The Chromecast is a media streaming device from Google, allowing you to play your favorite content from Netflix, Spotify, Google Play Music, Pandora, and countless other services on your television. The device is a small HDMI dongle, and retails for $35.
The Sony Xperia Z3 and Z3 Compact are the company’s first handsets to gain screen mirroring support for Google’s Chromecast. A recent update to the search giant’s support page added Sony’s two new top-shelf smartphones as officially compatible with the company’s affordable media dongle.
When the Chromecast originally launched more than a year ago, early buyers were offered three free months of Netflix as a bonus. That offer quickly ran out, but various other deals have popped up since. Now, Google is giving anyone who buys a Chromecast from October 1st through the end of the year two free months of Hulu Plus.
Hulu Plus currently runs $7.99, meaning that you’re getting a $16 value with your Chromecast purchase. While Hulu may not have quite the selection of Netflix, that’s still a great offer when the Chromecast only costs $35 to begin with.
The offer will be redeemable through chromecast.com/offers during the set-up process for new Hulu Plus and Chromecast users beginning October 1st. Keep an eye on 9to5toys.com for the latest Chromecast deals, as well.
Today, Netflix announced that it has added Post-Play support to Google’s Chromecast for people streaming content from their compatible smartphone or tablet. If you’re unfamiliar with Post-Play, it’s a queueing feature that automatically starts playing the next episode of whatever show you’re watching around 15 after the program ends.
The latest build of the beta version of Google’s Cast Chrome extension is now serving up 1080p tab casting. Not a finished product, you’re likely to encounter a few bugs while using it, however it should help give an idea of what’s coming to it’s more refined counterpart. The recent update introduces more robust control options under a section marked “Custom mirroring settings.”
Chromecast users rejoice! Earlier today, YouTube started rolling out a new feature for Google’s media stick that lets you use its website to queue videos in a single tab. The idea behind this update is to keep people from drowning in the video hub’s endless sea of content during a casual casting session. Also, YouTube announced that its watch page is in the process of getting a makeover, so don’t freak out when things start looking different.
When Google’s $35 Chromecast was originally released, obtaining root access was incredibly easy. So easy that some users believed that it had been intentional on Google’s part, as to allow curious developers to explore the inner workings of the device a bit. Nevertheless, the vulnerability used in that root method was eventually closed. Now, however, developers once again have discovered another exploit that allows root access on the Chromecast.
There was very little reason for any self-respecting gadgeteer not to pick up a Chromecast stick at the full price of £30, but there’s even less excuse now that three online retailers – Amazon, Tesco and Currys – have discounted it to just £18.
Amazon is offering it with free delivery too. There’s no indication that this is a permanent price-cut (it’s still sitting at £30 on the Google Play site), so if you’ve been considering one, now would be the time to buy – especially with three free months of Google Play Music All Access thrown in.
Chromecast recently celebrated its first birthday, Google reporting that it had been used to cast content 400 million times in its first year. The capabilities of the devices have grown steadily, with Google last month adding mirroring from almost any Android device.
Via thenextweb. Image credit: softpedia.com
Wondering why all the YouTube videos in Chrome seem to be auto-playing on their own all of a sudden? It turns out the problem seems to be a bug with YouTube and the Chromecast extension for Chrome installed by users of Google’s $35 HDMI stick.
AndroidPolice point us to the issue being reported to Google and a note from the YouTube team confirming a fix is rolling out today:
The YouTube team confirmed that there was a bad push yesterday which caused this issue to be triggered. There is a fix being qualified and that is scheduled to be pushed today that will correct this issue… Closing this issue for now, since there’s not a Chrome issue here in any event. Thanks to everyone for reporting this issue.
In the meantime, you can remove the Chromecast extension (Window>Extensions) to temporarily disable the auto playing videos until the issue is fixed.
We’ve been hearing rumors of a YouTube streaming music service for quite a while, but now Android Police has published a report detailing Google’s streaming music plans. The report claims that Google will soon launch a new service called YouTube Music Key, as well as rebrand Google Play Music All Access to Google Play Music Key.
A few months ago, reports started circulating that Mozilla was developing its own streaming stick to compete with the Chromecast. The device was reportedly going to be marketed as a more open alternative to Google’s offering, but despite these reports, Mozilla today added Chromcast support to its Firefox browser on Android. For the time being, you must be running the nightly build of Firefox to use it, however.
You can download the nightly build of Firefox for Android from this page. Once you get the APK installed, Mozilla offers a test video casting page for users to visit. If a Chromecast icon appears on that page and your device offers the ability to cast the video, then you’re good to go.
Download the Firefox nightly APK here to get going.
The Chromecast’s capabilities just keep expanding, and today—as a special treat for those of us who actually use Google’s social network—you’ll find that you can now cast your Google+ feed directly to a Chromecast-connected device. The app has long been able to cast your photos, but apparently you can now send your entire feed full of posts and images to your TV to be viewed in their full glory (via iTechTriad).
