Google is developing a new feature for its Chrome browser called “Kaleidoscope” that aggregates and surfaces content from multiple streaming services into one user interface.
The enthusiast site Chrome Story first spotted the project, which appears to be only accessible at this point to Google employees using the Canary version of Chrome.
Through diligence and insight, Chrome Story was able to peruse a couple of Kaleidoscope pages. One shows buttons for Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney Plus, and includes the message, “All your shows in one place.”
As the broader narrative in video streaming has quickly evolved from “The Great Unbundling!” to re-bundling, dozens of projects are underway, which seek to aggregate, consolidate and simply the consumer experience of finding something to watch among myriad OTT apps.
That Google should be working on the problem is hardly surprising. Among the tech blogs that breathlessly cover the tech giant’s every move, Kaleidoscope is generating the usual mix of excitement ... and consternation.
Android Police, for example, wonders if adding a feature like Kaleidoscope would create more “bloat” to a Chrome browser that already uses quite a bit of RAM resources on the PC or Mac.
