Google Launches 'Music Beta' Cloud Service

Internet giant Google on Tuesday launched a music storage system in the cloud that will allow its users to upload and access their songs from Google’s network infrastructure through an Android app.

The service is called Google Music Beta, and is somewhat similar to what Amazon has reported last March. The new service from Google was born without the involvement of record companies, and is available only in the United States. The service will allow users to upload 20,000 songs free of charge. Currently, the service is by invite only.

Google Music Beta was unveiled as part of the conference of software developers Google I / O 2011, which began last Tuesday in San Francisco, and is accessible Android tablets as part of the updated Honeycomb 3.1, which is already available. The platform will be opened to more people gradually, as Google announced in the event.

Google Music Beta has a content manager that allows users to host their music in the cloud and listen from any Android device connected to the Internet. The software will also allow the user to download the latest songs that can be accessed on their portable device even if they are offline.

Google chose to launch its music service despite not meeting its objectives, as acknowledged by Zahavah Levine, who represented the company in talks with record companies to try to incorporate them in the project. "We've been in negotiations with the industry for a different set of features, with mixed results. But a couple of major labels were less focused on innovation and more on demanding unreasonable and unsustainable business terms.”

It is not the first time that Google brings to light a product without explicit permission from content providers. Google TV was blocked shortly after its launch last year by major TV companies in the United States.