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Qualcomm wants to be the chip inside whatever replaces your smartphone, and it just announced two products toward that end. 4 2 minutes read Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon said Tuesday that the company is working on over 40 different AI wearable devices - including jewelry, earbuds with cameras, pins, and watches - a sign of how aggressively the chipmaker is betting that the next major computing platform won't be a phone at all. To power that vision, Qualcomm is announcing two new offerings: a platform called Snapdragon Reality Elite for mixed reality glasses, designed to run more powerful on-device AI, and the Scalable Turnkey AI-Ready Toolkit (START), a combination of hardware modules and a software stack for AI devices, starting with smart glasses. Compared to its previous XR platform, the new Snapdragon Reality Elite delivers improvements of up to 60% in GPU performance, up to 30% in CPU performance, and up to 160% in NPU performance, according to the company. Percentage gains in chip specs can be hard to contextualize, but Qualcomm offers one concrete data point, saying the platform can run a 3-billion-parameter language model at 45 tokens per second - fast enough for quick, responsive AI interactions. Qualcomm says the chip will also enable better head and hand tracking, along with improved see-through capabilities. The Snapdragon Reality Elite supports 4.4K per-eye resolution at 90 fps, a modest bump from the XR2+ Gen 2's 4.3K per-eye resolution. (The higher the per-eye resolution and frame rate, the sharper and smoother the visual experience, which matters most for reducing the motion sickness and eye strain that've historically made extended headset use uncomfortable.) Qualcomm says the platform is designed to power two types of devices: standalone video-see-through (VST) headsets, which layer digital content over a camera feed of the real world, and lightweight, tethered optical-see-through (OST) glasses, which blend digital imagery directly into your field of view. Among the first devices to use it: XREAL Project Aura, shown at Google I/O earlier this year, and an upcoming device from Play for Dream. START, meanwhile, consists of an AR chip, a software platform, companion apps, and a white-label program aimed at helping hardware makers get to market faster. Through the white label program, the company is offering three reference designs: an audio + camera setup similar to Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses, a monocular display, and a binocular display. Eyewear manufacturers Inspecs and O'Neill - owned by TitanFlex - will be among the first partners in the white label program. Qualcomm said START will expand beyond smart glasses to support other form factors in the future. Amon's comments, made to CNBC, flesh out the strategic logic behind both announcements. He argued that as companies seek to gather more real-world data from users to power their AI agents, a new wave of hardware startups building novel form factors will emerge, with major implications for established smartphone players like Apple and Samsung. "I think there's going to be a lot of experimentation with different form factors," Amon said. "Right now, we have over 40 designs of those devices, and I'm telling you, the types of form factors are very, very broad." He added that, "The principle is something that you wear, something [that] is with you all the time, something that can see the world around you, so you have context and have the ability for you to access an agent and talk to the agent." To that end, Qualcomm is explicitly positioning itself as the foundational silicon layer for whatever comes after the smartphone. START's white-label program, in particular, is designed to lower the barrier for new entrants. When you purchase through links in its articles, Real Hacker may earn a small commission. This doesn't affect its editorial independence.

