Things Smackie Thinks You Need to Know...

Jamie Rosenberg, Director of Android Product Management, to spill the details a bit early. Google's service will essentially mimic the music locker functionality of Amazon's Cloud service, albeit without the ability to sell songs direct to consumers. Ouch. Unfortunately, Google's plans to launch a more feature-complete service were derailed when discussions with the labels broke down. According to Rosenberg, "A couple of the major labels were less focused on the innovative vision that we put forward, and more interested in an unreasonable and unsustainable set of business terms." So, rather than putting the service on hold, Google will launch its music service with the ability to store up to 20,000 of your own uploaded songs for free which you can then stream over the web to your desktop or Android phone or tablet

how is exactly is this a solution to the record label's concerns?  google will still be distributing (streaming) copyrighted material = one, they may be liable for illegal copies (ex: storage of unreleased albums, and does the user have to prove that they have the right to their music collection?); and two, will google be paying royalties for the performance?

given current laws, i'm not sure how these cloud services can move forward.  having users upload their music collections doesn't get around the law, as far as i can tell… but i'm not the lawyer here.

vansmack wrote:

vansmack wrote:
Got 20,000 songs you'd like to store in the cloud for free?

http://music.google.com/music/usernotinvited?u=0

Google to Launch Music service at I/O

Holy crap it might take a moustache ride to rid me of this tech chubby. 

This is incredible.  No more syncing.  One change in the web view, adjusts on all of your devices.  On change on your devices, auto syncs with the cloud. 

This is the end of iTunes.  Finally.

smackie getting off on smackie.

Here's the app while you wait for your invitation:

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.music&feature=search_result

They just demoed a SDK code named "Tungsteon" that scanned the bar code of a CD and it instantly appeared in your cloud.  That's going to get them in trouble with the music companies for sure….

Completely changes the way I'd "browse" the CD section at Amoeba….

vansmack wrote:
Here's the app while you wait for your invitation:

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.music&feature=search_result

Will what you have stored in the cloud be able to serve as a backup if my local storage goes kaput?

Waiting for my invite.  And wondering how long this upload will take.

They just gave us a Samnsung 10.1 tab.

I jizzed….

vansmack wrote:
They just demoed a SDK code named "Tungsteon" that scanned the bar code of a CD and it instantly appeared in your cloud.  That's going to get them in trouble with the music companies for sure….

Completely changes the way I'd "browse" the CD section at Amoeba….

next up: online libraries of bar codes from CDs.  want an album?  just download the barcode!

chaz wrote:
And wondering how long this upload will take.

seriously - uploading 100+ GB of mp3s is going to take a while.  hundreds of thousands of music fans X thousands of mp3s/fan = chewing up A LOT of bandwidth.

vansmack wrote:
They just demoed a SDK code named "Tungsteon" that scanned the bar code of a CD and it instantly appeared in your cloud.  That's going to get them in trouble with the music companies for sure….

Completely changes the way I'd "browse" the CD section at Amoeba….

I need to change this….

I;ve been told it's an NFC chip in a Tungston speaker that adds the CD.  It's not clear yet if an NFC chip in say, a Nexus S will be able to add music the same way.  I'll go with probably not out of the box, but a hack is inevitable.

chaz wrote:
Will what you have stored in the cloud be able to serve as a backup if my local storage goes kaput?

Waiting for my invite.  And wondering how long this upload will take.

Yes.  You can choose songs to store store locally or stream from the cloud, so it could conceivably be a backup.

I have no idea how upload is going to work, but I'm guessing 200gigs up will pale in comparison to how much down I will have in say, 3 months?

Oh, BTW - Flash Player required.

sweetcell wrote:

wrong: a quick look online reveals that the N10 has: 1.0 GHz - 1.0 GB RAM - 13 GB Hard Drive - 10.1" Display - Windows XP Home.

go with: half the processor, a quarter the RAM, no HD, same display, chrome os.  that's not a $199 machine, that's a $100 machine. 

Or $349.

Acer unveils Chrome Notebook.  $349.

Told you.  And even I was under $100 with my $249 prediction….

And the $20 per month option - I'm not ever sure what to think about that.

So the samsung series 5 is $429 for the wifi version…but the worldwide 3g version is $499 which includes 100 mb of free data per month.  that's sounding like the better deal to me.

Have you played with the chrome os?  thoughts on chrome vs android?

vansmack wrote:
Told you.  And even I was under $100 with my $249 prediction….

let the records show:

vansmack wrote:
Let's say for arguments sake it drops to $249.  This Chrome device will probably run you $199.  For $50 less is it really worth the limited functionality?

let's keep the historical revisionism to the conspiracy nutter threads ;D

i kind of think that google is a year late on this. the netbook is dead, long live the tablet

and by google i mean the lizard overlords, of course

sweetcell wrote:

vansmack wrote:
Told you.  And even I was under $100 with my $249 prediction….

let the records show:

vansmack wrote:
Let's say for arguments sake it drops to $249.  This Chrome device will probably run you $199.  For $50 less is it really worth the limited functionality?

let's keep the historical revisionism to the conspiracy nutter threads ;D

Read it again…..

"Let's say for argument sake that it drops to $249"

The problem is, the Samsung Netbook never reached that price point.  $289 is lowest I've seen, but the average is around $300 to $330.  Hence the $249 price point. 

But either way, no where near your $99 prediction.

chaz wrote:
Have you played with the chrome os?  thoughts on chrome vs android?

I played with Chrome OS for about a week, but found it inferior to Jolicloud, so I went back to Jolicloud.  That was a very early iteration, though.

I did not go back to I/O today, where apparently I could have picked up a loaner Chomebook for testing purposes.  Maybe I can stil get one and report back.

godsshoeshine wrote:
i kind of think that google is a year late on this. the netbook is dead, long live the tablet

I couldn't agree more.  It's only been a day, but I don't see me using my netbook again.

That being said, I was happy to have had my netbook for 2.5 years for under $400.  I got a lot of mileage out of it. 

i almost got a netbook a few times. then the talk of the chrome os came along and it seemed like it was waiting for. turns out it wasnt

the duckettes are only so-so, more hockey hotties here (well, some of them are hotties)

vansmack wrote:
And the $20 per month option - I'm not ever sure what to think about that.

So, the pricing. 

Students $20-$23 per month
Enterpise $28-$33 per month

Minimum 10 devices

3 year contract - you are guaranteed software and hardware updates.

I would never do this as a consumer, but I can see where some larger corps would want to do this to eliminate maintenance and upkeep costs.  I'd be interested to see what a hardware upgrade means.

But this led me to thinking….

Would this work for the consumer in the phone market?

Would I pay $20 a month to sprint to be guaranteed the newest and greatest phone every 12-18 months?  Maybe, but almost certainly if it meant a new phone every year.  But $15?  Absolutely, even if it meant 18 months.