Live from Innovation Qualcomm in London

What they're up to and where it's all going.

Qualcomm is holding an event today called Innovation Qualcomm, to show off its latest technologies and talk strategy. ME is here reporting live (or as live as it can be when your 3G dongle doesn't work EVEN though you're high up in a tower). Read on.

Qualcomm EVP and president Andrew Gilbert kicks off – why is Qualcomm interested in Europe? “It's an incredibly important part of the market,” he says, with nearly half of European mobile users predicted to be on 3G connections by the end of next year.

He also talks about growth prospects in Eastern Europe, where 3G penetration is currently only about 7%, and forecast to grow to 11% next year. Russia is one example – it's had 3G for a while, but some “quirky little things” have stopped it from growing. Apparently the military are hogging all the 3G spectrum in Moscow, for example.

So, what will people do with all this 3G? “It's always about the new,” says Gilbert. “But the new can come about in some strange ways...”

And now onto mobile apps. BREW has delivered more than two billion paid for apps - “still the largest premium mobile applications store in the market” (i.e. less downloads than iPhone now, but making a point of the fact that lots of those iPhone downloads are free.)

“All of this has been achieved on a feature phone platform, not a smartphone platform,” he says. “Not just on a single OS with four or five different device types... We've got some previous in this market, some ability to execute in this space.”

Gilbert also talks about the idea of 'digital lockers' – letting people take their content and apps with them on whatever device. Also, though, that the app store phase “isn't the end game”. “We need to create an environment that lets people have contextually relevant information based on who they are, where they are and what they're doing.”

If Nokia have a fly on the wall in this room, it's shouting “SOCIAL LOCATION! WE INVENTED THAT!”. But flies can't shout very loud, of course.

So, to Plaza – which has clearly been bumped up the priority list at Qualcomm. “Going beyond this notion of a single app store – you're going to see that market segment, mature and fragment...” Not just operators and handset firms, but web portals and brands too.

And this is Qualcomm's pitch – it'll run app stores for companies – either new entrants to the space, or people who already have app stores and wake up one day and think “why am I running an app store?”

Now onto other devices – Qualcomm's big new idea of 'Smartbooks' – the form factor of a notebook laptop with the smartness of a smartphone. Not netbooks, mind, or even Nokia's briefly-mooted definition of 'smart laptops'. It's Gigahertz processing with pervasive connectivity with cloud computing with social features, says Gilbert.

This is a whisk through the key areas for Qualcomm right now, as you may have guessed. Onto FLO TV, which has just launched its Personal Television device. Gilbert talks about e-book readers too – an area Qualcomm has just got into via its Mirasol display division. “It's a fantastic form factor in an area where we see great growth going forward,” he says. More on that a bit later in a separate piece.

And now Roberto di Piettro from QCT takes the stage to talk tech. In 2009, the number of devices using Qualcomm tech inside doubled compared to 2008 – more than 700 new designs, compared to more than 400. The company is on course to ship 317 million of its MSM chipsets this year.

Snapdragon is what's moving the company's tech upwards, from feature phones into smartphones, not to mention smartbooks and consumer electronics devices.

"We are currently working with more than 15 different customers and are going to deliver into the market more than 40 different devices," he says, referring to both smartphones and smartbooks.

And now over to Sy Choudhury, from QCT, for more chips talk. "You really want to think of it as a software AND silicon chip business," he says, pointing out that there are more software engineers in QCT than hardware engineers.

The company is working with Windows Mobile, Android and Symbian in making its chips work well with their OS platforms. He also brings up a slide on games performance and Qualcomm chipsets. So its current chipset can deliver similar game performance to an iPhone 3GS or PS2 (claims Choudhury), but in 2011-2013, its chipset will be capable of Xbox 360 / PS3 quality graphics.

Which is interesting.

"For us, it's really about software and silicon that drives a better user experience," he says.

And back to Gilbert for the wrap-up. "What if your device had a sixth sense? What if it had the opportunity to know you - who you are, what you're doing - learn from what you do, discover the things and people that are interesting to you, but filter out the things that aren't of interest to you..."

Oh, and augmented reality is mixed in too. No mobile big-picture talk is complete without an AR reference at the moment.

You want an example? How about a dinner party where you're interested in stalking a tasty lady named Karmen (note to Mrs Gilbert: I am paraphrasing here). But he does seem to be suggesting you'd point your phone at her and get a list of shared friends on Facebook, her most recent posts on 'Chatter' (like Twitter but non-trademark-infringing, presumably).

Er.. and then you go to the local high street and find the virtual tags she's left of things that she'd like to have bought for her, compare prices using a shopping comparison tool, and then buy them. Before using your augmented reality app to scan reviews of nearby restaurants to see whether you should dispense said gift(s) over curry or chicken in a basket.

Wipe that look off your face. ...