After selecting your destination device, the app can automatically pan through all of your posts and you can just sit back and watch. But of course, if you’d rather have control, you can also flip through posts at your own pace. The updated app is supposedly being pushed through Google Play, but it appears that the feature is being flipped server-side. But once it’s on for you, you’ll be able to view photos, videos, and text via Chromecast at the tap of a button.
Happy birthday, Chromecast! That’s what Google is saying today as it announced the HDMI media streaming stick has been used to cast content 400 million times in the 12 months since it launched. The Chromecast, of course, allows you to stream content from services like Netflix, Hulu, and Pandora to your HDTV from your Android or iOS as well as your computer via the Chrome browser.
We’ve added hundreds of your favorite apps, including WatchESPN, Pandora, Hulu Plus, HBO GO and PBS Kids; announced new features like mirroring your Android device to the TV and expanded to 30,000 stores across 20 countries.
That’s certainly a lot of casting from the $35 accessory, and Google is giving all Chromecast users 90 days of its Google Play Music All Access service for free to celebrate. The offer to redeem 3 months of free access to the $9.99/month music subscription service will run from today, July 24th, through September 30th, for all existing Chromecast customers not already subscribed to All Access.
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In April of this year, it was announced that JW Player would soon be adding support for the Chromecast, and today the feature finally went live for everyone. For those unfamiliar, the JW Player platform powers a variety of popular websites including ESPN and millions of others. With today’s release of JW Player 6.9, it just got a whole lot easier to view web video on your TV.
Republic Wireless’ big pitch has been dumping your home phone and wireless plans in favor of its hybrid calling services that blends WiFi and on the go carrier calling powered by Sprint’s network. Now, the company is going after your local cable company, well sort of. Today, Republic Wireless announced a new promotion that bundles a Google Chromecast with the purchase of a new Moto X.
Google today updated its Chromecast website with a few notable and worthwhile enhancements. Previously on the site, you could only view a selection of the apps with Chromecast support, but with today’s refresh, you can now view all of the apps with support for the streaming stick. That number has been growing rapidly recently, but there is a search option on the new site, as well. Though, the search functionality is still rather limited and not as robust as the Play Store.
Just in time for the Commonwealth Games, the BBC Sport app for Android has been updated with Chromecast support. If Google’s media streaming dongle is embedded in your entertainment setup, you can now leaf through the BBC’s live and on-demand sports programming on the largest display in your house.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7nqP8AvXUg]
The ultra-simple setup offered by Chromecast leaves them vulnerable to being hijacked, with an attacker able to direct any content they want to your TV, says a security analyst – who proved the point by building a box to Rickroll any Chromecasts within wifi range …
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The ability to flag content on the Google Play Store as inappropriate, a feature long available on Android, has recently hit the Web version as well. The link to do just that can now be found on the web interface under Report within the Additional information section of the content’s description. While the feature is likely targeted toward apps that may violate some policy or have a lower-than-appropriate content rating, it does extend to other media like books, music and TV shows, and music distributed on the Google Play Store as well.
Google officially introduced Ireland to Play Movies less than two weeks ago and today the company is releasing its Chromecast media streaming dongle to the land of saints and scholars. In addition to Mountain View’s in-house movie service, Irish Chromecast owners will have access to YouTube, Netflix and several other cast-friendly applications.
Google has released an updated version of the Google Chrome application for iOS today, bringing at least one interesting new feature to the app: mobile websites that have Cast support will now work with all of your Cast-capable devices. It’s unclear how the feature works at the moment, but according to the release notes, developers are going to need to add support to their webpages before they can take advantage of the feature.
Also, as will likely be praised by iOS users everywhere, the version 36.0.1985.49 update goes the way of Google Hangouts and finally gets rid of the infamous “lip” located at the bottom of the app icon:
Controversial torrent streaming application, Popcorn Time has added Chromecast support for its Android app. This comes just one week after the software’s development team pledged streaming support for Google’s popular media dongle. If you’re not familiar with Popcorn Time, it’s like a black market version of Netflix’s video streaming service that uses peer-to-peer tech to get the job done. People often use the software to watch movies and TV shows that are still in only available in theaters, which of course is rubbing the motion picture industry the wrong way.
At I/O last month, Google announced that Android users would soon have the ability to mirror their device’s screen to their TV via a Chromecast. Today, thanks to an update to the Chromecast app, the feature is finally live. In a post on the official Android Blog, Google explained that the feature is still in beta and warned users not to be alarmed if it didn’t work properly 100% of the time.
Google has released an update for the Google Cast SDK, bringing full closed caption support to Chromecast on Android, Chrome and iOS devices. A new version of the Media Player Library (0.8.0) is also available. Moreover, the receiver SDK, the default receiver and the styled media receiver now also have closed caption support.
A detailed list of changes are outlined in the official release notes.
If you’re not familiar with Popcorn Time, it’s an app that allows you to stream movie and TV show torrents without any of the hassles usually associated with torrents – what you get is an interface which looks just like Netflix or Hulu. Thanks to a popular forked version, you’ll soon be able to watch that content on your TV when Chromecast support is added …
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