The battle for your TV's HDMI ports rages on. Having access to Netflix, YouTube and videos stored on your home network is mandatory at this point. Now it's time for the "killer features" that woo users to a company's platform, and it looks like Google is taking a page out of Apple's features booklet.
On Tuesday, Google announced a new YouTube feature for Android and Google TV. The feature pushes YouTube content from an Android phone to a Google TV. Now you can watch all your favorite YouTube videos on your HDTV -- if you happen to own a Google TV set-top box. Initially, the feature works only with Android (2.2 and later) and Google TV (2.1.2) only, but Google hints that other platforms getting the feature in the future.
The feature seems similar to Apple's AirPlay, which allows video and audio to be pushed to an Apple TV from an iOS device. Unlike Apple's offering, though, the feature doesn't push video. Instead, it acts as a remote for the Google TV telling the device which YouTube videos to play.
In addition to playing and controlling videos from your Android phone, your friends can get in on the action and push YouTube videos to the Google TV and create a playlist. Go ahead, have a YouTube party.
