LAS VEGAS —
Paul E. Jacobs, chairman/
CEO of Qualcomm, touted the innovations of
wireless — which just so happen to be powered
by his company’s chips – during his
opening day keynote speech during International
CES.
Jacobs, who remarked that Qualcomm is
“the No. 1 supplier of silicon for wireless,”
outlined some numbers to back up his claims:
Qualcomm spent $3 billion in R&D last year
alone, they sell a million chips a day, China
has a billion mobile connections, another 1.4
billion 3G connections will be made over the next three
years, and — on a more fun note — that people look at their
phones 150 times a day.
“Right now many in audience are playing with their
phones while I’m speaking. Unlike others, I’m good with
that,” he said to laughs.
Jacobs then lauded the capabilities of his company’s
Snapdragon processor, and a parade of Qualcomm
Snapdragon customers then appeared on stage, including
Nokia and Lenovo.
Nokia CEO Stephen Elop discussed his latest Windows
Phone models, and he unveiled the Lumia 900 4G
LTE phone for AT&T that will be available this spring.
Liu Jun, Lenovo senior VP, showed a new
smart TV powered by Qualcomm that will be
introduced in China. Featuring Android 4.0, it
had a cool voice-controlled remote.
Going from the sublime to the ridiculous,
representatives of the Sesame Workshop
(Dave and Grover), then showed a new play
set that works with a Qualcomm-powered tablet
that offers augmented reality.
Things segued to a bit more serious as Dr.
Eric Topol of Scripps Health wowed the audience
with wireless devices — powered by
Qualcomm — that lets consumers see their EKGs on their
phones and monitor their body functions and glucose levels.
He even described devices that predict whether your
medicines are appropriate for your genetic makeup and
could warn you if you’re going to have a heart attack. The
pair then laughed about the potential for a new culture of
“cyber-chondriacs.”
Jacobs called out Dr. Peter Diamondis, head of the
XPrize Foundation, who described their next goal is to
give a $10 million prize to the team that can develop a
real-life medical tricorder (of “Star Trek” fame). —
Initial reporting
on this story was done by David Elrich for the Official
Daily of CES, produced by the editors of TWICE
.
