As Apple struggles to work out how to enter the TV display market, Google has jumped into the TV streaming market with a $35 dongle that delivers content from the cloud direct to a TV with a USB slot.
Called Chromecast the device is initially
being launched in the USA, it allows users to select YouTube video content and
play on their television. It to Apple’s Airplay and Microsoft’ Smartglass
technology.
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It’s expected to be available in other
countries in coming weeks according to Google executives.
Chromecast plugs into the HDMI port of a
television and prompts a person’s mobile device to download a Chromecast app
and then connect the device to a Wi-Fi network.
The device works with Android smartphones,
Chrome-powered laptops and even Apple’s iPad and iPhone. “We have a
multi-platform approach.and we go where the users are,” said Google’s chief of
Chrome and Android, Sundar Pichai, in an interview at an event in San
Francisco.
The Wall Street Journal said that
Chromecast is the latest example of Google flexing its hardware-manufacturing
muscle. Pichai said the company worked with a hardware maker in Taiwan to build
the device, which he said he hopes will be embedded within new TVs and other
devices in the future.
Google’s past TV efforts have had some
challenges. GoogleTV, software that is embedded in some TVs and devices that
connect to televisions, was released in 2010 but failed to gain much traction.
Shortly Chinese Company Hisence will launch
a Google TV offering in Australia.
