Google ready to launch new online music service

SlashGear is on hands at Google I/O this week and there are a lot of big announcements expected to be made from the conference. One of those big announcements will apparently be the launch of a new Google online music service that is along the lines of the digital cloud-based music offering that Amazon operates. The Amazon offering is called Cloud Player and launched in late March 2011. The full details on the new Google service aren't offered at this point, but we can expect them later today according to sources.

The sources cited by the Wall Street Journal claim that Google will announce the music service today, and it will operate initially in testing mode and will not be offered to consumers to try out at launch. Google has offered no official comment at this point, and I wouldn't expect any official comment until the unveil is made. The sources claim that at this pint Google hasn't sought out any licensing deals with labels.

The lack of licensing leads to the assumption that the new service will be a system that functions like a remote HDD allowing the user to store music they own on the cloud. The user would be able to listen to music on the service in streaming mode, but wouldn't be able to download the streaming files. This is interesting and we will have to wait for a while today to see exactly what the details are for the new Google service.

[via Reuters]