Google I/O kicked off today for initial onsite meetings and registration, and there will be keynote speeches Tuesday and Wednesday.

Already out of the gate is information on Google's could music locker service, similar to what Amazon recently launched. This will be officially entering beta on an invite only basis.

More info here: http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20061280-261.html

Very interesting. I'll be interested in seeing how they go about this. In the past, I'd say the absolute worst aspect of Android was easily the music player. The design was just terrible. From what I've seen of the music player in Honeycomb, they've greatly improved things. Still, Google is not known for design.

Frankly, it's anyone's game at this point. Most people are agreeing that Apple is looking bad in that they bought Lala so long ago and are clearly going to be the last major player out of the gate with a cloud music service, but lets face it, they don't have anything to be afraid of and everyone is still going to use iTunes to buy music. Amazon has the selling point that music you buy there doesn't count against your total, and Google has the advantage of already being on Android phones, but Apple will win here whenever they decide to jump into the game.

Still, I'd probably switch from Amazon to Google for cloud music. Google costs a lot less, for starters. Check out the prices for Google's expanded storage prices for Picasa:

20 GB - $5/yr
80 GB - $20/yr
200 GB - $50/yr
400 GB - $100/yr
1 TB - $256/yr
2 TB - $512/yr
4 TB - $1024/yr
8 TB - $2048/yr
16 TB - $4096/yr

Amazon, on the other hand, is sticking to $1/GB, so at 1TB you're paying four times what Google charges [*edit* oops, actually at all levels Google is 1/4 the cost of Amazon *edit*]. 1TB is also their maximum, as if you'd want to spend any more than that. Of course, I'm assuming that Google will be using the same prices as they do now, which I haven't heard.

I look forward to finding out more about it. Heck, Apple could still beat Google to the punch with a full release, since Google is only starting the testing phase, and it won't get to people like me, even in trial phase, until the Xoom and IO people have it From what I've seen, the signup will be at music.google.com, which is currently giving a 404...

[*2nd edit* I just saw the Engadget story that's rumoring that you'll be able to store 20K songs for free! That's pretty impressive if true, particularly if they don't discriminate on bitrate. That could be a wide variation in how much space that could take up... */edit*]

[*3rd edit* They just set up the invite system. Here *edit*]

http://www.youtube.com/user/GoogleDevelopers for the live stream of activities at Google IO.

Honeycomb 3.1 (?) being announced now.

Uh, yeah.

"We're sorry. Music Beta is currently only available in the United States"

tanstaafl.

I wouldn't expect that to change for a long time. It's also going to be interesting to find out whether they have any agreements in place with music labels and if not, what the fall-out will be like.

And it's only "free" while in BETA.

Ok, now if I had this, I might be interested in a Xoom:



Thats a gigantic Labyrinth game being controlled by an Android tablet at Google's HQ. Used to show off the future support for Android hardware integration support.

So... for the next decade, judging by how long gmail was in beta.

Never mind all that. The question is how to go about getting an invitation. I actually sent two of my students to Google I/O, so they'll apparently get invitations (and shiny new 10" Samsung tablets), but I'd like to be able to get more value out of my music collection, and this seems pretty attractive.

What I'd perhaps really like to see, which nobody is (yet) doing is a combination of a service like this with Pandora. I like the idea of Pandora helping you build custom radio stations, but of course there's no way to back up and listen to a song again. Merge that with stuff you "own" (and having a "buy" button that ties it all together in an interesting way), and you could really have something cool.

Of course, Google claims they got no love in negotiations with the music industry, and I believe Amazon has said the same thing. That leaves lawsuits (antitrust?) or Congressional action (unlikely). Sigh.

Are they going to let me store things that aren't music and photos? I have signed up for he 20 dollar a year plan for a while and keep my photos on Picasa. It would be nice to be able to put other types of files on my 80GB too. Just let me make some folders and put whatever I want in them.

I think Google tried to do this, years ago, but they blew it. Maybe they'll resurrect the idea later.

Grooveshark does (nearly) everything you want. The only thing to look out for is that if you upload music that they've been told to disallow you will have your account disabled from uploading music ever again. I don't find it to be a problem as I can find and listen to pretty much any song I desire at any given time without having to upload it from my personal collection. I find it to be vastly superior to Pandora (Actually, that doesn't take much. I've never liked Pandora).

I guess I'm a luddite then. I prefer to just run my own server streaming my own music locally. When I'm out and about I just live with the fact I can't have everything with me at once. At least not yet. I really want to put a streaming server in the car too.

Anyone else see the new Chromebook machines? Yesteryear specs at today's Mac prices (with monthly payment option).

Huh ? The Samsung Chromebook is $429, which is less than half the price of the cheapest Mac Book.

According to the Amazon listing it weighs very close to the weight of the Mac Book Air 13 inch.

Edit:

Though the Amazon specs might be wrong, as thisismynext have it at 3.8 pounds.

http://thisismynext.com/2011/05/11/samsung-chromebook-series-5-hands-on/

At the up-front consumer price, yes it's under $500, or half the price of a MacBook Air or MacBook Pro. But at the corporate monthly payment price it's over $1000.

You can get an entry-level MBP or Air plus a discounted AppleCare for about $1150. You can probably get them cheaper than that if you're buying at least 10 of them. The component specs on the Macs blow away the Chromebooks. And then there's the build quality.

It's as if a current-day BMW were selling at the same price as a 1980's Hyundai.

I think you are comparing it to the wrong cost. You need to be comparing it to the hardware and software costs for a typical Windows laptop.

And with your BMW analogy I think you are slightly over playing your hand this time

Not to say that the Mac Books aren't great pieces of hardware, I'm still considering a 15 inch one for my next Windows box.

And don't forget that the $1,116 option includes 100MB of 3G data a month for 36 months, that has to be worth something at US mobile data prices...

Actually, it's only for 24 months. But I was comparing not to the 3G model but to the WiFi-only model which is also just over $1000 over 3 years.

The benefit comes from what's essentially out-sourced IT/support, which I imagine should be easier to access than Apple support. But then there's a complete lack of a track record from Google here, so it's a big gamble to take for any company. Though you're only paying $28 per month, you're locked for the 36 month term price, with the only termination option being a lump-sum payment of your balance.

Anyway, I only brought up the MBP options as stark comparisons to what some consider a luxury item. This move really has no bearing on Apple's sales nor product line. There are other off-brand products that will compare even more favorably. The big potential loser here is Microsoft. The OEMs producing these systems have already lost long ago pushing slim margin disposables, but MS stands to lose a lot of licensing fees going forward.

Really ? You only get data for 24 months on a 36 month contract ? That sounds very odd.

I totally agree that Microsoft have most to lose, if Google have any success. I'd also agree on Google's support track record, if the example of GMail, Calendar, Apps and their "own" Android phones is anything to go by. Maybe they'll subcontract it out to someone who actually knows what they are doing with support...

I don't think anyone here even hinted that this $400 laptop is a luxury item !

Sorry, that should have been "to what" instead of "of what" - implying that the MBP (and not a $400 item) is a luxury when compared to other-brand notebooks. Edited in original post.