Music from smartphones to speakers inside the house.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: Google is looking to further expand its tech empire by unveiling a new home-audio service that will enable consumers to stream music from their smartphones at home.
The service, called Google Cast for audio, activates when “people tap a button on their smartphone and choose a home speaker that has the same embedded technology to stream music through,” according to Rishi Chandra, director of product management. The new wireless music platform is being announced today at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada.
“There’s actually a fairly big opportunity in the audio space,†Chandra mused during an interview with Bloomberg. “You have this content on your phone — you listen to it all the time — but you want to easily extend that to better speakers in your house.â€
Between its Play Store, Cast audio, and Chromecast, Google has been making significant inroads to the multimedia consumption market, an area also being aggressively vied for by technology juggernauts Apple and Amazon.
As might be inferred from the similar moniker, Google Cast for audio is based on technology pioneered by the Chromecast, a thumb-drive sized device that plugs into a television and allows the user to wirelessly stream high-definition video content such as YouTube and Netflix.
Since its introduction in 2013, Google’s Chromecast has emerged as the second most popular media-streaming device in the U.S. behind only Roku, which had established itself as a major force in media streaming long before any of its current competitors.
Google’s new service is slated for release later this year in conjunction with partners including Sony, LG, Pandora internet radio, and iHeartMedia.