Google Chromecast 3rd Gen – 435188866

Chromecast is a discontinued line of digital media players developed by Google. The devices, designed as small dongles, can play Internet-streamed audio-visual content on a high-definition television or home audio system. The user can control playback with a mobile device or personal computer through mobile and web apps that can use the Google Cast protocol, or by issuing commands via Google Assistant; later models introduced an interactive user interface and remote control. Content can be mirrored to video models from the Google Chrome web browser on a personal computer or from the screen of some Android devices.

The first-generation Chromecast, a video streaming device, was announced on July 24, 2013, and made available for purchase on the same day in the United States for US$35 (equivalent to $45.78 in 2023). The second-generation Chromecast and an audio-only model called Chromecast Audio were released in September 2015. A model called Chromecast Ultra that can display 4K resolution and high dynamic range was released in November 2016. A third generation of the HD video Chromecast was released in October 2018. The final models, called Chromecast with Google TV, were the first in the product line to feature an interactive user interface and remote control; a 4K version was released in September 2020, followed by a 1080p version in September 2022.

Critics praised the first-generation Chromecast's simplicity and potential for future app support. The Google Cast SDK was released on February 3, 2014, allowing third parties to modify their software to work with Chromecast and other Cast receivers. By May 2015, more than 1.5 billion stream requests had been initiated and over 20,000 Cast-ready apps had been made available, according to Google. Chromecast was the best-selling streaming device in the United States in 2014, according to NPD Group. Over 100 million Chromecast devices were sold over 11 years, according to Google. Many technology publications included Chromecast on their lists of popular and influential products of the 2010s. In 2024, the Chromecast product line was discontinued and replaced with the Google TV Streamer.

Gen is most commonly seen as a contraction (such as Gen.) and it may refer to:

• Book of Genesis
• General officer
• Generation#Western world as in GenX, GenZ, etc.
• Genitive case

Gen may also refer to:

• Gen (film), 2006 Turkish horror film directed by Togan Gökbakar
• Gen (Street Fighter), a video game character from the Street Fighter series
• Gen Fu, a video game character from the Dead or Alive series
• Gen language, a language of Togo
• Gen-san, a character in the anime series Sky Girls
• Gen Asagiri (あさぎり ゲン (浅霧 幻)), a character in the anime and manga series Dr. Stone
• Gen Tomii (富井 彦, born 1973), Japanese Nordic combined skier
• Gen Hoshino (星野 源, born 1981), Japanese singer-songwriter, musician, actor, and writer
• Gen Kitchen, British politician
• Gen Shoji (昌子 源, born 1992), Japanese footballer
• Gen Urobuchi (虚淵 玄, born 1972), Japanese novelist, visual novel writer and anime screenwriter
• Gen Fukunaga (福永 元, born 1962), Japanese engineer and businessman
• Gen Nakatani (中谷 元, born 1957), Japanese politician
• Gen Horiuchi (堀内 元), Japanese ballet dancer and choreographer
• Gen Digital, a computer security software company in United States

GEN may refer to:

• GEN Corporation, of Japan
• GEN, Global Enterprise Network, a UK Internet Service Provider
• GEN Energija, a state-owned power company in Slovenia
• GEN, a website published by Medium
• Global Ecovillage Network
• Global Editors Network
• Gewestelijk ExpresNet, Dutch name for the Brussels Regional Express Network, a commuter rail service

Google LLC ( , GOO-gəl) is an American-based multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial intelligence (AI). It has been referred to as "the most powerful company in the world" and is one of the world's most valuable brands due to its market dominance, data collection, and technological advantages in the field of AI. Google's parent company, Alphabet Inc., is one of the five Big Tech companies, alongside Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft.

Google was founded on September 4, 1998, by American computer scientists Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were PhD students at Stanford University in California. Together, they own about 14% of its publicly listed shares and control 56% of its stockholder voting power through super-voting stock. The company went public via an initial public offering (IPO) in 2004. In 2015, Google was reorganized as a wholly owned subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. Google is Alphabet's largest subsidiary and is a holding company for Alphabet's internet properties and interests. Sundar Pichai was appointed CEO of Google on October 24, 2015, replacing Larry Page, who became the CEO of Alphabet. On December 3, 2019, Pichai also became the CEO of Alphabet.

The company has since rapidly grown to offer a multitude of products and services beyond Google Search, many of which hold dominant market positions. These products address a wide range of use cases, including email (Gmail), navigation and mapping (Waze, Maps and Earth), cloud computing (Cloud), web navigation (Chrome), video sharing (YouTube), productivity (Workspace), operating systems (Android), cloud storage (Drive), language translation (Translate), photo storage (Photos), videotelephony (Meet), smart home (Nest), smartphones (Pixel), wearable technology (Pixel Watch and Fitbit), music streaming (YouTube Music), video on demand (YouTube TV), AI (Google Assistant and Gemini), machine learning APIs (TensorFlow), AI chips (TPU), and more. Discontinued Google products include gaming (Stadia), Glass, Google+, Reader, Play Music, Nexus, Hangouts, and Inbox by Gmail. Google's other ventures outside of internet services and consumer electronics include quantum computing (Sycamore), self-driving cars (Waymo, formerly the Google Self-Driving Car Project), smart cities (Sidewalk Labs), and transformer models (Google DeepMind).

Google Search and YouTube are the two most-visited websites worldwide followed by Facebook and Twitter (now known as X). Google is also the largest search engine, mapping and navigation application, email provider, office suite, online video platform, photo and cloud storage provider, mobile operating system, web browser, machine learning framework, and AI virtual assistant provider in the world as measured by market share. On the list of most valuable brands, Google is ranked second by Forbes and fourth by Interbrand. It has received significant criticism involving issues such as privacy concerns, tax avoidance, censorship, search neutrality, antitrust and abuse of its monopoly position. On August 5, 2024, D.C. Circuit Court Judge Amit P. Mehta ruled that Google held an illegal monopoly over Internet search.