For all those who enjoyed Google’s Chromecast and felt somewhat incomplete because all you could mirror on a huge touch screen was just media and websites but not apps; here is the happy news. Google is on the verge of releasing an awesome project called the Open Project Framework. Open Project Framework will help users to imitate or mirror the Android apps on the bigger screen. For those who are naïve about the chromecast here goes the brief introduction. Chromecast is a project from Google that transfers media like audio video and websites to a huge TV screen. Broadcasting a YouTube video is not at all a tedious task, anyone with basic computer knowledge could do it. However, mirroring a full length video from your phone and using your handset for different purposes is kind of tedious. This is what chromecast does.
- Android Mobile Applications Development
On the similar lines of chromecast the next project from Google titled the “Google Open Project” will move even a step further by bringing out the android apps on huge touch screens. People may question “what’s the big deal about this?” Of course it’s a big deal. The open project would be bringing out every single move made on the phone to the huge touch screens starting from the touch to the inputs provided and outputs displayed. Setting up the process is very simple. The process is as follows:
- Open the server webpage of Open Project that is running on the machine which is connected to the display chosen.
- Scan a QR code with the smart phone’s camera
- Now the apps and contents are ready to be interacted with.
This opens a world where people can play multiplayer games or collaborate on content without additional sensors or hardware.
This concept is created developed and implemented by Matei Negulescu from the University of British Columbia and Yang Li, Google Research Person. By following the above listed steps the users can actually see the apps like Google Maps, Zomato, WhatsApp, etc on the huge screen. Not only these, the users can mirror the apps on huge touch screen and actually give responses or inputs through the huge screens. This means that the users can actually play “Angry Birds” real time literally. The developers of this project actually play the tic-tac-toe game in their demo video. Not only that they actually use the navigation from Google Maps too.
Indeed it is a technical boon to one and all of us who have enjoyed chromecast while chromecast was a static measure; Open Project is going to be much more lively and dynamic. These days the desktop as we had known is changing and getting replaced by mobile devices which can become desktops or even bigger screens. With this project it is clear that mirror applications are the next generation of wireless technology when it comes to Professional Android Application Development. Although the concept looks eye-catching and truly awesome, the Open Project is still a proof-of-concept as of now. Let’s hope that the project doesn’t go shelved but get released to everyone so that everyone can lay hands on this wonderful invention.