BREW

Qualcomm adds Flash to BREW Mobile Platform SDK

Jason Ankeny — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 20:52:23 -0500

Wireless solutions provider Qualcomm announced the availability of its BREW Mobile Platform SDK, promising developers a more open and flexible environment to create applications, widgets and custom user interfaces for BREW-powered mass-market handsets and mobile devices. Beyond enhanced support for native application development, the free BREW MP SDK boasts a full suite of tools and features including integrated Adobe Flash technology, enabling developers using Adobe's content and web creation tools to seamlessly create applications for BREW devices. In addition, the platform offers advanced capabilities including touchscreen, rich multimedia, window management, open platform extensibility and expanded support for native application development. The Brew Mobile Platform SDK is now available for download here.

For more on the BREW SDK:
- read this release

Related articles:
Qualcomm builds a Plaza full of widgets
On the Hot Seat with BREW's Andrew Gilbert

Patent rites

Jason Ankeny — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 06:59:59 -0400

The air seemed to leave the room during Paul Jacobs' annual keynote address at last week's BREW 2007 conference as the Qualcomm CEO turned his focus to the subject on everyone's minds: his company's ongoing patent infringement battle with semiconductor supplier Broadcom and the resulting International Trade Commission decision to ban import of 3G handsets employing Qualcomm chips ruled to violate Broadcom patents. "We think the ITC's decision and remedy are unreasonable and wrong," a visibly tense Jacobs said. "We will immediately seek an emergency stay, and ask the president to veto the ITC decision. But these actions have not distracted us from our focus--we will continue to persevere and execute on our vision."

Hours later, Qualcomm's vision seemed to grow blurrier when the ITC denied its stay request, proclaiming in an eight-page ruling issued Thursday that the chipmaker failed to meet a "four-prong test" applied by courts to determine whether to grant preliminary injunctions. (And if you've ever undergone the four-prong test, you know just how painful it can be.) Industry association CTIA is already imploring President Bush to step in against the ITC decision, while Qualcomm will likely also seek intervention from the U.S. Court of Appeals.

But it seems Jacobs knew exactly what he was talking about after all. Reports out of Sprint suggest the operator is already implementing a Qualcomm software patch as a workaround against the ban, with none of its upcoming handset launches negatively impacted by the ITC's actions. In other words, life goes on. You can't be surprised by this development--some pundits were ready to declare the ITC's decision tantamount to outlawing innovation across the U.S. wireless space, but if anything, Qualcomm's software fix suggests that the industry simply moves too fast for the government to play catch-up.

Regardless of which side of the Qualcomm/Broadcom debate you support, the real problem lies with a U.S. Patent Office and Trademark Office that thrives on patent quantity, not quality. Since 1991, the PTO has generated all of its funding via patent and trademark processing fees--no wonder the agency has issued over seven million patents since March 2006 alone. A PTO concentrating on improved, clearer-drawn patents issued in more limited numbers would create intellectual properties far less susceptible to the kinds of costly, convoluted court battles that inevitably result when an innovation's origins and intentions are cloudy. When patent cases go to trial, the only clear winners are the lawyers--whoever patented the concept of billable hours was the most prescient thinker of them all. - Jason

Compile BREW applets with WinARM

Tue, 15 May 2007 06:59:56 -0400

Ward Willats has posted an in-depth how to describing how to compile ARM BREW apps an expensive commercial compiler. Ward's WinARM solution uses a recent version of GCC and creates pretty lean code. But be forewarned, this technique is not for beginners.

Scaling images with BREW

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 20:01:36 -0400

DevX shows how to scale images programmatically in BREW. It's surprisingly easy in BREW 3.0, but still a good read if you're targeting BREW 2.X or new to the IIMAGE functions. Tutorial

Plus: New to BREW development? Check out Anjum's introduction.

Editor's Corner

Mon, 26 Feb 2007 19:01:39 -0500

Mobile Widgets
The allure of widgets is obvious: porting, compatibility testing and code signing are major headaches for developers just trying to create a simple application or piece of content. A well-designed widget architecture promises to take that all away.

I've touched on mobile widget platforms from Bling on Mojax when I wrote about mobile AJAX a few weeks ago, but since then Opera Software has announced Opera 9 Mobile, which will feature a mobile version of Opera Widgets. This is a pretty big deal as Opera already has a large library of desktop widgets and a sizable user base. (The other big new feature announced in Opera 9 Mobile is "intelligent zoom," which sounds a bit like the "pinch zoom" feature in the upcoming iPhone.)

And Opera isn't the only big name trying to get in on the action. Yahoo is trying to leverage its desktop Widget Engine (and the 1,500 existing desktop widgets available for download) with the latest version of Yahoo Go for Mobile. Go for Mobile 2.0 is a downloadable app that includes widgets for weather, breaking news, search and pictures through Flickr.

Another new entrant to the mobile widget arena is Canoo's UltraLightClient (ULC). ULC is best known as a Java-based platform for creating "rich Internet applications." The company just announced ULC Mobile, a J2ME version that can leverage ULC's existing codebase. There is one catch: while many products let developers create widgets for free in order to promote the platform, ULC Mobile has to charge for it. The client is free, but a developer license costs about $5,000.

Next Week: I'll be reporting live from the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. -Eli

Tweaking BREW's component interface

Mon, 01 Jan 2007 19:01:36 -0500

A new DevX tutorial explains how to create new BREW components by tweaking existing component interfaces like IFont and IOManager.

Monotype updates font engine

Mon, 18 Sep 2006 20:01:38 -0400

Monotype Imaging has released new versions of its iType font engine and WorldType font engine which generate scalable true type fonts that actually look good on small screens. The company also announced the acquisition of China Type, a Chinese font design firm. Monotype also has a deal with QUALCOMM to integrate font technology into uiOne. Website

3D graphics with OpenGL ES and BREW

Mon, 11 Sep 2006 20:01:36 -0400

OpenGL ES isn't perfect, but it is a powerful graphics engine--and for most people it sure beats rolling your own. This DevX tutorial takes you through setting up your first project. Article

Porting C code to BREW

Mon, 10 Jul 2006 20:01:36 -0400

DevX has a new article tackling common problems developers encounter when porting C code to BREW. Article