Technology

Qualcomm may have lost its long-winded deal to buy NXP on account of Chinaand it continues to battle lawsuits worldwide, but the company does have a dose of good news out of Asia today after it settled an antitrust investigationin Taiwan.

The U.S. chip firm was hit with a record$773 million fine last October when it was accused of monopolistic practices, but Qualcomm and theTaiwan Fair Trade Commission (TFTC) said today they have reached an agreement that sees thecharges dropped in exchange for the firm investing $700 million in the country.

TheTFTC will keep hold of theNTD 2.73 billion ($93 million) portion of fines that Qualcomm paid this summer in exchange for a promise that Qualcomm will make the $700 million investment over the next five years, according to Bloomberg.

Qualcomm didn&t explicitly mention that figure in its statement on the agreement, but it did outline its proposed &commercial initiatives:&

Qualcomm will drive certain commercial initiatives in Taiwan over the next five years for the benefit of the mobile and semiconductor ecosystem, SMEs and consumers, including 5G collaborations, new market expansion, start-up and university collaborations and the development of a Taiwanese center for operations and manufacturing engineering. Qualcomm will work with the TFTC and sister agencies within the Taiwanese government to implement these initiatives and investments.

Crucially, the deal will also allow Qualcomm to continue with its current pricing strategy in Taiwan. That pricing policy has triggered a wave of lawsuits worldwide which has left Qualcomm reeling — indeed, its falling share price made it a target for an ultimately unsuccessful takeover attempt from Broadcom.

The most notable pending legal spat is with Apple.

In January 2017, Apple sued Qualcomm for $1 billionclaiming that it is charged a hefty price for royalties on technologies that Apple said the chipmaker should not be associated with. It also alleged that Qualcomm had been withholding payments it was owed.

The Apple suit came quickly afteran antitrust lawsuit filed against Qualcomm by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission for using its position as the leading supplier in the handset market to charge fees on technologies that amount to industry standards.

Earlier this year, Qualcomm was hit with a $1.23 billion fine from the EUfor abusing its market position between 2011 and 2016, relating to its relationship with Apple. That figure works out to 4.9 percent of Qualcommrevenues in 2017.

Qualcomm has also sued Apple, alleging that the iPhone X infringes on Palm patents which are now owned by the chipmaker. But the hostility seems likely to hurt Qualcommbottom line since Apple has reportedly been building iPhone prototypes that eradicate usage of Qualcomm technologies altogether.

Disrupt Berlin 2018, which takes place November 29-30, practically oozes with opportunity. And thereno better way to take advantage of all that opportunity than to exhibit your early-stage startup in Startup Alley. Itwhere hundreds of Europemost innovative pre-Series A companies showcase to the world their tech products, platforms and services.

Oh, wait, there is a better way. You can apply to be a TechCrunch Top Pick. If you earn that rarified designation, you score a FREE Startup Alley Exhibitor Package. That lets you place your company in front of thousands of influential technologists, investors and potential collaborators and customers. Yup, free is always better. The application window closes on September 28. Don&t miss out — apply here today.

Our TechCrunch editors are mighty particular about choosing Top Picks. We&re looking for founders of exceptional startups, and we&ll vet each application carefully. This year, we&ll choose up to five startups to represent each of the following tech categories:

• AI/Machine Learning
• Blockchain
• CRM/Enterprise
• E-commerce
• Education
• Fintech
• Healthtech/Biotech
• Hardware, Robotics, IoT
• Mobility
• Gaming

Each TechCrunch Top Pick designee wins one Startup Alley Exhibitor Package, which includes a one-day exhibit space, three Disrupt Berlin Founder Passes, access to CrunchMatch (our free investor-to-startup matching platform), full use of the Startup Alley Exhibitor lounge, access to the Disrupt press list and a chance to be selected as one of the Startup Battlefield Wildcard Companies (and compete in our $50,000 startup-pitch competition).

You&ll also receive serious media attention, including a three-minute interview on the Showcase Stage with a TechCrunch editor, which we promote across our social media platforms.That kind of media exposure is the gift that keeps on giving — long after the conference ends.

