Lenovo is casting its line into the crowding market for streaming hardware. The company debuted Lenovo Cast, its first media casting device, during Lenovo Tech World in Beijing.
Frankly, it looks like a hockey puck and it functions like a Nexus Player or a Chromecast. Time will tell just how timely Lenovo's entry into the market truly is, but the company says it sees a need for such devices and it believes it has an answer.
"Today people want more from their devices -- the freedom technology gives them to accomplish more," said Liu Jun, executive vice president and president of Lenovo's Mobile Business Group. "They want to share a variety of content from their smartphones and tablets such as online videos and games with friends and family on a larger screen."
The Lenovo Cast was created to deliver such experiences as those described above, according to Jun.
The Lenovo Cast support DLNA and Miracast-capable mobile devices. After connecting the puck to a TV via HDMI and syncing it with a mobile device, users can sling or cast or throw content to their TVs from their smartphones and tablets.
The Lenovo Cast was one of many products and services unveiled during Lenovo Tech World. The company also revealed its partnership with Microsoft that will see a pair of their products integrated.
When Windows 10 gets here, Microsoft's Cortana digital assistant will benefit from Lenovo REACHit's ability to search content across Lenovo hardware. For example, a customer looking to retrieve some documents from a Lenovo laptop can call Cortana to plop the files onto their tablets. The REACHit and Cortana integration was the product of "late night coding marathons," deep hardware talks, and creative conception sessions, stated Peter Han, Microsoft's vice president of Worldwide OEM Marketing.
"It's great to see Lenovo building on the Windows and Cortana platform to create a unique and valuable solution that will help our joint customers be more productive across their devices and services," said Han.
With the world having access to unprecedented amounts of digital content, it became difficult to pinpoint where some information is stored, stated Mark Cohen, Lenovo's vice president of Ecosystem and Cloud Services.
"What you need is an assistant - a friend - who is always at the ready to help," said Cohen. "That is where Cortana and REACHit comes in, enabling people to find their personal content in an incredibly natural way - by asking a friend for help."
