Category: Chromecast

Over the course of yesterday, many Google Home and Chromecast users reported issues with the devices.  In the case of Home, commands were not being accepted while with Chromecast devices, casting would not work.  The issue was reasonably widespread.

Late yesterday, Google’s Made By Google Twitter account posted that a fix would be rolling out over the follow six hour (i.e. overnight) to fix the issue.

We have a fix for Google Home and Chromecast. It will automatically roll out within the next 6 hours. To get back up and running now, reboot your device → https://t.co/CM4ov63F46. Thanks for sticking with us!

— Made by Google (@madebygoogle) June 27, 2018

At this point, this fix should have rolled out to everyone.

Red Bull TV has joined the ranks of HBO Now Netflix and CBC All Access as being casted to your Chromecast enabled TV from Google Home.  Now using Google Assistant, you can ask for content from the service without having to manually do so from your phone or tablet.  Even better, no account linking is required.

To try it out, just say, “Hey Google, play How to MTB on my TV” and the show How to MTB from Red Bull TV will be casted to your television.  If you aren’t familiar with RBTV, you can check out all their shows here.

[Editors Note:  Due to the political nature of this post, comments have been disabled]

President Donald Trump’s first State of the Union Address will be streamed live on YouTube this week.  The address to both houses of Congress will happen on January 30th at 5:00 PM Eastern.  Google’s streaming service will be broadcasting the live stream from CBS News and will also be streaming the Democrat response to the address shortly after the President concludes his address.

The State of the Union Address is a Constitutionally mandated address Article II, Section 3, Clause 1.  That clause reads in part:  shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.

Google is set to roll out an update to Google Play Services tomorrow aimed at addressing the slow WiFi issue that some users of Chromecast and Google Home have experienced.  The issue cropped up a couple of weeks ago and at first, was thought to be an issue with the new Google Home Max.  It turns out that Google Play Services was the culprit.

For those that haven’t encountered the problem (good!), it comes down to Android devices on your network as well as Chromecast and Home devices.  Essentially what was happening is that Android devices on the same network would see the Cast enabled device and flood your network with packets.  That would cause slowness or instability.  It was effectively an internal DDoS attack.

When the announcement came out a few weeks ago that Google would be holding an event on October 4th, it seems pretty straight forward.  This Google event, it seemed, would bring us a couple of new phones and that would be about it.  However, the much anticipated Pixel and Pixel XL are likely to only be the tip of the iceberg.  The event is shaping up to be huge with announcements across a wide swath of the Google landscape.

While everything to this point is purely rumor, there are strong indicators of what we will see or won’t see.  I’ve put together a list of things we are likely to see in the October 4th event and it is expansive.  Get ready for a really exciting day!

Google Pixel / Google Pixel XL – Probability:  100%

Fundamentally, this event started as a launch event for Google’s new phones, the 5.2″ Pixel and 5.5″ Pixel XL.  Both devices are expected to be launched with the new Pixel Launcher and with

Google Pixel

Android Nougat 7.1, the first maintenance release for the latest version of Android.  As for the details, both devices are expected to be powered by the Snapdragon 820 processor and both will have 4GB of RAM.  Both are expected to have a 12MP main camera, fingerprint scanner and sticking with Nexus tradition, will not have a MicroSD card for storage expansion.  They will however come with 32, 64 or 128GB of Storage.

The devices have been heavily influenced by Google and are built by HTC.  It is also expect that for the first time, Google will have their phones in carrier and retailers.  Pricing is still a bit of a mystery but something around the $450 mark for the Pixel and $650 for the XL (starting price) is likely.

Finally, don’t expect these phones to be available on the 4th.  It will likely be the end of the month before we see them ship if history holds true.  You will however likely be able to pre-order them on or around the 4th.

If you have a Chromecast, you know that there are some great photos that the device scrolls through while sitting idle. Sure you can point it to your own photos but some of the default ones are just spectacular. Now you can download them to your PC or Mac to enjoy thanks to Alex Meub.

Alex has put together a blog post that has all of the Chromecast photos available for your to download to your computer to use as a wallpaper. While the blog post hasn’t been updated in over a year, the vast majority of the wallpapers are there – and there are hundreds to download on the site.  All of the photos are credited to the photographer who took them but you can download them

for free to use.