Tech companies are taking a pass on this year’s Super Bowl. At this point, we could find only two tech companies, GoDaddy and Intuit (INTU), set to run ads for Super Bowl XLVIII on Feb. 2. Best Buy (BBY), BlackBerry (BBRY), Cars.com and E-Trade Financial (ETFC) opted out after running ads last year. CareerBuilder.com, Hulu and TaxAct, which advertised two years ago, are sitting out a second straight big game. The event, though, continues to be the
Consumers might be ambivalent about smartwatches, but that’s not stopping a host of consumer electronics makers from bringing products to market in the emerging category. Qualcomm (QCOM) will make its Toq smartwatch available for sale on its website starting Monday for $349.99. It will join Samsung’s Galaxy Gear and Sony ‘s (SNE) SmartWatch 2 on the market, along with devices from startups like Pebble. The Qualcomm Toq (QCOM) (pronounced “talk”) works with Google (GOOG) Android-based smartphones and displays information at a glance, with no on-off switch. It connects to phones via Bluetooth wireless and lets users view text messages, meeting alerts and other information on their wrist, as well as accept or reject incoming calls. The Toq comes preloaded with weather and stock apps from AccuWeather and E-Trade Financial (ETFC). Qualcomm is using the Toq smartwatch mainly as a technology demonstration tool. It hopes to entice other manufacturers to use its technologies, including low-power displays and wireless charging. It refers to the Toq as a “limited edition smartwatch.”