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Qualcomm slapped with fine for violating Broadcom injunction
Ooh, Qualcomm you been naughty. You might remember that last year Qualcomm was banned from selling various 3G chips that infringed on Broadcom's patents, but the big Q apparently believes that being in trouble is a fake idea, because it kept right on doing it -- to the point where a judge yesterday found the company in contempt for violating the injunction and ordered it to pay up gross profits from sales of its QChat push-to-talk tech to Broadcom. The court gave Qualcom 30 days to figure out how much it owes -- Sprint's paid over $93M to use the tech since last December, so it's not going to be peanuts. Qualcomm says it'll immediately comply, but is planning on appealing the order, so we'll how this all goes down.
iPhone powered by Samsung, not Intel?
The iPhone (no, not that iPhone, or this one either) is powered by an Intel processor, right? Afterall, Steve Jobs told us all himself that one of the major reasons for making the switch to Intel was due to their sexy silicon roadmap. Well you, and pretty much everyone else would be wrong. The all seeing, all powerful iPhone -- just like the iPod -- is powered by a Samsung processor according to an Apple spokeswoman speaking to Reuters. FBR Research believes that the remaining major components are supplied by Marvell (802.11), Infineon Technologies (baseband), Broadcom Corp. (touch screen controller), and Cambridge Silicon Radio (Bluetooth). However, we won't know for sure until the iPhone undergoes the knife.[Via Ars Technica]
Universal HD DVD / Blu-ray players really on the way in 2007?
EETimes has quoted several manufacturers of key components in next generation DVD players who say they are designing hardware specifically for such devices. We've already seen NEC's hardware and its (lack of) response among CE manufacturers, but someone must be ready to build such a device as they will soon be joined by fellow chipmakers STMicroelectronics and Broadcom. They expect to have customers rolling out universal players next year, and that they will "represent a significant volume" in 2008 but couldn't name any or expected prices, citing NDAs. Making hardware capable of living up to the minimum specs required of both HD DVD and Blu-ray's capabilities won't be cheap or easy but their sources don't expect the price premium to be be very large, and mostly on account of royalties. We've been disappointed again and again so far on the possibility of combo players, we'll see if 2007 is the year.[Via CNET]