Luke Heron, the CEO ofTestCard.com, came to this conclusion about his experience in Startup Alley at Disrupt Berlin 2017. &If you&re a startup founder or an entrepreneur, exhibiting at Disrupt is a no-brainer.&

Now, imagine being able to exhibit there for free. Disrupt Berlin 2018 takes place November 29-30, and your deadline to apply to be a TC Top Pick is September 28. Come on — we can&t wait to see you in Berlin!

SenSat, a U.K. startup aiming to use visual and spatial data to &simulate reality& and help computers better understand the physical world, has raised $4.5 million in seed funding — cash it will use to further develop the technology, and invest in its San Francisco office. The round was backed by Force Over Mass, Round Hill Venture Partners, and Zag (the venture arm of global creative agency BBH).

Launched in 2017 by founders James Dean (CEO) and Harry Atkinson (Head of Product), SenSat turns complex visual and spatial data into what is described as &real-time simulated reality& designed to enable computers to solve real world problems.

The idea is to let companies operating in physical domains — starting with the infrastructure construction industry — use AI to help make better informed decisions based on multiple variables, which are large in number and complexity.

But to do this, first the real world needs to be simulated and those simulations injected with data that computers can understand and interact with. And that starts with using new technology to photograph the real world at a level of detail that goes beyond satellite imagery.

&My background is in satellite remote sensing, the science of understanding an object without coming into contact with it,& SenSat CEO Dean tells me. &This actually gave me the initial idea, ‘if everything we do from satellites can be done 200 miles closer using autonomous drones, then the resolution of the corresponding information must be commercially valuable'&.

Dean says the tech that SenSat has since developed is making it possible for computers to understand the real world through the lens of highly detailed simulated realities in order to &learn how things work and to change the way we make decisions&. The company does this by creating digital replicas of real world locations, then infusing real-time spatial data-sets with a high degree of statistical accuracy from both open and proprietary data sources.

&The resulting simulations are realistic and fully digital, allowing large-scale machine learning and data analysis at an unprecedented scale,& he says.

But why has SenSat chosen to initially target infrastructure construction &On a technical level it allows us to build simulated realities for medium to small physical areas which we have known variables for,& explains Dean. &This means we can check and quantify our results against the real world, helping us build a foundation that can scale in size and complexity… Construction, whilst remaining a fundamental pillar of world economies, is the second least innovative sector on the planet (beaten only by hunting and fishing). As a sector it has seen a zero percent productivity increase since 1970, meaning there are lots of low hanging fruit opportunities for automation&.

In addition, the time and cost for the design phases of large civil infrastructure construction projects can be up to 40 percent of the entire asset value. Because SenSat digitally re-creates the world and teaches its AI to understand it, the startup can automate many manual design tasks.

For example, Dean says that when building a new railway, it might be stipulated that the track can only have a 5 degree gradient, gantries must be placed every 100 metres and tracks must be laid 1.4 metres apart. Traditionally this would take engineers months to painstakingly measure over large distances, hypothesise and test, but SenSatAI can run thousands of options, following the exact same design rules, in a matter of minutes. The startup can then produce a fully validated best option design, often representing millions of dollars in savings.

Meanwhile, beyond infrastructure construction, the startup has a number of research streams looking at how else its technology could evolve and be applied. One area being explored is how autonomous vehicles might use the platform to run millions of hours of driverless simulation.

&Our simulated reality replicates exactly what is happening in the real world, and as such it becomes a sensible place to trial developing technologies within ‘real world& environments, helping the reinforcement learning feedback loop by providing access to real world scenarios,& adds Dean.

&Based on the worldhighest resolution digital representations, including furniture such as street lamps, lane markings and signage, we can simulate millions of hours of driving in real world conditions to train autonomous agents and prove safety use cases. This will be an important step in convincing regulators to transition to free flow AVs on our streets, especially as the technology begins to reach level 4 autonomy and the integration problem becomes the halting factor&.