Free Republic

At a recent panel sponsored by the Consumer Technology Association (CES) dealing with the improvement of America's patent system, the audience found itself stunned. The reason? Apparently, while practically everyone on the panel agreed that patent reform was a necessity, including not only representatives of startups, but even Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), there was one glaring exception. Laurie Self, a top lawyer for the tech giant Qualcomm, struggled to come up with even a single way to stop abusive patent trolling outside of - get this - expanding the powers of patent holders. As the panel's moderator, Techdirt blogger Mike...

Barry Matsumori, formerly the senior vice president of sales and business development at SpaceX, has joined Virgin Galactic's satellite launch team. With Virgin Galactic, Matsumori holds the title of senior vice president of business development and advanced concepts for LauncherOne, the company's small satellite launch vehicle. Prior to SpaceX, Matsumori held a leadership role at Qualcomm as vice president of wireless connectivity where he was responsible for the development of mobile telecom module products as well as satellite communication infrastructure and terminals. He has held positions at Space Systems Loral (SSL) and General Dynamics, and has experience with early-stage technology...

Another tech giant that says it must import foreign workers because there aren’t enough skilled American workers in the industry is laying off thousands of workers.Qualcomm — a major producer of smartphone chips — announced last week it’s eliminating 15 percent of its workforce or about 4,500 employees, just weeks after fellow tech giant Microsoft announced a massive round of layoffs.Both companies are top beneficiaries of the H-1b visa program, which backers say allows companies to temporarily hire foreign workers for jobs they can’t find qualified Americans workers to fill. Critics contend the program is really used to cut costs. (RELATED:...

Sanders blasts U.S Corporations for Dodging Taxes BURLINGTON, Vt., April 9 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the Senate Budget Committee ranking member, today issued the following statement on new data showing the extent to which some American companies are avoiding taxes: “I applaud Citizens for Tax Justice for releasing new data today revealing the unfairness of our tax system and the fact that a number of the biggest and most-well known corporations in America continue to pay little or nothing in taxes. At a time when we have massive wealth and income inequality, and when corporate profits are soaring, it...

The Star Trek tricorder diagnosed any illness at once.Ten finalists have been chosen in a $10m (£6m) competition to develop a real-life "tricorder" - the medical scanner used in the Star Trek series.The Qualcomm Tricorder X Prize, launched last year, challenges anyone to develop a wireless device capable of detecting a range of diseases. The technology employs sensors and imaging to measure vital signs and diagnose conditions non-invasively. X Prize officials said the technology was now "fact, not science fiction". The 10 finalists come from a range of backgrounds, including universities, medical device manufacturers and tech start-ups. One research team...

Stardate 20021005.2128 (On Screen): As I think many of my readers know, I used to work for Qualcomm designing cell phones. Qualcomm is the company which invented CDMA, and made it practical, and made it into a market success, and it now dominates the American market, where Verizon and Sprint both use it. There are two other nationwide cellular systems: AT&T currently uses IS-136 TDMA, which is obsolete and has no upgrade path. Cingular uses GSM, a more sophisticated form of TDMA from Europe. And right now I'm basking in the evil glow of a major case of schadenfreude. The...

N.Y. comptroller trying to force disclosure of political spending by corporations to cut off funding for conservativesNew York state is quickly becoming ground zero in the fight over free speech and corporate political spending as a top state official with ties to left-wing campaign finance reform groups attempts to pressure private companies into making their political contributions public.New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, who is the state’s top accountant and is spearheading the campaign, cites the importance of transparency.Observers warn that “shareholder activism” in pursuit of political disclosure represents the first stage of coordinated intimidation campaigns against private companies conducted...

If you like what you've seen so far from RIM BlackBerry's big launch event today, then you might want to know when you can get it? Those in the US might have hoped the rumors weren't true, but indeed, you will have to wait until March before you can get your hands on BlackBerry 10. Though when it does land, customers of AT&T, Verizon, Sprint (only Q10 confirmed) and T-Mobile (Z10 confirmed) will all be able to get onboard. BlackBerry's giving its home turf a little bit of a head start with a February 5th release date and Bell,...

We have no idea if the San Diego Chargers will go to the Super Bowl this year, but from a sheer class perspective, many of their fans proved to be world champions during the team's preseason contest versus the San Francisco 49ers on Sept. 1. During the game at San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium, a Club Level server by the name of Heather Allison tripped on a stair, and all the money she'd taken in for the day — about $1,000 — flew out her hands and landed all over the area — on fans in attendance, under seats, and one...

Last year Qualcomm told us about the MSM8960, its next-generation Snapdragon SoC based on a brand new microprocessor architecture. Today Qualcomm announced some more details on the architecture behind the MSM8960 as well as a couple of new SoCs based on that architecture.   The CPU architecture is codenamed Krait. I'll be meeting with Qualcomm later today to talk about architectural details in greater depth as today's release has little information other than some general performance numbers. Krait, like Scorpion before it, is a ground-up CPU design by Qualcomm. The architecture will debut at 28nm and run at speeds of...

