In its first year away from its hometown headquarters of San Diego, Qualcomm's Uplinq tackled everything from the Internet of Things to LTE Broadcast to adorable little robots.

Sarah Thomas, Director, Women in Comms

September 19, 2014

10 Slides

SAN FRANCISCO -- Qualcomm Uplinq 2014 -- Qualcomm moved its annual developers' conference away from its hometown of San Diego for the first time, welcoming a packed house of developers, media and analysts to the Bay Area to talk all things mobile.

The show was more low-key than year's past -- Qualcomm Inc. (Nasdaq: QCOM)'s new CEO Steve Mollenkopf perhaps doesn't carry enough clout to shut down entire city blocks of San Fran as former CEO Paul Jacobs did in San Diego. But the discussions were also more focused, with considerable progress made on several fronts since last year. (See Qualcomm Promotes President to CEO Role.)

For more on wireless components, check out our dedicated components page here on Light Reading.

For one thing, Qualcomm was ready to talk about significant network technologies such as LTE Broadcast, LTE Direct and multimode chipsets with carrier aggregation. And, as promised, the Toq watch it launched last year as a prototype to move the market forward has helped catalyze the industry with Qualcomm chips now powering a number of wearables. (See LTE Multicast Gets Liked By Facebook, Qualcomm Paves Way for Sub-$100 4G Phones and Watch Out! Qualcomm's Got a Wearable Device.)

The larger Internet of Things was clearly the biggest focus for Qualcomm, however, as it looks to get its chips not only in the next 8 billion smartphones, but a whole host of other connected devices as well. (See Qualcomm Eyes the Next 8B+ Connected Devices.)

Click on the image below to launch a short slide show and see what some of those new areas include.

Figure 1: Watch Your Back! Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf kicked off Uplinq's keynote sessions, reminding the audience that Qualcomm is powering all of those cool new smart watches coming to market this year. Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf kicked off Uplinq's keynote sessions, reminding the audience that Qualcomm is powering all of those cool new smart watches coming to market this year.

— Sarah Reedy, Senior Editor, Light Reading

About the Author(s)

Sarah Thomas

Director, Women in Comms

Sarah Thomas's love affair with communications began in 2003 when she bought her first cellphone, a pink RAZR, which she duly "bedazzled" with the help of superglue and her dad.

She joined the editorial staff at Light Reading in 2010 and has been covering mobile technologies ever since. Sarah got her start covering telecom in 2007 at Telephony, later Connected Planet, may it rest in peace. Her non-telecom work experience includes a brief foray into public relations at Fleishman-Hillard (her cussin' upset the clients) and a hodge-podge of internships, including spells at Ingram's (Kansas City's business magazine), American Spa magazine (where she was Chief Hot-Tub Correspondent), and the tweens' quiz bible, QuizFest, in NYC.

As Editorial Operations Director, a role she took on in January 2015, Sarah is responsible for the day-to-day management of the non-news content elements on Light Reading.

Sarah received her Bachelor's in Journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia. She lives in Chicago with her 3DTV, her iPad and a drawer full of smartphone cords.

Away from the world of telecom journalism, Sarah likes to dabble in monster truck racing, becoming part of Team Bigfoot in 2009.

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