Google announces Chromecast, a streaming dongle for your existing TV

Google has just announced a brand new product at their special breakfast event for press this morning, and this one’s sure to get entertainment enthusiasts excited. Called Chromecast in honor of the operating system it runs (a light version of Chrome OS), Chromecast is a HDMI dongle that plugs into all of your existing HDMI screens – no fancy live TV necessary – and streams content from your smartphone to your television using any of Google’s new (or upcoming) Chromecast supported applications, such as YouTube.

Simply plug your Chromecast in, pair it to your wi-fi network, head to your smartphone and click the “Cast” button, and you’ve got yourself streaming video, music, games, or anything developers can think of straight to your TV. Google is allowing developers to add full Chromecast sharing functionality straight into their apps; at the event this morning, Google debuted a new version of Netflix for Android with the functionality. Content streams in glorious high definition and looks (as well as sounds) great.

The best part about it? Chromecast is truly multi platform – Google is implementing Chromecast support into devices running Windows 7 or later, Mac OS X 10.6 or later, Android 2.3 or later, Chrome OS, and even iOS 6 and later – so you’re not limited to Google’s ecosystem if you want to stream some content to Chromecast. The dongle costs just $35 and is now shipping. Interested? Hit up the Google Play store and click the “Add to Cart” button. I sure did.