Chromecast is undoubtedly a neat and affordable device. Many Google TV fans felt it was taking hype away from Google’s smart TV platform, but we now believe both devices may be able to co-exist. This is because Google TV is getting all the Chromecast features soon. New discoveries may prove that Google TV and Chromecast are more related than we thought, though.

The Chromecast dongle was rooted only a few days after its release, which is nothing to be surprised about. What should be surprising is what developers found under the hood. Google mentioned during the announcement that the device was based on Chrome OS, which is now said to be false information.

According to the developers who discovered the root method, the code proves that Chromecast is more similar to Android and Google TV. More specifically, Chromecast runs a modified version of Google TV, but with a few edits and replacements.

Impressive, right? This still doesn’t mean much for Google TV users, but now we know why Google didn’t seem to mind the idea of bringing Cast to Google TV at all. The Chromecast and Google TV are family, and good things may come of this duo.

Maybe developers can soon get a full Google TV flash into the Chromecast, even if it will lack live TV. Maybe we can get apps to be unofficially compatible with the streaming dongle? I mean, one user already managed to get a gameboy emulator running on it. Things are looking bright for Chromecast and Google TV.

[via Chromespot]