The Chromecast is fairly limited in its use cases – for Australian users at least – with the only uses for the super cheap device being for Netflix, Hulu Plus(both unavailable in Australia) and Google services like YouTube, Play Movies and Play Music, but it appears that Google is extending functionality to include Presentations in Google Drive as well.
Originally found by German Drive user Daniel Lohse he also noted that you need the current updated version of Chrome Dev as well as the Chromecast extension installed.
The ‘Present on another Device’ now appears on Presentation docs in Google Drive but only on certain devices. As noted above the option is now available on my Chromebook Pixel which runs on the Dev Channel and it appears to be an update made available in the latest Dev update: Version 32.0.1671.8 dev – as it was not yet available on an earlier version: 31.0.1650.6 Dev – on my CR48.
It works pretty well, picking up my Chromecast easily within Google Drive and then flicking through the presentation quite easily. You obviously have to be on the same network as your Chromecast, but this shouldn’t present any issues to most users.
The ability cast presentations would be of great benefit to Google in furthering their expansion into corporate and enterprise level organisations, functionality like this available using a US$35 dongle would certainly help along that road, but what Google needs is to release the Chromecast SDK officially so that developers can release their Apps.
Have you found another use for Chromecast that’s not yet known? Let us know.