Morning headlines - Tuesday, Jun. 16, 2026. The latest U.S., World, and Wisconsin news, plus today's Meme of the Day. DrydenWire.com Tuesday, June 16, 2026 Updated Jun 16, 2026 5:47 am CDT Start your day informed with today's must-read headlines from around Wisconsin and the world. And don't forget to check out its Meme of the Day at the end for a little humor to go with your news. U.S. and world headlines. California Gov. Gavin Newsom says Department of Justice is investigating him, his wife. California Gov. Gavin Newsom said on Monday that the Department of Justice is investigating him as well as his wife, and claimed that President Donald Trump is "coming after me because I'm considering running for president." Discover more Weather updates service Newsom, a Democrat, did not specify exactly what the Department of Justice was allegedly investigating him for, but indicated his wife Jennifer Siebel Newsom is among the targets. Trump's Iran deal triggers speculation, skepticism, market bump: 5 takeaways. The agreement between the U.S. and Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and kick-start 60 days of nuclear negotiations is set to be signed in person Friday, but it's still unclear what's in it. Senior U.S. officials told reporters Monday that the memorandum of understanding (MOU), signed digitally over the weekend, is only the first step and that "real technical discussions" will begin later this week and be led by Vice President Vance. Here are five key takeaways on what DrydenWire know so far: Qualcomm CEO says AI agents will replace apps - as chip giant works on 40 new ai-powered devices. Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon said the company is working on over 40 designs of new AI devices. Amon said these include jewellery, ear buds with cameras in them, pins that people wear and watches. Amon said AI agents will become the "new app" as consumers' relationship with their devices change. Judge orders anna kepner's accused stepbrother to surrender. A federal judge has ordered 16-year-old killing suspect Timothy Hudson to surrender to U.S. marshals, ruling he could "snap at any time" as he awaits trial in the killing of his stepsister aboard a Carnival Cruise Ship last November. Hudson, who had been allowed to remain free ahead of trial, surrendered Monday. He is being held at the Citrus County Jail, which is equipped to house juvenile detainees, and must be transferred to Miami-Dade County no later than July 10. While in custody, he will have access to family visitation and the internet. The World Cup is less than A week old and controversies are already piling up. The 2026 FIFA World Cup is underway, and with dozens of national teams competing in 16 cities across three countries for soccer's ultimate prize, there should be no shortage of drama on and off the pitch. Discover more Digital advertising platform Community event calendar Advertise local business And there's already been plenty - most of it involving red cards, referees and ticket prices. Below, catch up on some of the biggest controversies of the quadrennial tournament, which runs through July 19. Wisconsin headlines. Sen. Baldwin blasts Army for giving vehicle contract to out of state firm. A Wisconsin U.S. senator says the Army mishandled a major vehicle contract by giving it to a private equity-backed company instead of a Fox Valley manufacturer. Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin sent a letter to U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll last week, raising concerns about production delays for Joint Light Tactical Vehicles, or JLTVs, and calling for the military to pursue new contracts for the vehicles. AAA: Wisconsin gas prices dropping but big relief unlikely until fall. The average gas price in Wisconsin as of Monday was about $3.86 - about 70 cents lower than a month ago, but about $1 more expensive than this time last year. Sauk County has the lowest average price in the area. Lafayette County has the highest average. Prices peaked almost exactly a month ago, hitting $4.58 per gallon on May 14. Fitzgerald tells 'upfront' Packers will be fine as he explores issues with NFL, Sports Broadcasting Act. Fresh off his hearing on Capitol Hill, U.S. Rep. Scott Fitzgerald said the NFL may be violating the Sports Broadcasting Act and quickly dismissed concerns from the Green Bay Packers about any changes to the league's shared revenue model. "That's absolutely ridiculous and almost laughable," Fitzgerald said on WISN 12's "UpFront," which is produced in partnership with WisPolitics-State Affairs. "Let me just say, when it comes to the NFL, shared revenue is not an issue, and as a matter of fact, I don't care how the NFL divides up the pie amongst the teams in the NFL. It's not something that's even affected by the SBA, so that is absolutely the Packers going for kind of hair on fire, oh my gosh, the world's coming to an end if this would be tweaked. "When it comes to the NFL, the Packers are going to be fine," he added. Enbridge says 500 at work on construction of Line 5 reroute in northern Wisconsin. Canadian energy firm Enbridge said hundreds of workers are on site in northern Wisconsin even as legal challenges remain ongoing in its plan to reroute the Line 5 oil and gas pipeline. Crews are clearing trees from the project's right-of-way and laying down large wooden mats for temporary access roads as they prepare to start drilling to install a new stretch of the pipeline, according to Juli Kellner, an Enbridge spokesperson. Breakthrough technology making fish finding easier; how the DNR has responded. New technology has helped fishermen locate fish more easily. Of course, fishermen love it. But do environmental experts and DNR officials? Fish finding technology has been available for years, but new forward facing sonar can pinpoint exactly where fish are and document their moves in real time. Studies show around 30% of fishermen in Minnesota are using the technology and seeing the benefits. Last Update: Jun 16, 2026 5:47 am CDT