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Google TV Hackers Open a Shell on the Chromecast; More Hacks To Follow
Via Engadget comes the news that Google's latest (and quickly sold-out) toy, the Chromecast, may soon be hacked out of one-trick-pony status; just a few days after it came out, the folks at GTV Hacker have successfully turned their attention to the Chromecast, and managed to exploit the device's bootloader and spawn a root shell. Some interesting findings, as explained in their blog post: "[I]t’s actually a modified Google TV release, but with all of the Bionic / Dalvik stripped out and replaced with a single binary for Chromecast. Since the Marvell DE3005 SOC running this is a single core variant of the 88DE3100, most of the Google TV code was reused. So, although it’s not going to let you install an APK or anything, its origins: the bootloader, kernel, init scripts, binaries, are all from the Google TV. We are not ruling out the ability for this to become a Google TV 'stick.'"
Its CHEAP and backed by google. you would have more of a point if it werent so insanely cheap. I have lots of ways of getting video to my TVs I have an HDMi distribution panel that reaches every TV in the house, I have 3 win7 MCE DVRs, 3 Apple TVs + a mac mini that can stream anything to them., several Micca players, etc. I like Chromecast because its cheap, easy to use and I can slap one on every Tv for less then a single Apple TV. For the price, it represents a good value.
Good-bye
i dont think anyone was advocating using an empty usb drive, which is nothing but a storage medium, in place of this. but rather, one of the many quad-core android jellybean hdmi dongles available from china for $30-80 (with varying hardware specs) such as this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkws05jsAH8