14 DAY TRIAL // Google has announced a new set of features for Chromecast at Google I/O, the annual developer conference.
First of all, the dongle that Google introduced last year has already managed to sell more devices than all similar tools combined, the company said. After expanding to a lot of countries around the world, the future of the casting feature is in Android TV.
Back in February, Google unveiled the Cast SDK, allowing developers to create special apps for the device with perfect integration. In this time, over 6,000 developers have already decided to try their hand at building over 10,000 Chromecast-compatible apps.
Given the high number of apps and the popularity of the device, Google has decided to create a new, improved, discovery experience for dedicated tools.
Furthermore, one feature whose announcement didn’t draw too many applauds in the beginning is the possibility for people who are not connected to your home WiFi to cast content to your TV. On the one hand, this makes things rather awkward because of the fact that people you don’t even trust with your WiFi password can send content to the big screen, while on the other, it keeps your home Internet connection safe.
Another great feature that has been made possible for Chromecast is to mirror Android devices to the big screen, something that many have requested. This even works for the camera feed.
Google was on a roll regarding Chromecast. The company has also announced another extra feature, called Backdrop, which helps you pick backgrounds for the Chromecast screen when you’re not watching anything in particular.
Aside from the pro pictures you can select from a series of categories, it’s also possible to share personal pics from your device, allowing the TV to roll a series of slideshows. As Google put it, this will be awesome for all those who often use this feature for their computer screens, for instance.
Additional categories will be built in the future, although there’s no mention as to what kind of backgrounds may become available soon.
Another nifty feature allows you to ask your phone “What’s on my Chromecast” and have it display more data about the particular picture you’re seeing on the big screen. If that is part of an arts collection, for instance, you’ll get more data about the painting and the artist behind it, which is a pretty cool idea.
Google introduced a lot of new things today during the annual I/O conference, although plenty of other topics were ignored completely, including Google Glass, the driverless cars and many other projects that the company is known to be working on.