It was a slow week for tech news in San Diego, perhaps due to a post-Uplinq lull following Qualcomm’s annual conference for wireless app developers. We did find a spurt of cleantech news, however, so plug in, turn on, and tune in. Your Xconomy briefing begins now.

—San Diego’s chumby industries, which has developed a touch-screen device and widgets to provide music, photos, games, and web sites, has expanded its software platform into the connected TV market through a collaboration with UK-based Pace, a global developer of digital TV technologies. Chumby said Pace showcased its applications for the connected TV market last week at the Cable Show in Chicago. Last month, chumby raised an additional $1.5 million from its venture investors.

—The jobless rate in San Diego County declined to 9.6 percent in May from 9.8 percent in April, marking the second straight month that unemployment has stayed under 10 percent. This dip is the first time unemployment has been under 10 percent locally in roughly two years, according to the California Economic Development Department (EDD). Statewide unemployment remained at 11.7 percent, a tick below the 11.8 percent rate in April. While the trend is encouraging, the U.S. unemployment rate increased in May to 9.1 percent.

—In an “Ode to Error,” Xconomy’s Wade Roush reviews the Kathryn Schulz book “Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error,” and argues that it’s one of the best business books in recent years, even though it’s (wrongly?) classified as psychology. As Wade puts it, “There are so many opportunities for showstopper mistakes in a typical startup that, from the badge-of-honor point of view, it would be silly to penalize the founders too harshly when a venture runs aground. Most Silicon Valley investors do seem to realize this…”

—San Francisco-based Ecotality, which began installing its residential charging stations seven months ago, is now beginning to install its electric vehicle charging stations at public and commercial sites in San Diego, Seattle, Phoenix and 15 other EV Project communities. Ten public EV chargings stations that Ecotality installed at San Diego’s Balboa Park will be free until … Next Page »

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Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) today confirmed media reports from yesterday, saying it has decided to stop offering its Flo TV direct consumer mobile television service to new customers. In a statement this afternoon, the San Diego wireless giant said it also has stopped selling its Qualcomm pocket-sized personal TV.

The company says it anticipates there will be some layoffs as a result, even though it’s working to transfer affected employees to other jobs.

The wireless chipmaker says it will continue to operate its dedicated broadcast network, enabling existing direct-to-consumer subscribers to continue to receive Flo TV programming through at least mid-June 2011.

“Service provided to handsets purchased through wireless operators is unaffected at this time,” the company says, referring to Qualcomm broadcasts to certain AT&T and Verizon customers with Flo TV-enabled cell phones. “We have been engaging in conversations with a wide range of partners for both the network and the spectrum,” Qualcomm said.

If Qualcomm eventually moves to discontinue its Flo TV service through AT&T and Verizon, the company says its Flo TV subsidiary “will make appropriate refunds, the details of which will be communicated prior to discontinuation.”

Qualcomm Personal TV

As Qualcomm chairman and CEO Paul Jacobs indicated several months ago, the company says it is still getting “strong interest” in using the Flo TV network or spectrum to ease congestion on wireless networks. Jacobs said at Qualcomm’s Uplinq conference last summer that the Flo TV network could be used to “data cast” magazines, video, and other content to mobile devices in a much more cost-effective manner. Jacobs later told reporters the data rate of Flo TV’s digital broadcast is about 6 megabytes per second, and the content of most magazines is about 50 megabytes-which would take less than 10 seconds to cache on a mobile device. He also said datacasting could be done in overnight bursts.

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Last year, Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) announced during the CTIA Wireless trade show that it was introducing a handheld personal TV to help boost interest in its Flo TV business, which has been flagging. This year, it looks like the San Diego wireless giant will be confronting reports of a planned shutdown of its Flo TV operations during the CTIA trade show that begins Wednesday at the Moscone Center West in downtown San Francisco.

Qualcomm executives informed Flo TV employees last week that the company plans to shut down the business, which broadcasts live events and other programming directly to consumer devices, according to a report today by Staci Kramer in PaidContent. The shutdown will reportedly be by the end of this year, although it’s unclear how that will affect Flo TV’s partnerships with AT&T and Verizon, which depend on Qualcomm’s Flo TV operation center in San Diego for their nationwide broadcasts.

Bill Stone, the president of Qualcomm MediaFlo and Flo TV, did not immediately respond to my e-mail query about the report. I also sent an e-mail query to Qualcomm’s public relations staff.

As we reported during Qualcomm’s Uplinq conference this summer, Qualcomm Chairman and CEO Paul Jacobs has been saying the company never intended to operate Flo TV indefinitely, which is why Flo TV operates as an independent subsidiary. Jacobs told reporters then, and Wall Street analysts a few weeks later during a conference call, that it was unlikely Flo TV will stay as it is through the next year. Jacobs also has publicly discussed that it might use Flo TV’s spectrum and network to ease the congestion on wireless networks.

“With respect to our FLO TV business, we’re engaged in discussions with a number of partners regarding the future direction of the business,” Jacobs said in July during the company’s conference call to discuss its third-quarter financial results. Whatever happens with Flo TV “will get done in the next year, but I don’t think I can be much more specific than that,” Jacobs said.

Qualcomm has reportedly spent $800 million to develop its Flo TV business, including an estimated $683 million Qualcomm paid to acquire the necessary spectrum licenses in scores of U.S. metropolitan markets.

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[Updated 6/18/10 4:10 pm. See below.] The World Cup soccer tournament that begins today in South Africa ranks as the world’s biggest sporting event in terms of broadcast audience. Alas, if only San Diego-based Qualcomm’s (NASDAQ: QCOM) FLO TV could tap a significant fraction of it.

