Today, in the TUAW backchannels, we've been discussing Chromecast. I like the idea and will probably buy one. If I'm understanding the early publicity correctly, Google has two really strong use cases, but I don't think it's any kind of "competitor" to Apple TV. It's another thing entirely.
The real draw for Apple TV isn't mirroring. Sure it mirrors, and sure you can stream data out to it, but you do so with a lot of DRM issues -- with the motion picture and recording industries hovering over your shoulder and making sure you behave. (That's probably a big reason why Google isn't open-sourcing their SDK.)
N
