The Future of Cloud Technology
With the music industry in a frenzy to coax users back to a paid-based model for media, cloud based subscription services and mobile devices seem to be the way of the future. In the UK, Spotify has seen growing success with its cloud-based music service, allowing users to pay a low monthly fee that enables them to download and stream music to their computer from a vast library of music. In the United States, Rhapsody has emerged as the largest cloud-based music service available. Similar to Spotify, Rhapsody allows users to stream music from their online libraries, as well as download a certain amount of gigabytes to their mobile devices. The arrival of 2011 brought the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) held in Las Vegas, along with new models of cloud-based technology.
The most exciting new service introduced at CES this year is called “Unifi”, and is produced and controlled by the RealNetworks family. RealNetwork is noteworthy for their media players, which are mostly PC-compatible. Their free media player can be downloaded to PCs, and they can play any musical content available in the library in a customized, easy to use interface. Unifi hopes to bring together people’s need for media on the go, including music, photos and videos. Unifi, which was warded the “Best of CES” prize for software and apps by CNET.com and Engadget.com, will merge all the media from a consumer’s computer and mobile devices into one online database. This database will automatically organize and filter one’s pictures, music and videos, and allow easy access to said data from anywhere with an Internet connection. This means consumers can not only access their iTunes libraries from anywhere, but also have one place to store all their photos and videos, which they will easily be able to send directly to Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr and Tumblr.
