briandennehyyy: From the editor's Desk: Chromecast a go-go

Chromecast and Moto X

I think I just saved $500 by spending $35.

I'll most likely be canceling my Xbox One subscription this week. It's not that I wouldn't love to have one — I loathe that aging, noisy beast that's currently in my living room. But it's getting harder and harder to justify that much money on some that's mostly been replaced by a $35 USB-powered dongle. No, I won't be playing hardcore games with it, and it doesn't get anywhere near replacing Kinect. But I think I'm going to be replacing my old Xbox with a cheap Blu-Ray player and calling it a day.

But maybe the most important part of Chromecast is one that's gotten short shrift in nearly every review I've read, including ours. Chromecast is in its infancy. Having an SDK — software development kit — means that anyone and everyone can essentially write an app for it. Koushik Dutta — the developer behind ClockwordMod recoveries and Helium backup (to name but two projects) has been teasing a few on Google+. Streaming local files from a phone or tablet. Streaming files from Dropbox. Streaming files from RSS (and wrapping them in individual channel UIs).

And that's just one developer.

Reviews of devices are great. But it's important to remember that Chromecast is just getting started, with the SDK currrently available as a developer preview. It'll be interesting to how the ecosystem grows. You can't yet distribute Chromecast apps. Will it be a walled garden? Wide open like Android? I imagine anything that plays alongside DRM-enabled apps like Netflix will have a bit of oversight along with it.