Chromecast.

The world used to watch TV with an antenna.  You would connect your rabbit ears and hope you got them in the right place.  I remember sets with  broken antennas that were duct taped and had huge balls of foil on the ends.  I remember the grainy and shitty receptions.  I remember having to GET UP and change the dial and muscle it forward as it clicked through the channels.  I remember getting the first TV that was a decent size (27 inches) and having cable.  It was fucking magical.  I remember the VHS players that came and died and always fucking blinked 12:00.  I was the first person to have a DVD player in the house and subsequently helped my parents pick out one that was also an "entertainment" center so that my mom could also listen to the stereo and clean with it.  Great memories of the TV generation that have occurred just in the last three decades.

Now, something has come to change the game... again.  Google has unveiled it's latest thing: Chromecast.  Chromecast is going to be the next big thing for TV.  Why?  Because Google will get it into your living room and let you use shit that you already have to make it that much better.

Imagine you have your laptop downstairs and you really want to catch up or even START on a vlog.  This is something that in my house could happen.  I see a guy who has a vlog, they are funny and I decide I wanna see a couple more.  I can now begin queuing all of their videos up in YouTube and pushing them right to my TV out of the Chrome browser from the YouTube website.  I can then do whatever I want my laptop while I enjoy these videos.  My wife can sit next to me and watch.  That music video that you ACTUALLY want to see?  Yeah, it's on there, too.  Already have a Netflix subscription like everyone else you know?  Go ahead and start a movie on your smartphone and send it to Chromecast and then go back to texting or doing whatever you want on your phone.  The TV picks it up and steams the video.  No worries over phone battery or tiny screen, it's just.... there.  Like some kind of crazy fucking magic, it's there.

Chromecast is going to be important because of what Google will let it do.  It is going to add stuff to it.  It is going to enter into deals and partnerships to bring things to it and it is going to cost you that initial price of 35 bucks.  Right now it isn't quite as full featured as a Roku, but it will be soon enough.  The first gen may just give us movies and music, but it won't stop.  Games will come.  Then other apps.  Imagine if you could get Hangouts to work on your TV, seeing big pictures of people.  Imagine doing real searches on your TV or being able to play back those movies from your phone or show pictures from the couch with no wires or buttons.  Sure, other things can do this, but they aren't 35 dollars and they don't have the driving force of Google and it's integrated network to fall back on.

People are already working on hacking it to do more cool shit that it may not have even been designed for.  This is going to be a lot of fun.  Sure, I've got a living room that has some toys in it, but I'm gonna add one more.