Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 will battle malware with cognitive computing, courtesy of Smart Protect

Yet, there is a host of features and functionalities that we still don't beans about. Qualcomm is fortunately willing to share a lot about its upcoming chipset (all about the official specs, though). The manufacturer recently announced that the Snapdragon 820 will be endowed with the Smart Protect technology, a security-centric entry in the upcoming chip's feature bag that aims to protect your phone from viruses, malware, and potentially-unwanted apps.

While the concept behind Smart Protect is nothing new, the highlight of Qualcomm's new security feature is the way it's executed. Unlike similar solutions, which rely on databases to identify malware and wrongdoing apps, Smart Protect will employ machine learning to take care of the task. 

Here's how it's done: at the first level, all known malware is being blocked; at the second level, the security feature will keep tabs on apps' activities and scan for abnormal behavior, like silently sending an SMS message. In the end, only apps that exhibit normal behavior will get "okayed". The big deal about Smart Protect is that it works even when the device is offline.

Well, with such a security feature on board, we can't wait for the Snapdragon 820 to come around, guns blazing. We expect it later this year.