Qualcomm chief talks up HSPA+, augmented reality and gesture controls

Paul Jacobs explains how his firm's chips will support an internet of connected devices

ISTANBUL: Qualcomm chief executive Paul Jacobs has emphasised the importance of mobile devices, and highlighted forthcoming HSPA+ and gesture-based technologies.

Jacobs said during his keynote at the IQ Qualcomm conference in Istanbul that mobile is now the dominant computing platform, and that the installed base will surpass that of the PC in 2012.

"Mobile is not the future of computing, [it is] the present day. People really expect a desktop/laptop experience in the palm of their hand, and we're focused on driving this experience," he said.

Jacobs explained that mobile broadband will help to create the "internet of everything", in which devices from washing machines to microphones, lights, printers and electricity meters will be connected.

"Smartphones and tablets are only the beginning. We believe in an internet of everything and there are some people who talk about not just hundreds of connected devices but thousands," he said.

In terms of connectivity, Qualcomm is firmly behind HSPA+, which it sees "as the technology of choice" owing to its speed and efficiency.

Qualcomm also backed augmented reality as a way for consumers to bridge the gap between the physical and digital worlds by placing interfaces on objects.

Jacobs showed how augmented reality will work with DVD cases, activating a film trailer by focusing his phone on the back cover.

He also unveiled plans to incorporate gesture-based recognition into devices, allowing users to move between home screens and interact with content.

Francisico Jeronimo, research manager for European mobile devices at IDC, agreed that augmented reality will be seen in the near future, but said that it will be a while before gesture-based controls take off.

"Consumers will be able to carry out a number of interactions with products using augmented reality, but gesture-based interaction will take a while to get off the ground as there are no specific applications that can be seen at present," he told V3.

With Qualcomm chips powering devices such as the HTC Flyer, Jacobs rounded off his keynote by taking a thinly veiled shot at the Apple iPad, noting the importance of full access to video content on the web.

"People want the full web on smart devices. They do not want a watered down experience. We have been working to make sure we optimise Flash and HTML5 on devices to make sure it works extremely well."