Amazon has the Google Chromecast listed as a 'HDMI streaming media player', but it's way more than that.

It's a very clever little device that shows how to do the living room right.

Last month I wrote a piece called 'How Apple does not care about your living room'. The idea behind this piece is that all those companies that are desperately trying to push complex technology to modify the main television in the living room are rather missing the point.
1960s
The living room isn't as important as it once was. This isn't the 1960s where we all cluster round and spend all our time as a happy little nuclear family in one place.

The home is now a place where we consume content through mobile devices wherever we happen to be inside it. Increasingly, we're spending more time away from broadcast television, plus more time relating to others through social networking services. Sitting down and actually watching TV together is happening less.

In that context it makes far more sense to invent a little device that can somehow improve every television in the house in some way. Which is exactly what Chromecast is. Spend $35, somehow work out how to get power to it, somehow set it up, and your existing TV is a little bit improved.

I'm a big fan of Apple TV, not necessarily because it's any good (it's 'just OK' implementation-wise), but .