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Google’s next assimilation target is Apple’s AirPlay media streaming and networking solution, with the Android developer said to be working on its own, open, method of pinging music, videos and other data to and from wireless devices.
According to GigaOm, Google’s open AirPlay competitor will launch with support from a variety of hardware makers, with the idea being to manage media collections and enable simpler two-way transmission between devices, allowing for more “second screen” cleverness to further distract us all when we’re trying to watch telly.
Most Android phones already use the DLNA system for chucking media around networks, but the way it’s often rebranded by each phone maker means there’s no obvious, unified, branded way of getting this done. An app like Google Media Aggregator, or whatever it ends up being called, ought to sort out that mess.
It’ll certainly find a friend in Pure’s PureStream tech, which teams an Android app with compatible hardware to build a wireless streaming system that works in a very similar manner to AirPlay already. [GigaOm via MacRumors]
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The Nexus 4 uses Miracast, this is an airplay alternative, why would they need to develop another?
My thoughts exactly. Google have already thrown their chips in with Miracast. That technology needs to be distributed as widely as possible. An alternative technology would hinder that goal, and it just makes no sense.
The source article makes no mention of Miracast, so I think wires have been crossed somewhere…
When not many people know something, there’s money to be made.
Translate that into Latin and Apple could use it as a motto.
Non multis notum est, non fieri pecuniam. Has a nice ring to it
Sure does.
And the next thing you know, the same people are wearing tsirts with that printed on it.
If we get it copyrighted and print the t-shirts ourselves we could make a fortune.
Just make sure you don’t tell many people
I don’t understand why this is nessecary given everything already has DLNA – I know there are concerns around rebranding, but my phone, TV and Win8 laptop (all different brands) all work perfectly over WiFi with DLNA.
There’s no need for anything except marketing the fact this feature already exists.
DLNA is not quite the equivalent of AirPlay, as all rendering is still done by the player device, not the host device. That means the player needs to have compatibility with the file format, media type, etc.
By contrast, Miracast and Airplay both transcode the content to a medium format before sending it to the player. As such, both protocols are capable of streaming any content that the host device is capable of playing. This is a fundamentally different approach to how DLNA was designed.
I forgot, both AirPlay and Miracast also use ad-hoc wireless protocols, so the host device doesn’t need to be on the same network as the player device, it just has to be in wireless range.
Wasn’t there a stupid Nexus Q that they made and dropped, cause they were so embarrassed by it. I doubt this is a new effort. And I doubt much will be achieved here.