Toward the end of last year, Qualcomm was full of promises for the burgeoning mobile TV market and its Media Forward Link Only (FLO) technology. Yet so far, the market has received less than positive reviews, and we have yet to see another MediaFLO handset be unveiled. more

BARCELONA–Microsoft has struck a deal with Russia’s MTS for the bundling of a laptop lease and wireless data subscription into one monthly bundle. Oddly enough that deal seems very similar to the way the cellular industry works: a cellphone is useless without a wireless connection and a wireless connection is pointless without a device to access it. That same logic now is starting to be applied to computing, an acknowledgement that the PC and the Internet are so closely tied together that they can’t be separated. So why not sell them together? more

BARCELONA–You never would have figured Qualcomm would have been so proud of a tiny one-inch black-and-white screen, but the that’s just what the chipset maker was showing off at the Mobile World Congress. The Hisense C108 is the first phone using display technoloy from Qualcomm’s MicroElectroMechanical Systems (MEMS) subsidiary, and while the phone may not be the most impressive looking handset at the Congress it probably has the best battery life. The MEMS display reflects ambiant light to render its images, unlike liquid crystal displays which depend on a power-draining backlight. The result is a phone that can go 20% to 40% longer without recharging than it peers. more