Photos: Qualcomm Takes Over San Francisco

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.)

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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.

— Sarah Reedy, Senior Editor, Light Reading