Skip to footer

Google dives into streaming TV with Chromecast

Google released Chromecast, a TV streaming device that pulls in shows from the Internet.

|
Marcio Jose Sanchez/ AP Photo
The new Google Chromecast device is shown at its Wednesday release. Chromecast lets users stream videos from WiFi devices to their televisions.

Google – the search engine, e-mail provider, and trivia authority – has moved into new territory. The company is now selling a set-top box that connects users’ cellphones, tablets, or laptops to their television.

Chromecast looks like a black thumb drive and fits into the back of a television. Simply plug in Chromecast, connect it to Wi-Fi, and then stream videos over the Internet to your TV. Users can continue other activities on their phones or laptops while streaming content onto their TV. This means you can start watching Netflix content on your iPhone, stream the episode to your TV, and play a game on your phone while watching the streaming content, according to a review by Mashable.

“Of course people would want to watch YouTube and Netflix on the device with the biggest screen, but the user experience on the TV has been so difficult,” says Rishi Chandra, a director of product management at Google in an interview with Bloomberg after the product’s unveiling. 

Chromecast is compatible with Android, iOS, Mac, and Windows operating systems – and costs $35, putting it as one of lowest-priced TV hookups.

The contraption seems surprisingly user-friendly – and that might just be the point. Google has been moving away from just being an Internet company, and is trying to expand the brand by becoming a product innovator as well. Ventures such as Google Glass, the Chromebook laptop, and Chromecast are part of the company’s effort to expand its reach.

Chromecast isn’t the first TV-streaming device from Google. The company launched the Nexus Q in June 2012, but it received a round of negative reviews and is no longer on sale. A "Google TV" device has also reportedly been in the works for a while, but hasn't been fine-tuned well enough for release yet.

But the company still faces some stiff competition from other TV-streaming companies. Apple has its own streaming set-top box, Microsoft has the Xbox 360, and Sony has its PlayStation 3 – the latter two were designed for video games, but have expanded into steaming video. However, the low cost of Google's product – Apple TV is $99, the Xbox starts at $199, and PlayStation 3 runs more than $200 – might give it an edge with non-gamers looking to kickback and tap into Netflix or YouTube. 

Chromecast is on sale at Amazon.com, BestBuy.com, and Google’s Play Store. 

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Google dives into streaming TV with Chromecast
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Technology/Tech-Culture/2013/0725/Google-dives-into-streaming-TV-with-Chromecast
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe