Qualcomm Snapdragon Voice Activation Revealed With "Always-On" Action

This week Qualcomm has upped the ante with a selection of features for their next-generation chipsets for mobile devices. The most recent announcement is for Snapdragon Voice Activation, this technology built in to the Qualcomm Fluence PRO suite of the chipmakers' integrated audio solutions. In simplest terms, this means you'll soon be able to wake up your phone by saying "Hey Snapdragon" – this phrase set by whatever manufacturer decides to use the technology, of course.

With Snapdragon Voice Activation, your smartphone will have the ability to have an "always on" feature so it'll always be listening for your voice. That way whenever you want the phone to wake up and do things for you, you wont have to touch it at all. THis will be coming in the Snapdragon 800 series of processors and will be able to work even if your smartphone had been in airplane mode, standby, or a variety of sleep modes.

Connecting with the smartphone (or tablet)'s/HLOS voice natural user interface, you'll be working with your phone without a tap in the very near future. This solution has been pushed by Qualcomm as a secure and low-power feature that'll be able to work only with the voice of the owner of the device. Of course if you've got a twin that's got the same voice modulation as you, you might be in for a surprise – but what are the odds?

Qualcomm is also making it clear this week that "over 55 Snapdragon 800-powered devices" are already in development. That means one whole heck of a lot of mega-powerful smartphones and tablets over the next few months. Can't wait!

Have a peek at the timeline below for more Qualcomm action as we ramp up to Mobile World Congress 2013 starting in less than a week!