Google Music to launch without Sony and Warner
Google is reportedly conducting a press event soon to launch its new music download service, and Spinal Tap will apparently be on hand to play some tunes. CNET has reported that the music service is launching with two of the major labels. These labels do NOT include giant major record labels Sony and Warner. Universal Music Group will be on hand at the event, while it’s still unconfirmed if EMI will be present.
Google has been been working hard to convince major record labels to sign an agreement to allow Google to start a download music service that will sell tunes to Android users. According to reports, part of the reason Google is having a hard time closing the deal is that Google has had issues in the past with some publishers over allegedly helping people to infringe their copyrights with services like YouTube.
The Spinal Tap event kicks off November 16.
Top secret Google lab creating the future
Somewhere in an undisclosed location in the Bay Area, Google is reportedly creating a future where your refrigerator could order groceries when your supplies run low. It’s a future where you don’t have to bother logging in to your PC or phone to check your social networks- your dinner plate could do that for you.
All these dreams are being made possible at Google X, a secret lab where the internet giant is reportedly tackling a list of 100 shoot-for-the-stars ideas. Although most of the ideas on the list are in the conceptual stage, The New York Times reports that two people briefed on the project have said that one product would be released by the end of the year, although they would not say what it was.
Google’s co-founder, Sergey Brin, is reportedly deeply involved in the lab, and came up with the list of ideas along with Larry Page, Google’s other founder, who worked on Google X before becoming chief executive in April.
Diaspora co-founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy dead at 22
TechCrunch has confirmed that Ilya Zhitomirskiy, one of the young co-founders behind social network Diaspora, passed away suddenly on Saturday. He was 22 years old.
In April 2010, Zhitomirskiy and three fellow NYU students announced plans for their open-source Facebook-challenger. They set up a Kickstarter fund that raised just over $200,000 for the project. Diaspora, now in its “alpha” phase, is designed around personal privacy and gives users the option of controlling their own servers, allowing them manage how their online data is shared with their contacts. Unlike Facebook, which centralizes and stores user data within its own network, Diaspora allows users to create their own social graph or build off existing social networking connections from inside Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook.
Diaspora sent out a new round of invites to a redesigned alpha version of its open source social network just before the saddening news broke that founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy had recently passed away.
No details about Zhitomirskiy’s cause of death had been released yet.
