In Other News: 06/05/2013.

Image Credit: Allianz.

• The new list of Fortune 500 companies is out today and amongst the notable tech companies to feature are Apple at number six and AT&T is in at number 11. A tad further back are people like HP, Verizon, Microsoft and Amazon, each of whom came in at 15, 16, 35 and 49 respectively.
  Via Slashgear.

• Sony are rumoured to be creating a new smartphone with a quad-core Mediatek processor in a move which would see them utilize a processor from the Taiwanese company for the first time!
  Via AndroidBeat.

• The Verge is today reporting that Google will launch paid subscriptions on YouTube as early as this week! If and when this becomes a reality we will give you much more detail on it!

• Rumour has it that Nintendo is offering conversion software to app developers as a way to bolster their content offering on the Wii U! We're not sure if the tactic is genuine or whether or not it'll work. But, watch this space because this sounds very likely and it seems that Nintendo might be getting ready to protect themselves from the likes of the OUYA and Gamestick!
  Via ZDNet.

• Today's rumours suggest that Microsoft's next Xbox won't require a always on internet, for everything. A supposedly leaked email to Microsoft employees suggests that playing Blu-rays,  watching live TV and playing single player games won't require the internet connection. As always take this with a pinch of salt because it could be completely false!
  Via ArsTechnica. 

• Samsung's Galaxy S4's have been getting their first software updates which are between 54 and 78MB in size depending on where you are and they bring stability fixes and camera improvements, which again are dependent on where you live. For those of you with a device locked to a carrier expect a few weeks delay until you get this, at the very least!
  Via AndroidBeat.

• Over the weekend you might have noticed that the Syrian Electronic Army, hacked and tweeted out incorrect comments about Justin Bieber's sexuality. For full details on that head to Slashgear here, but in the meantime we think Twitter should hurry up with that two-step verification!

• Maxis and EA have confirmed that The Sims 4 will be coming to PC and Mac at some point in 2014!
  Via Slashgear.

• Hulu Plus is now out for Windows Phone 8!
  Via Engadget.

• The anti-virus firm McAfee have announced that they've acquire the Finnish firm Stonesoft for $389 million. McAfee are owned by Intel and the purchase will supposedly beef up the company's firewall and online protection!
  Via TheNextWeb.

And finally, some of you might remember that when the HTC One was officially announced there were actually three colour options. There was silver, black and red. Until today we haven't heard anything about the red variant, but it seems that the guys over at LandOfTechnology were the first to notice that HandTec, a UK seller have put the red phone up on the site, presumably they're just waiting for the device to come into stock, but that does mean that the phone is on the way and you can see what it'll look like in the picture below!

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Broadcom's Executive Vice President talks China, MediaTek and the future of mobile!

   In a world which is dominated by processors with Snapdragon, Exynos and even the letter A before a single digit number in their titles, it's surprisingly easy to forget that there are more than just three companies out there who design or make their own mobile processors. The other week we heard that ST-Ericsson will be heading out of business, but there's other companies with their hands in the game. Three others which spring to mind are, Nvidia, Texas Instruments, Mediatek and Broadcom.

   It turns out that the last of those four, Broadcom, is responsible for the processors which run Samsung's Galaxy Grand and their Galaxy S2 Plus devices. Obviously these guys don't really have the same sort of brand recognition that someone like Nvidia would, but their Executive Vice President, Robert Rango, recently had an interview with Digitimes and he said some interesting things in that discussion.

   The one of the main strands of the debate was about Broadcom's plan to push hard in the Chinese market. Key to this was the recently 'acquired R&D team', a team capable of "enabl[ing] mobile phone makers with a R&D team of 45-60 persons to complete the design of one smartphone model within one month, compared to the need of a 300-member team and a workload of three months for the completion of the same job in the past". This tiny timescale is put down to the reference designs which the R&D team are busy coming up with which make everything a lot easier for venders.

   Obviously with this investment in China one of their key competitors immediately becomes MediaTek. Rango doesn't think that his company is "lagging behind" them, which is debatable, instead he points to longer-term partnerships with both Samsung and Nokia. The phones from Sammy and Nokia have gone around the world which Rango suggests makes Broadcom slightly more successful because they're not region specific, but we're not necessarily sure we agree on that one.

   There was also an interesting remark about the future of the mobile market. Rango said 'More and more smart devices are likely to enter into the market in such forms as smart watches and smart glasses' and this is something which he believes his company can play a big role in.

   The whole thing is well worth a read if you're interested in this sort of thing and you can find the full interview here!
Digitimes Via AndroidBeat.

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