Snapdragon: Empowering smartbooks and robot overlords

We were soiling our snapdragons when we saw this Dalek with the face of a Miami surgeon roll in, but Qualcomm wasn't demonstrating a new way of convincing organ donors with extreme prejudice. These robots are already being used all over the world, including at London's St Mary's hospital, to get doctors where they can't be in person -- such as war zones, wards after hours or in other countries, or training other doctors in surgery. Right now they're controlled over 3G, to allow doctors to get online from many more places than Wi-Fi, but with a laptop using a 3G dongle. Qualcomm says that because Snapdragon is so powerful, at 1GHz, doctors will be able to control their Dalek bodies from a mobile device, leading to life saving while lying on the beach. The Miami doctor who chatted us up live from this beast assured us that although our Dr Who-fuelled imaginations left us filled with irrational fears of plunger-based attacks, patients report that after a few minutes they forget they aren't talking to the doctor in person, and the robot's mobility is a huge help in getting the job done rather than a ridiculously expensive gimmick redolent of 70s sci-fi television shows.