Today Qualcomm’s partners began receiving samples of our third generation Qualcomm Gobi LTE chips – our latest and greatest cellular modems. The MDM9225 and MDM9625 will be the first chips to contain new LTE and HSPA+ modems, which are faster and use less power than their predecessors.

Ever wonder what Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs does in his spare time?

He checks the scores of his favorite teams, peruses the New York Times or gets cozy with an eBook.

To celebrate today’s launch of Windows Phone 8, Microsoft created an 80-foot banner featuring the start screen of Jacobs’ own phone. It features Live Tiles for some of Jacobs’ favorite apps, including The New York Times, AccuWeather, and Amazon Kindle.

Over the past few years, Microsoft has used Snapdragon processors in all of their Windows Phones. Inside every Window Phone 7 handset was either a Snapdragon S1 or S2 processor. The close collaboration between Microsoft and Qualcomm has resulted in a sea of fast and powerful smartphones with great battery life. So fast, in fact, that Microsoft invited anyone to come into a Windows Store to get “Smoked by Windows Phone.”