The biggest question mark to come out of Google I/O is the Nexus Q. Trying to describe it to someone is an exercise in awkwardness at the very least. Google desicribes it as a “social streaming media player,” and once you see it working, it kind of makes sense. At $299 a pop, however, you have to wonder if this is more of a solution looking for a problem.

Personally, I like the concept, and once I update my router I should be able to give this thing a full review (seems like the Q is having issues with some routers and as luck would have it, mine is one of them). In any case, the idea is that anyone with an Android device, the Q app, and Play Store music or video content can easily add that content to the Q’s queue during a party, for example, and everyone gets to play DJ. That’s the social part. In its most basic form, it serves as simply a way to stream your Google Play content through your entertainment system, using your phone or tablet as a remote.

The important thing to realize, though, is that this is a Nexus device, meaning it is made for easy hacking, and to that end, some dev folks over at XDA Forums have put together a little guide on how to unlock, root, install and run apps on the Q itself, which requires pushing commands to it through a computer connected to the USB port since the Q has no real graphical user interface.

The hope is that devs will help expand the capabilities of the Q once new apps or ROMs can be cooked up. So there just might be an audience for this thing yet.

source: xda – rooting and unlocking | xda – installing apps