Skip to main content

Deck.blue brings a TweetDeck experience to Bluesky users

With over 3 million users and plans to open up more broadly in the months ahead, Bluesky is still establishing itself as an alternative to Twitter/X. However, that hasn’t stopped the developer community from embracing the project and building tools to meet the needs of those fleeing the now Elon Musk-owned social network, formerly known […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only. from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/TBbEAPF

Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi are bringing satellite communication to their devices through Qualcomm

Qualcomm announced at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) that multiple phone makers including Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, Motorola, Nothing and Honor are bringing satellite communication capabilities to their phones. However, manufacturers didn’t provide details about what devices will first have these features and when the companies would launch them.

Qualcomm unveiled its Snapdragon Satellite tech in partnership with satellite service provider Iridium at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) last month. Using this solution, smartphones can have capabilities of two-way texting and other messaging applications using satellites in emergency situations.

The chipmaker said that Snapdragon Satellite will be available across upcoming RF modems and multiple models of 8 and 4 series processors for smartphones.

By incorporating Snapdragon Satellite into nextgeneration devices, our partners will be able to offer satellite messaging capabilities thanks to a mature and commercially available global LEO constellation, which can allow subscribers around the world to communicate outdoors with emergency service providers, as well as family and friends,” Qualcomm vice president for product management, Francesco Grilli said in a statement.

Last year, Apple introduced satellite-based emergency communication features with the iPhone 14 series — first in the US and Canada, and later in France, Germany, Ireland, and the UK through Globestar’s satellite network. Last week, Samsung announced its own satellite tech as well with a promise to embed it in a future smartphone.

What’s more, British smartphone maker Bullitt — which also announced its own satellite tech at CES — announced a rugged smartphone with satellite connectivity a few days ahead of MWC. Taiwanese chipmaker MediaTek is also set to showcase its satellite connectivity solution for smartphones at the event. This sets the groundwor6 for upcoming smartphones to have emergency satellite communication features for remote areas where network connectivity is not reliable.

Read more about MWC 2023 on TechCrunch

Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi are bringing satellite communication to their devices through Qualcomm by Ivan Mehta originally published on TechCrunch



from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/3zktCGr

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

New month, new crypto market moves?

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important crypto stories delivered to your inbox every Thursday at 12 p.m. PT, subscribe here . Welcome back to Chain Reaction. Seems like just yesterday we were ringing in the New Year, but we’ve coasted into February and all seems to be somewhat relaxed (for once) in the crypto world. Last month was filled with crypto companies laying off staff , developments around the existing and new Chapter 11 bankruptcies in the space, partnerships and conversations about potential recovery in 2023. Even with a range of bad news flooding the industry, some cryptocurrencies had a bull run in January, amid the market turmoil. Bitcoin rallied 40% on the month, while ether rose about 32% during the same period. Solana also saw serious recovery, from about $10 in the beginning of the year, near its lowest level since February 2021, up 146% to about $24.3 by the end of January, CoinMarketCap data showed. These market movements could pot

Metaverse app BUD raises another $37M, plans to launch NFTs

BUD , a nascent app taking a shot at creating a metaverse for Gen Z to play and interact with each other, has raised another round of funding in three months. The Singapore-based startup told TechCrunch that it has closed $36.8 million in a Series B round led by Sequoia Capital India, not long after it secured a Series A extension in February . The new infusion brings BUD’s total financing to over $60 million. As with BUD’s previous rounds, this round of raise attracted a handful of prominent China-focused investors — ClearVue Partners, NetEase and Northern Light Venture Capital. Its existing investors GGV Capital, Qiming Venture Partners and Source Code Capital also participated in the round. Founded by two former Snap engineers Risa Feng and Shawn Lin in 2019, BUD lets users create bulbous 3D characters, cutesy virtual assets and richly colored experiences through drag-and-drop and without any coding background. The company declined to reveal its active user size but said its use

Can Arbitrum’s recently formed DAO recover from its messy week?

The TechCrunch Podcast Network has been nominated for two Webbys in the Best Technology Podcast category. You can help TechCrunch win by voting for Chain Reaction , which digs into the wild world of crypto, or Found , which brings you the stories behind the startups by sitting down with the founders themselves. Please take a few moments to vote here . Voting closes April 20. (NB I host Chain Reaction, so vote for my show!) Welcome back to Chain Reaction. This week was pretty bearable as a crypto reporter covering this space. There was less crazy news transpiring, compared to previous weeks (where we saw a number of U.S. government crackdowns on major crypto companies like Binance and Coinbase ). Still, it’s never a dull week in the crypto world. In late March, Arbitrum, an Ethereum scaling solution, transitioned into a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), after airdropping community members its new token, ARB. DAOs are meant to operate with no central authority and token h