips. Qualcomm expects the PurseBook and devices like it to ship in 2009 — as does NVIDIA, so we’re definitely lining up for a sweet battle royale here. Follow the break for video.

Continue reading Wistron’s Snapdragon-powered PurseBook gets demoed

Filed under: Laptops

Wistron’s Snapdragon-powered PurseBook gets demoed originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Apr 2009 21:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This economic crisis has been tough for nearly every business worldwide, perhaps best evidenced by the number of corporate spats we’ve seen develop lately as everyone gets more and more protective of their respective turfs. While Intel and NVIDIA have lately been engaged in an epic war of PowerPoint presentations, fewer disputes have been bigger or longer-running than the one between Intel and its more direct competition, AMD. That “us inside” company just earned some bragging rights, being named the biggest processor manufacturer in the world again by iSuppli, with a 13.1 percent global market share. AMD, which came in tenth last year, dropped down to the number twelve position in 2008 after its revenue declined 7.8 percent compared to 2007. News was also bad for Texas Instruments, which dropped a position largely thanks to the success of mobile processors from Toshiba and Qualcomm. Don’t be so glum, TI, maybe successes from Russell Crowe’s favorite flavor of pico projector will make up for the difference.

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Intel rated leading chip manufacturer again, AMD slips out of top ten originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Mar 2009 09:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Last time we Qualcomm’s mirasol display in action, it was still enjoying its black-and-white simplicity. While the ultra-efficient, ambient light-loving technology hasn’t gone through that Pleasantville epiphany just yet, a 1.1-inch bichrome mirasol touchscreen has found its way onto Inventec‘s V112 Smartphone alongside a decidedly more colorful bigger brother. It’ll serve to show time, incoming and missed calls, email and SMS alerts, MP3 song information, and other information that doesn’t require a lot of space or hue. As for the phone itself, we’ve got GPS, WiFI, Bluetooth, a three megapixel camera, and no word on pricing or availability. Additioanlly, Inventec has announced an agreement with LG to include use mirasol — presumably also as secondary screens — into one more commercial handsets sometime in the future. A great deal for Qualcomm, for sure, but how about a few more details on what exactly those phones will be?

Read – Inventec V112
Read – LG mirasol agreement

Filed under: Cellphones

Qualcomm adds mirasol display to Inventec V112 now, LG handsets later originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Feb 2009 02:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In a press release recently issued by Qualcomm, the company states that it’s taking direct aim at the sub-$150 smartphone market with a new chipset on offer. The platform — known as the MSM7227 — is apparently designed with higher-power, lower-cost handsets in mind, offering HSDPA / HSUPA radios, a 600MHz CPU, 320MHz application DSP, 400MHz modem processor, hardware-accelerated 3D graphics, Bluetooth 2.1, and GPS support integrated in a 12mm x 12mm chipset. The MSM7227 can also supposedly handle 8 megapixel camera and 30 FPS WVGA encoding / decoding with ease, and is capable of supporting Android, S60, Windows Mobile, and BREW platforms. Given the company’s recent foray into Snapdragon and other pricier options, it’s interesting to see them taking a shine to the low end of the market. We know that ASUS are planning on launching a cheaper Eee phone sometime soon, and they’re currently snuggling up to Qualcomm for chip duty on an Android device. Is this the year we’ll see the rise of the smartphone version of the netbook (cheap, plentiful, almost disposable)? Only MWC knows for sure.

[Via The Inquirer]

Filed under: Cellphones

Qualcomm makes a play for the sub-$150 smartphone market with new chipset originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 14 Feb 2009 21:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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