Qualcomm promotes the concept of combining routers with smart speakers

Qualcomm executives called the new Asus Lyra Voice a model for routers going forward: partly a speaker, partly a router, and powered by Amazon's Alexa assistant. The company said it's trying to convince ISPs like Cox and Comcast to move in that direction. Unlike AMD and Intel, you can't buy Qualcomm chips to build your own smartphones and routers. But when company executives take the stage at CES to describe how future products should look, it's worth paying attention. Qualcomm announced three versions of its Smart Audio Platform--complete with a quad-core ARM A53 processor, audio DSP, 802.11ac