Fellow tech enthusiast and DC neighbor Joel Ward continues his role as a ZNF contributor. Beyond Zatz Not Funny, Joel can be found at Joel Explains It All and @joelsef on Twitter.
When the Google Chromecast came out over the summer, one of the first things many of us wanted to use it for was phone, laptop, and tablet screen mirroring. Basically, something like Miracast (or WiDi). Alas, I was under the impression that Google’s initial implementation only allowed for mirroring of tabs in the Google Chrome browser…on a computer, not a tablet or phone. Of course there’s the baked in support for Netflix, YouTube, Hulu Plus, Pandora and a handful of other apps beyond the Chrome tab mirroring, but I wasn’t aware of official full screen sharing.
As it turns out, Google includes an experimental feature that allows full screen mirroring — only on desktop operating systems, via a Chrome browser plugin, and currently without audio. We can assume this experimental feature will eventually become an official feature, and hopefully include full audio, better performance, and Android support.
We have been playing with the Chromecast ($35) screen mirroring and comparing it to Miracast, and it seems to work in a very similar way, though with some differences.