Video: CyanogenMod bakes Chromecast support into Android itself, allows everything to stream

BY Stefan Constantinescu

Published 9 Aug 2013

Koushik Dutta, the guy who has been famously hacking his Chromecast to let it play back local media, is also apparently one of the guys behind CyanogenMod, one of the most popular Android ROMs out there. I didn’t know this because I’m not into the whole Android hacking thing, but now you know too. Anyway, Dutta has figured out a way to bake Chromecast support into Android at the system level. What exactly does this mean?

Whereas before Google released a Chromecast SDK and expected app developers to put Chromecast support inside their respective apps, what Dutta did was allow any application installed on your phone to use Chromecast. In essence, Dutta made Android work more like iOS. Best of all, this modification also allows you to play back locally stored media. Like Dutta’s previous work, he effectively turns an Android phone into a server which the Chromecast then talks to.

Dear Google: Hire this guy. He’s awesome.

[Thanks for the tip, Steve!]