I really wonder whether this is going to be a partnership with Xiaomi...

after Hugo Barra went there from Google and made this quote "“If I do my job right, in a few years, the world will be talking about Xiaomi in the same way that they talk about Google and Apple today.”"

It appears the company will be gearing up for a big smartphone release in 2014, which would also fit into the timelines here.

Xiaomi tends to be known for the high-performance low-price phones, but have always had poor software letting the devices down.