Mozilla Approved Matchstick Dongle Nearly Quadruples Funding Goal, New Features in Si

[[Coi] Mr.CLuBBeR]

Local Play and Ad Hoc Mode are next

It only took 24 hours for Mozilla's Matchstick HDMI dongle to reach its targeted $100,000 funding goal on Kickstarter, and since then, the project has skyrocketed to more than $390,000 with 9 days still to go. However, this is where things interesting, as they often do on these crowdfunded sites. If Matchstick hits $500,000 in pledges, the developers will implement two frequently requested stretch goals -- Local Play and Ad Hoc mode.
To quickly recap, Matchstick is the first HDMI stick based on Firefox OS. You plug it into your TV, connect to it via Wi-Fi, and stream and interact with the web. It's similar to Google's Chromecast dongle, except that Matchstick is a completely open hardware and software platform with no approval or oversight system in place.
There are hundreds of apps in the Mozilla app store, and as the developer program ramps up, many of those existing ones (and lots of new ones) will become available on the Matchstick app store. At launch, the Matchstick team promises to deliver a core set of content through apps like YouTube, HBO Go, Pandora, and others.
Should the project raise another $110,000 within the next 9 days, Local Play and Ad Hoc will join the party. Local Play will allow Matchstick to stream content from your own local media servers (located on the same LAN).
"We will provide an app for you to access content on your local media servers (NAS, SAMBA, NFS) in a list view so you can navigate to the exact content you want to fling. Of course, APIs are available for those of you who want to develop your own apps to access you local content," Matchstick explains.
Local Play is one of the most requested features, though not as much as Ad Hoc mode, or peer to peer playback. This will allow you to play any content you have local, on your device, without a connection to the cloud -- just connect your phone or tablet directly to Matchstick and start streaming.
If this sounds like something you want to support, or if you simply want to learn more, hit up the project's Kickstarter page.
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