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There’s no question Google’s Chromecast has been one of the company’s more successful projects. We’re sure a lot of that has to do with its ridiculously low $35 price tag, a near-impulse buy piece of technology for infusing your television with some smarts. After hitting the 1 million in sales mark back in March, it’s not much of a stretch to assume Google was already hard at work on a followup.
In an interview with GigaOM, Google’s VP of Product Management Mario Queiroz talked numbers, mentioning over 650 million casts have been beamed since launching last July, a number that was only 400 million 3 months ago. He also went on to talk about Backdrop, the Chromecast’s newest feature which allows your TV to display feeds of information onscreen without active user input (things like weather, images from your Google+, etc.). While, again, limited at this point. Queiroz mentioned that they hope to one day launch some sort of API for developers to take advantage of and expand this useful feature. The prospect of feeds from social networks like Tumblr, Facebook, or Twitter could all one day be a reality.
When asked whether the Nexus Player and the Android TV platform — which has Google Cast functionality baked in — would soon replace the Chromecast, Queiroz was quick to announce: “There will be a 2nd version of Chromecast in the future.” Of course, he declined on providing any sort of details but he did mention Google is working with developers to further extend the 1st/2nd screen experience, things that “haven’t been possible as of yet.”
You can watch the full interview in the video down below.
sure would love to cast google drive videos.
That’s just been added, to Chrome OS at least – http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2014/10/beta-channel-update-for-chrome-os_16.html. I guess it’ll be rolling out to other platforms soon.
Might be the one with the 5.8 GHz WiFi support that was leaked a few days ago… Not hoping for a serious hardware revision… then again, I don’t think it needs one.
I doubt what we see very soon is a V2. I think more or less this is just a mid-generation update. The Chromecast needed 5ghz band from the beginning. But Im taking a WAG (wild ass guess) than Google didnt want to put every single option into this unit on the first go. They needed to make sure it took off first.
And oh baby did it take off…
It just doesn’t sound right in my accent: “Wild arse guess”. I’ll stick with “Wives and Girlfriends” thanks
If you use an acronym that is so vague… that you actually needed to type out the words to explain what it means… WHY even use it? You had to type out the words anyway. So… why not just go with the full words?
I thought the same thing. Twitterspeak.
He thinks he’s hip.
Because I use it a lot. There are tons of Acronyms people pick up through life. I picked this up from my father. So most likely this term was used for decades.
I thought it would be nice to introduce a term others may not be aware of. Problem?
I’m gonna take a WAG and say that WAG certainly hasn’t existed for decades. That sounds silly as hell.
Chromecast doesn’t need much, I expect 5GHz band support and maybe a dual core SoC.
I do think the goal for a V2 should be near zero latency perfect screen mirroring but that might be optimistic.
What is the benefit of the 5 ghz band? I think I turned this on once with my router and then turned it back off because alot of my devices didn’t work with it.
There isn’t a benefit unless your bandwidth needs are extreme. It’s used for 802.11n and 802.11ac. 2.4GHz is fine for most people.
Would it help with streaming directly from devices, such as using the Allcast app?
Again, it’s more about congestion on a given frequency. I have a dual band router, and not every device in my house is 5GHz compatible, but I do turn the ones on that are, because I have too many things using the 2.4GHz band. 5GHz is faster and less susceptible to hits on speed, but weaker penetration.
Thanks. I believe my router is dual band as well. I may turn that on and see how it works with the devices I have.
Much less congestion and interference on 5GHz. If you live in an apartment complex or have a lot of other wireless devices (basically everything uses 2.4 GHz; Bluetooth, cordless phones, all network devices, even microwave ovens interfere with it), it can really degrade your wireless performance. Using the 5 GHz band alleviates all of this and can improve network performance significantly. I can notice the difference immediately when I’m using BT devices on my phone and use my 2.4 GHz network instead of 5 GHz. My connectivity is horribly on my phones while using BT if I’m using my 2.4 GHz wireless band at the same time.
Thanks for that info. Makes sense.
“They needed to make sure it took off first.” – no, they needed to make sure they could charge you twice for what should have been done from the start.
So suddenly “ridiculously low $35 price tag” is not so great when you have to buy a V1 and then a V2 and then a V3, etc.
I just hope they will update more phones and tablets to the list which can screen mirror. Until then I will continue to use my samsung dongle.
Hardware dependent dude, not all processors are created equally and when you think about what is actually occurring to make this happen behind the scenes – most of these machines are 6 times as powerful as your Windows machine from 1997.
But I have a tab pro 8.4 with the Snapdragon 800. That hardware is the same in the note 3 that has the ability.
This is exactly what I’m waiting for. I can so screen Mirroring no, but can’t do it with all Android devices
It might be out for Christmas a lot of retailers are doing clearance sales on v1 already.
more free ads again for google again…so tell me why Google isn’t giving away chromecasts for free? I know I’m cheap. It’s only $35. It’s probably worth 35….but barely….given that it only works half the time, and I always have to unplug it to 1. reset it 2. stop it from burning up (imagine how difficult it is to reach behind the big TV)
Just hope they let App developers know ahead of time to get ready before the unveil it so threy have time to get theirs up and ready.