Gadgetory

now chromecast is just the beginning we want to build an ecosystem of Google cast ready apps and Google cast ready devices that so that's why we're excited that Google cast supports coming to Android TV devices as devices roll out later this year Google cast is designed to work of the most popular devices you find in a home today in fact in the last 30 days almost 50% of chrome casts were used by devices from multiple platforms one of my favorite features of chromecast is that it works with my friends and family because they can use their own devices well today we're announcing a new feature to make that even easier by allowing others to cast your TV without needing to be on the same Wi-Fi network so I have a que here on stage with me and let's say a que is over at my house and he wants to use his phone to share or cast one of his favorite YouTube videos to my TV now normally I need to share my Wi-Fi pass with them but sometimes are long and complicated or I don't remember it well with this new feature a que can still take out his phone and open up the YouTube app and you'll see in the top right E is only connected to the cellular network but you still see the cast button simply press the button and well out it could allow him to connect to nearby devices now in a few seconds his phone will connect to chromecast through the cloud and that's it so now he can control the video pause the video play the video just if it just says if he was on my same Wi-Fi network so how do we do it we're using a variety of different technologies which allows us to authenticate users in the same room as a chromecast and if for whatever reason we can't automatically detect or that occasion you will ask for a pin that will always be present on the screen so now you can invite all your friends over to your house kick back and let them cast your TV without any friction or hassle it makes chromecast and even more social experience now this is an opt-in feature so you always have control over who can cast to your TV we'll be rolling this out to all Android users later this year and developers will get this for free by the Google cast became so we also spent a lot of time thinking about new use cases for the television for example today lots of people talk about the five hours per day people watch TV what about the 19 hours per day your TV's just a blank empty screen with chromecast we want to make use of this large beautiful canvas so we start with something really simple a feed of scenic images that's been gradually expanding over time today we're announcing the new Google Katz ambient experience and we call it backdrop it just takes a minute to set up and you can do it from any iOS or Android device in this case we're going to use an iPhone 5 for the demo and we have the feed accelerated just for the demo purposes so you can see more images so let's go ahead and open up the chromecast app and you see backdrops a new option in the app drawer and from here you can personalize the feed to match your own interests and tastes well the top feature requests we've gotten is ability to add your own personal photos to the ambient feature well now you can so we turn on photos you can select from one or multiple Google+ photo albums and in a few seconds you'll start seeing my personal photos show up right on the TV screen it's that simple so we also have a lot more topics we want to give you an infinite source of great and beautiful images one of my favorites is one called places which brings geospatial images from Google Maps to your TV these satellite photos give you a totally different perspective on how you can see the world it's really amazing leave it on for a really long time we also have other topics like news and lifestyle and Google+ featured photos when my other favorite topics is art which includes artwork from famous museums and collections from around the world including the Getty Museum the National Museum of women in the arts and now my TV's a beautiful set of paintings every topic is curated to make sure we're showing high quality and safe safe images and every user has a bility control which topics show up on the TV now gently I'm gonna leave this in the background of my house but let's say one of the images catches my eye and I want to learn more a little bit more info about it I can use Google Voice Search to always learn more what's on my chromecast for every topic will show a synchronized card that will show you relevant information and relevant actions so in this case I can learn more about any artists of the painting backdrop brings your TV to life even when you're not actively using it and we're looking forward to working with third parties for third-party developers to actually bring in their own topics into the feed backdrop will roll out to all chromecast users later this summer so finally one of the big advantages of the Google cast model is that we can start thinking beyond traditional use cases of the TV like video for example your phone and your tablet have unlimited possibilities and there's many times we want to bring those experiences and extend them to the TV well to help accelerate that shift we're launching a new Google cast feature that allows you to mirror any Android device to to your television so to start mirroring just go to your chromecast app on your Android device and select cast screen and from here everything on your phone will just show up on the tip on the TV it's that simple no cables or wires needed now we built our own protocol to reduce latency and frame drops so the experience feels really natural and smooth and now you can share anything on the big screen so let me give one example a real-life example I had a few months ago and I using Google Earth I was planning a family trip to Maui later in the year and I want to show my four-year-old daughter where Maui is on the map so instead of huddling on my small phone I ended up open up Google Earth and projected rights to TV so let's type in Molokini one of my favorite snorkeling destinations in Maui and as you can see it's a totally different experience to navigate the world with my daughter on the biggest screen in the house it you can play with this for hours we'll be rolling out this initially in beta as devices get updated latest version of Google Play services which will happen over the next few weeks