Remember the Nexus Q? It was the media player that Google showed at I/O last year, and then disappeared from the market after shipping out the Q for free to those who pre-ordered it. Now it seems that Google is going to take another crack at a media streaming device.
Engadget reports that a media player from Google has hit the FCC. There’s not much information on the device for now, but we do know that it’s a Wi-Fi device. The model number – H2G2-42 – is also a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy reference so we know Google is at least having a spot of fun with it.
It will be interesting to see if this is a true successor to the Nexus Q. The original hardware was somewhat limited as it could only push content from Android devices, but it had the interesting gimmick of allowing multiple people to control what was being played through their own Android devices. It was pretty much doomed from the start, however, thanks to it only supporting Google Play and YouTube. Applications like Netflix and Hulu that make Google TV and Roku popular options were absent from the hardware.
We can assume that Google has learned from its mistakes, and that its next media player will support more than just Google Play. A Google-made Google TV set top box seems likely, but it’s hard to say at this point if Google would opt to directly compete with those already making Google TV set top boxes, like the Vizio CO-Star.
Either way, we’ve reached out to Google for comment, and will update if we hear back.