Heating up clock wars Whether you like it or not, the ARM revolution is happening today and these small chips are starting to matter to the world just as much as Intel and AMD chips do. They will get to many tablets and mobile phones in 2011 and onward and most of the 2011 models are dual-core. We just mentioned the 1.5GHz OMAP 4440 chip yesterday and we got confirmation from a source close to Texas Instruments that this fancy fast chip can ship in the second half of 2011. Texas (non-chainsaw) chaps do believe that that have a good...

Big GHz fight in 2011 Qualcomm has decided to show its dual Scorpion based MSM8x60 mobile CPU and it also told the world that this CPU can hit 1.2GHz, per core that is. The chip has an Adreno 220 GPU that we know little about and of course its a 45nm chip since 28nm should be only ready in the latter part of 2011. The chip should be able to do high definition stereoscopic 3D video, and multi-party video conferencing as well as some nice gaming. It is intended for tablets and phones and you can bet that you will...

The heavyweight of ultra-light mobility Light and compact, a smartbook is the perfect way to work and play without ever having to stop. As powerful as a laptop, a smartbook lets you create or enjoy whatever you want while you're on the go. Built-in 3G mobile broadband means you can connect at high speeds wherever your wireless coverage can reach. And like a mobile phone, it lasts as long as you do and is instantly ready to go when you are.

SAN FRANCISCO — The cellphone industry has a suggestion for improving the math skills of American students: spend more time on cellphones in the classroom. At a conference this week in Washington called Mobile Learning 09, CTIA, a wireless industry trade group, plans to start making its case for the educational value of cellphones. It will present research — paid for by Qualcomm, a maker of chips for cellphones — that shows so-called smartphones can make students smarter. Some critics already are denouncing the effort as a blatantly self-serving maneuver to break into the big educational market. But proponents of...

Okay, I might not be the first to think of this, but why isn't there any MSM comparison (except on Fox News Channel tonight) of the behavior of San Diegans as compared to the citizens of New Orleans? The scope of the respective fire and Katrina disasters is not that different. Each displaced populations of large metropolitan areas. Each resulted in large urban and suburban areas rendered uninhabitable. Each resulted in loss of homes and disruption of life for huge numbers of their population. Each reflected the helplesness of the first responders to act until nature relented. But most importantly,...

Exerted.... "SAN DIEGO — Like Hurricane Katrina evacuees two years earlier in New Orleans, thousands of people rousted by natural disaster fled to the NFL stadium here, waiting out the calamity and worrying about their homes. The similarities ended there, as an almost festive atmosphere reigned at Qualcomm Stadium." "Bands belted out rock 'n' roll, lavish buffets served gourmet entrees, and massage therapists helped relieve the stress for those forced to flee their homes because of wildfires." "At Qualcomm, thousands of tents, many set up by relief organizations, provided temporary roofs, while hundreds of people slept on open-air cots. Some...

Paging U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab: Please call us on your cell phone. And better do it fast because cell phones may soon be harder to come by thanks to one of the dumber rulings ever by the U.S. International Trade Commission.

Excerpt - A federal agency on Thursday barred the import of new models of cell phones that contain semiconductors made by Qualcomm Inc., because the chips violate a patent held by a rival, Broadcom Corp. The U.S. International Trade Commission's decision represents a compromise between a ban on all phones with Qualcomm chips, as Broadcom requested, and a ban only on the chips themselves, as recommended by an ITC administrative law judge late last year. ~ snip ~

The Justice Department announced temporary replacements Thursday for two recently ousted U.S. attorneys in San Diego and San Francisco. Outgoing San Diego chief federal prosecutor Carol Lam will be succeeded by Karen Hewitt, a career federal prosecutor who is currently the executive assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California. In San Francisco, U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryan will be replaced by Scott Schools, a career federal prosecutor who currently works for the Justice Department overseeing legal guidance and personnel matters for all 94 U.S. attorney's offices across the country. Hewitt's appointment was announced as staff and local law enforcement...

US firms accuse Qualcomm of unfair practices in South Korea SEOUL, July 3, 2006 (AFP) - Two US technology firms have filed a complaint with South Korea's antitrust watchdog accusing US mobile phone chip developer Qualcomm of abusing its market dominance, officials have said. The Fair Trade Commission (FTC), a state organization watching for fair trade, said the complaint was lodged by Texas Instruments and Broadcom. "Qualcomm was accused of selling its handset chips bundled with other chip products by using its market dominance," an FTC official said. Qualcomm has monopoly market status in South Korea as the sole supplier...