Google Chromecast 2

Google has renamed Chromecast’s “Backdrop”. It is now called “Ambient Mode”. This page has a new and better design as well. It is now easier to change settings and tweak the appearance of the Ambient Mode.

Ambient Mode

The ambient mode is what appears when your Chromecast is online but not in use. You can set this to show photos from your Google Photos account (which is my favorite), pictures from an art gallery or a few experimental sources. This includes Facebook albums, Flickr albums and also a Low-bandwidth mode.

I have added a few pictures into an album specifically created for this purpose. When my Chromecast is connected and idle, my TV becomes a huge photo frame.

There used to be an option to show news headlines in Ambient mode, but that has been removed with the redesign. Other options available on the Ambient Mode page are:

• Weather: Hide, display C, F or both
• Time: Hide or show
• Personal photo data (owner’s name and album name): Hide or show
• Slideshow speed: 10 seconds to 10 minutes, you can pick one of the available options.

So, the next time you open up the Google Home app, look for Ambient Mode and not Backdrops. Questions? Drop me a comment and we can discuss further!

If you are a Project Fi user, you now have a chance to win free Chromecast. This offer comes as part of the Referral Challenge program.

This challenge starts on November 11, 2017 and will run for a month, till 17th December 2017.each referral gets both the referrer and the referee a $20 Fi allowance which will be credited to their monthly bill.

Like our last referral challenge, participants will earn prizes for the referrals they make throughout the challenge. In the Fi it Forward challenge, you can win up to two hardware gifts when you refer friends to Project Fi: a Google Chromecast and the new Android One moto x4.

This time around, Google is also making donations to charity too:

At the end of the challenge, Project Fi will donate $50,000 to the Information Technology Disaster Resource Center (ITDRC). We’re thrilled to see organizations like the ITDRC harness the power of communications technology to make a meaningful difference in crisis response and recovery, and we’re grateful to come together as a community to support their initiatives.

Find more details here.

Google is prepping Chromecast for better integration with Android P and Android Things (Android for Internet of Things).

This showed up as a code change request on Chromium repository where Google stores Chromecast code as well. Chromecast, if you remember, shares code roots with Chrome OS.

From the code change request log:

[Chromecast] Use new AThings volume table access functions

This hooks up the VolumeToDbFS and DbFSToVolume functions to use the
Android volume tables using a special Android Things system API.
Eventually (in Android P) such access will be through a public API.

Note that the volume_control API assumes only one table for all
stream types but Android actually has separate tables for separate
types. We deal with this by assuming the STREAM_MUSIC table for all
levels into and out of the volume_control API, and internally
remapping them to their correct curves.

This change also takes advantage of the new APIs to properly
calculate the ducking limiter value. This is necessary since the
AudioTrack.setVolume() multiplier is directly applied to the stream
data instead of being mapped through the volume tables first.

Bug: [internal] b/65457547
Test: Changing volumes up and down, observing results to TTS volume
via logs and listening. Testing ducking at all volume levels.

This code change talks about implementing a new API that will synchronize volume levels between Android Things devices and Chromecast.

Random question. Will Google eventually make a Chromecast that runs Android Things, instead of Google Cast?