
Chromecast Teardown - jonbaer
http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Chromecast%20Teardown/16069/1
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twodayslate
It's amazing how much stuff they can fit in a tiny dongle now. 512MB of ram -
tower computers barely had that 10 years ago.

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alixr
Even more amazing was the little yellow square about the size of a surface
mount resistor was highlighted as 2GB of flash. I couldn't even spot the cyan
square for 512MB of ram.

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gilgoomesh
I think you've gotten confused. Step 6 shows the 2GB flash taking up most of
the body on the bottom side – you might need to mouse-over the correct image.
The RAM takes up about half the neck.

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alixr
I guess you miss a lot when JS is disabled by default :P

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pachydermic
The H2G2-42 thing is pretty funny!

On a more serious note... Can anyone shed some light on the hackability of
this piece of hardware?

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azernik
Unclear - unlike most phones, it has no removable storage, and my impression
(having only heard descriptions of the UI) is that there's no way to run
arbitrary code on the device. Unless it has accessible serial ports or some
netboot mode hidden in it, or in the very scary case that the software update
mechanism is insecure enough to MITM it yourself, it seems like it would be
difficult to get a Chromecast to run anything other than Google's software.

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heyheyhey
It was rooted couple days ago but Google patched it right up

[http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/google-chromecast-hacked-by-
gtv...](http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/google-chromecast-hacked-by-gtvhacker-
exploit-package-now-available-29-07-2013/)

~~~
7952
I can understand why they would want to lock it down simply from a security
perspective. I don't want every piece of software on my network to be able to
alter the software. Its bad enough with routers.

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ibudiallo
My computer in 1998 had:

\- the same amount of storage (2GB)

\- 1/16th of the RAM

\- No wireless (modem instead)

\- Pentium II -_-

\- more than 500 time the weight.

\- and was playing choppy video at 240p

Take that!

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stephanos2k
One gem, in case somebody missed it:

 _Model Number: H2G2-42.

\- Wasn't "42" the answer to life, the universe, and everything in The
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?

\- And H2G2 is an abbreviation given to the book, as well as the name of a
website dedicated to making a guide to life, the universe, and everything.

We see what you did there, Google. Your clever nerd humor will not be lost on
us!_

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ktzar
What I would really like them to make hackable is the protocol. Anyone knows
what the chromecast is using? It'd be awesome to create "Chromecast" servers
that can receive video and browser tabs wirelessly.

~~~
andybak
[https://github.com/dz0ny/leapcast](https://github.com/dz0ny/leapcast)

[http://www.dial-multiscreen.org/](http://www.dial-multiscreen.org/)

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mtgx
I hope they can make a Wi-fi ac one next year, or maybe even ad? That's faster
(7 Gbps 60 Ghz) and should work well for this type of use case, but I guess
your router has to support it, too, and I'm not sure if ad will catch on that
much.

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apendleton
I doubt this is a priority. 802.11n can happily stream 1080p video, which is
the most bandwidth-intensive thing this thing can handle (it can't drive a 4k
display so far as I know). A 5GHz radio, on the other hand, would be pretty
great; in my neighborhood, at least, the 2.4GHz band is pretty shot.

~~~
moosehawk
I would also like to see this thing run on the 5 GHz band. My apartment unit
has 30+ available 2.4 GHz wi-fi connections from my living room. Streaming HD
video & gaming on 2.4 GHz can be quite a bit of hit-or-miss with the
interference.

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carlosgg
Marvell Armada 1500 Mini:
[http://www.pcper.com/category/tags/marvell-88de3005](http://www.pcper.com/category/tags/marvell-88de3005)

Armada 1500 is used in Google TV: [http://www.marvell.com/digital-
entertainment/armada-1500/](http://www.marvell.com/digital-
entertainment/armada-1500/)

Seems like the Mini is a single-core version of that chip.

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samspenc
What's the BOM or cost of materials on this thing?

