Qualcomm shows off future phone technologies

Faster chips, always-on screens and augmented reality coming soon

Paul Jacobs wants Qualcomm to be a complete solution provider for smartphones

Qualcomm gave an insight into future mobile technologies at its IQ 2010 conference in London today, including augmented reality, screens that can stay on all the time without draining the battery, and more powerful Snapdragon processors.

Qualcomm chief executive Dr Paul Jacobs described the mobile phone as " humanity's biggest platform" with an estimated five billion subscribers worldwide, and outlined the firm's plans to become a provider of integrated solutions covering everything needed to build a smartphone.

Jacobs claimed that networks are "still being strained" by consumer demand, and that Qualcomm is working with partners to drive new technology into chipsets and boost network speeds.

Among these are new versions of Qualcomm's ARM-based Snapdragon chips, which boast dual processor cores and clock speeds up to 1.5GHz.

The MSM8260, clocked at 1.2GHz, is already sampling and due for full production in the first half of 2011, while the 1.5GHz QSD8672 is likely to appear in devices in the second half of 2011.

Other new technologies on show included augmented reality, whereby virtual objects are overlaid onto a view of the world through the phone's camera, allowing users to interact with them.

Qualcomm plans to release developer tools for this technology in the near future, but commercial applications are likely to be some way off.

In a demonstration, Jacobs transferred a photo wirelessly from a smartphone to a digital picture frame by pointing the handset's camera at it and highlighting it on the screen.

Jacobs also discussed a new screen technology called Mirasol which, like the e-ink screens in e-readers, relies on reflected light and so consumes much less power than the back-lit displays in current smartphones. However, this interferometric modulation technology also supports colour and video, giving it great potential for all kinds of applications.

The first products are due in early 2011 and will be 5.7in displays for e-readers, but later designs will integrate touch-screen capability, according to Jacobs.

"In the future, your phone screen won't need to go dark to save power. It will always be on," he said.