It’s time people stopped referring to Google as the ‘Search Giant’. It’s been a while that they’ve stopped being only that. They have got their fingers in so many different pies, that it’s getting harder by the day to keep track of everything they’ve been up to. Search? Check. Android? Check. Chrome Browser? Check. Chrome OS? Check. Maps, Earth, Plus, Glass are all old stories. In recent years, they’ve ventured into being an Internet Service Provider, building drones, testing unmanned self-driving cars, Project Loon, modular phones and even the ambitious ‘Moonshot’ project. There are many other such seemingly ‘out-there’ ideas being cooked up in their Google X laboratories as we speak, I’m sure. Unlike some of their tech-rivals, Google has this habit of actually encouraging innovation, for better or worse. A lot of their endeavors have not gone anywhere, but that hasn’t stopped the tech giant from pushing the limits.
That Google has been aiming to take control of our living rooms with their services is not exactly a state secret. After the failure of Google TV, they’ve not given up on their ambitious foray and that was plenty evident from their Chromecast streaming service and Android TV follow-ups. Towards that end, seems like Google had been hard at work behind closed doors, developing a projection system that can turn entire walls into giant televisions through the use of transparent photo-reactive paint, irrespective of the surface. A beam of light emitted by the projector would produce a “theme” when it hits the wall effectively changing the photo-reactive paint into an image or even a video, which, like e-ink, would stay on until something new is projected. The report says, that the projected images would be coming from a smart device, lending more credence to the thought process that this could be the next frontier for Chromecast. Early on Wednesday, Google were awarded a patent for this new technology from the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Google refused to officially discuss the patent and gave a fairly formulaic “We hold patents on a variety of ideas–some of those ideas later mature into real products or services, some don’t. Prospective product announcements should not necessarily be inferred from our patents.” It remains to be seen as to how Google integrates this patented technology into their already existing array of devices and services, including, but not limited to Chromecast, Android TV and the thriving Android eco-system in general.