A week before CES, Qualcomm’s social media team reached out to see if I’d be interested to be one of their ambassadors. In exchange, they’d cover some of the expenses during the show. I’ve gone through so many smartphones in the past year and I’ve never really looked deeply into the tiny bits of technology inside the devices. All I really cared about was the was overall experience. After a quick Google search, I was surprised to find out that 100% of Windows Phone devices like the Nokia Lumia 710 and the Nokia Lumia 800 were using the Qualcomm Snapdragon processor.

You can find out which devices use Qualcomm Snapdragon processors on this page. I remember unboxing a few devices that had tiny Qualcomm stickers attached to them.

Nokia at the Qualcomm Keynote

During the Qualcomm keynote, I got to see the Jabbawockeez and Alistair Overeem (I’m a UFC fan! He recently KO’d Brock Lesnar).

OK, back to the relevant stuff.

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop showed up during the Qualcomm keynote. He talked about the Nokia Lumia devices (710, 800, and 900) and Nokia’s partnership with Qualcomm. These devices have the Qualcomm Snapdragon S2 processors. It was also the first time we heard Elop share the Nokia Lumia 800′s official availability in the US. Expect the Nokia Lumia 800 at Microsoft retail and online stores in February.

After Stephen Elop stepped off the stage, Dr. Paul E. Jacobs, Chairman and CEO of Qualcomm, talked about their latest chipset, the Snapdragon S4. He said it will drive the next generation of smart devices. They won’t just power phones. Think tablets, TV, and notebooks. Devices based on the latest Snapdragon S4 processors will come to market early this year. He didn’t mention if Nokia will have devices using the S4 this year. I got to preview some of the things the Snapdragon S4 processor can do during a tour around Qualcomm’s booth.

Booth Tour

I hope those who went to CES had a chance to visit Qualcomm’s booth. They were showing off demos on prototype devices with the Snapdragon S4 processors. One of the prototypes they had lets users interact with a tablet without touching the screen. Think of it as Kinect on a tablet!

Another notable prototype they had was a smartphone with a 3D camera connected to an HDTV while running an augmented reality app. Pointing the camera to a placemat on the table displays three-dimensional objects on the TV screen. The user can interact with the objects using the phone. This was happening in real time without lag. I was impressed.

Another prototype I saw was a smartphone that can detect where your voice comes from. I wonder what the engineer was doing when this idea came up? Their demo was a 2-player trivia game. One player stands to the right of the phone, while the other stands to the left. A question pops up and the prototype detects which player shouts out first for their answer. Interesting multiplayer games can come out of this. What other ways do you think this sensor can be used for?

The last demo they showed was the ability to use a cameraphone’s gyroscope sensor to stabilize the camera. Most cameraphones right now with image stabilization use a process that crops the final image. By utilizing the gyroscope with the Snapdragon S4 processor, the stabilized image will no longer be cropped. This was a cool demo, but there’s already a device available right now with this cameraphone technology: the iPhone 4S with Apple’s A5 processor.

Q&A session

I didn’t have any questions during a Q&A session, but I was listening to the Qualcomm Insider talk about concepts and visions for the future. One thing that I thought was cool was their vision for seamless integration between multiple devices. For example, a person receives a video call on their smartphone and then the call transfers to the television when it senses you’re nearby.

Thanks

Big thanks to Cira and the rest of the Edelman Digital team for exposing me to Qualcomm! I can’t wait to see the final products running Snapdragon S4 later this year. For more coverage, follow the rest of the ambassadors: @moon, @Tech4Moms, @AnnoyedGamer, and @techmama. You can also see the Qualcomm CES page here.