FLO TV, the Qualcomm subsidiary that provides the broadcast TV infrastructure and service for certain mobile devices, announced that its coverage of the month-long soccer tournament will include a dedicated 24-hour World Cup Channel. AT&T, which offers FLO TV services on certain handsets under its own brand (AT&T Mobile TV), will offer ESPN’s coverage of all 64 World Cup matches. Mobile users also can watch all 64 games on FLO TV Personal Television and Auto Entertainment devices, and FLO TV is broadcasting 56 games on Verizon V Cast mobile TV phones.

But FLO TV is not yet in a position to take advantage of the intense passion for World Cup soccer that exists outside the United States.

The World Cup held in Germany four years ago had a total cumulative television audience of almost 26.3 billion, according to FIFA, the European sponsor otherwise known as Fédération Internationale de Football Association. More than 715 million viewers watched the final match between Italy and France—replete with the infamous head-butting incident by French team captain Zinedine Zidane while the tense overtime match was still tied at 1-1.

[Updated to clarify how FLO TV transmits by satellite to terrestrial broadcast TV infrastructure.] While Qualcomm has laid the groundwork to expand its MediaFLO Technologies in overseas markets—beginning as early as next year in Japan—the mobile broadcast service currently is available in just 112 U.S. media markets and travel corridors. A similar infrastructure would presumably be required before mobile broadcasts could begin foreign markets. In the United States, MediaFLO transmits broadcasts from its San Diego operations center by satellite to Qualcomm’s dedicated terrestrial network of digital mobile TV transmitters.  FLO TV says it serves roughly 200 million points of presence (POPs), but that doesn’t translate into 200 million viewers.

Other smartphone users also will be able to watch World Cup matches, and Bob Tedeschi of The New York Times provides a network-by-network explanation here.

In a statement, FLO TV says: “MediaFLO Technologies has completed successful trials with mobile network operators, content owners, and … Next Page »

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Qualcomm’s delayed plan to substantially expand the scope of its Flo TV service should finally take effect tomorrow, once television broadcasters in 39 markets turn off their analog transmitters and switch to digital TV broadcasts.

Tomorrow’s planned DTV transition will free broadband spectrum on what was UHF Channel 55 that will be used by Flo TV’s dedicated network. The company’s San Diego broadcast center transmits live and scheduled television news, sports, and entertainment programs nationwide to certain mobile phones on the Verizon and AT&T networks. The company plans to go live immediately in 15 new markets, including Boston, San Francisco, Houston, and Miami.

In an announcement today, Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) says the change will enable Flo TV, a Qualcomm subsidiary, to offer its service to an additional 60 million customers and will expand its total reach to 100 U.S. media markets and more than 200 million potential viewers by the end of this year. Flo TV is currently available in San Diego, Seattle, and Portland.

Qualcomm unveiled plans to nearly double its service for Flo TV-enabled cell phones at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, and planned to begin service in 40 U.S. markets after Feb. 17. That was the original deadline for TV stations to shut down their analog broadcasts and convert to digital technology. But Congress, with encouragement from the Obama Administration, postponed the planned digital TV conversion date until June 12.

Flo TV expanded its service in some markets that made the conversion early

Under an agreement disclosed in January, Flo TV said Audiovox would be the exclusive supplier of automotive electronic systems that will connect to existing video equipment, enabling passengers to watch Flo TV on the road. Audiovox also got rights to make the only Flo TV-ready video systems that drop down from a vehicle’s ceiling, as well as units that go into the back of head rests.

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San Diego-based video coding technology company DivX and consumer electronics giant LG have announced LG’s new line of digital TVs are capable of playing DivX high-definition videos from a PC or the Internet. The LG television enables consumers to easily play DivX videos through a USB slot. DivX says approximately two hours of high-quality DivX HD video now fits on an 8GB media card. New LG TVs will be available in the U.S. and Europe in late May

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The highlight last week for Xconomy San Diego was our premiere event, “Physics for Future Presidents,” which drew a big turnout (about 200 people registered), including at least two Ph.D. physicists—Lowell Burnett of Quasar Federal Systems and J. Robert Beyster, the founder and retired chairman and CEO of defense contractor SAIC. Yet it also was an eventful week in San Diego for the life sciences, cleantech, software, and information technology sectors.

—As an equal-opportunity “Debunker in Chief,” UC Berkeley Physics professor Richard Muller separated science from mythology in his talk, “Physics for Future Presidents,” which touched on nuclear terrorism, energy, and global warming.

—San Diego Internet entrepreneur Lee Stein, who helped to pioneer online payment systems, travels in rarefied circles, which include PayPal founder Elon Musk, Ariana Huffington of the Huffington Post, and Segway inventor (and Boston Xconomist) Dean Kamen. His latest project is Prize Capital, a Del Mar, CA, investment firm he founded to help support the development of breakthrough green technologies.

—San Diego’s Mpex Pharmaceuticals says its $27.5 million in venture funding will carry the life sciences startup through Phase 2 clinical trials of its inhaled version of approved antibiotic levofloxacin for treating certain lung infections.

—The San Diego “regional algae initiative” has formed a virtual network to encourage the growth of all companies algal. Project manager Rick Halperin told me San Diego’s experience in aquaculture, expertise in algae biology, and sunny climate gives the region an early advantage in developing a new algae industry cluster here.

—San Diego’s Arena Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ARNA), which has run … Next Page »

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