Amazon unveils cloud music player

[Neil McCauley]

"Amazon has unveiled an online music service that lets users to upload songs and play them from a range of devices."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12890677

[WAD62]

"Amazon has unveiled an online music service that lets users to upload songs and play them from a range of devices."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12890677

Very interesting Howard, it was inevitable...but I imagine this will be restricted to mp3 replay due to the current mobile bandwidth restrictions

Now this will really take off when the next generation of mobile coverage arrives, Wi-Max, or whatever it will be branded over here. Effectively wi-fi bandwidth on the move. And when someone comes out with a decent high res internet enabled player for mobile/home devices.

It'll be interesting to see what Logitech (squeezebox) and Sony (sonos) have up their respective sleeves as a response, otherwise they're in a very niche market. Physical home servers will shortly be a thing of the past.

I was at a 'partner' day with RackSpace (a cloud hosting company) a month ago (I work in IT), and watched a chap spin up a virtualised/cloud unix application server, and database server from his mobile phone in 5 mins, within another 5 he'd backed them both up and spun them down. Very soon there'll be no requirement for 'business' servers, well once the security issues are resolved. :)

Edit; As suspected mp3, and m4a only at the moment, it'll be interesting to see if higher resolution VBR is supported;


Files not supported by the Uploader
DRM (Digital Rights Managed) files: DRM protects the number and types of locations that songs can be played from. Because of these restrictions the Amazon MP3 Uploader and Amazon Cloud Player do not support these file types.
Non-MP3 and non-AAC formats: The Amazon MP3 Uploader and Amazon Cloud Player only support a select number of file formats. See below for a complete list of formats we support and a list of some of the files formats that we do not. To find out how to convert music into a file format we support, see Converting files below.
Over 100 MB: Uploading files that are over 100 MB in size is currently not supported. If you have music files of this size that you would like to add to Cloud Player we recommend you re-encode them at a lower bit rate to reduce the file size. For information on how to do this see Converting files below.
Miscellaneous audio types: Ringtones, podcasts, audio books, and other non-music audio files are not supported by the Amazon MP3 Uploader.
Playlist without eligible music: Playlists that contain only files with any of the above problems or that contain no music are not eligible for Upload.

Supported file formats

.mp3 -- Standard non-DRM file format (Includes Amazon MP3 Store purchased files)
.m4a -- AAC files (Includes iTunes store purchased files)
Unsupported file formats

.wma -- Windows Media Audio files
.m4p -- DRM AAC files
.wav -- Uncompressed music files
.ac3 -- Dolby Digital audio files
.ogg -- Ogg Vorbis audio files
.ape -- Lossless Monkey audio files
.flac -- Free Lossless Audio Codec files

[Butuz]

I was at a 'partner' day with RackSpace (a cloud hosting company) a month ago (I work in IT), and watched a chap spin up a virtualised/cloud unix application server, and database server from his mobile phone in 5 mins, within another 5 he'd backed them both up and spun them down. Very soon there'll be no requirement for 'business' servers, well once the security issues are resolved. :)

I can do that and I am not in the cloud. Thats just the power of virtualisation.

As for the security issues, not so easy to resolve. The main issue being how easily can you trust the third party cloud provider? At least when your data is locked away in your data centre you know exactly where it is and exactly who has access to it. When it's in the cloud? Who knows. I certainly won't be moving one (business) byte into the cloud.

However as a means to store your music so you can listen to it anywhere anytime - fantasic application of cloud computing!



Butuz

[WAD62]

I can do that and I am not in the cloud. Thats just the power of virtualisation.


Not without investing in hardware you can't mate, this is cloud logical server virtualisation, by CPU & Storage, as a service...

[Butuz]

Maybe not quite to the same extent as your mate but I certainly can fully manage my oracle kit from my iPhone from anywhere in the world. I call it my personal cloud, only because if you don't call it a cloud no one seems to be as impressed. Those damned msn adverts. :)

To the cloud!!!!!

Butuz

[WAD62]

I call it my personal cloud, only because if you don't call it a cloud no one seems to be as impressed. Those damned msn adverts. :)

To the cloud!!!!!

Butuz

Yes quite stomach churning..."Just learn to use a camera you stupid fecking woman" ;)

The 'Cloud' the latest buzz word...Back in the 70's it was called a 'bureau service', you just needed a longer cable, oh and the graphics weren't quite so good :)