lala

As Amazon, Google, and Apple appear to be leading digital music in the direction of the cloud, it seems a good time to look back at some of the most influential online music services of the past.

Some people might argue that the modern digital music era started with the launch of iTunes. Others will say the birth of Napster kicked it off. The truth is two years before Napster launched in 2000, there were plenty of companies jockeying for dominance in online CD sales as well as downloads.

They were competing in nascent Internet radio or trying to create … Read more

What do you get when you mix together a killer domain name, a founder who sold his last company to Apple, a philosophy that borders on "Minority Report"-like futurism, and $41 million in venture funding? Well, it might look something like Color, the photo-sharing app for iPhone and Android unveiled Wednesday evening by erstwhile Lala founder Bill Nguyen.

In Color, photos taken through the app are shared through proximity, something which amasses a list of your contacts through machine learning; in effect, you'll be able to see all photos around you that were taken with Color. … Read more

While everyone has been wondering what exactly the new and probably imminently announced iPad 2 will look like and be made of, rumors continue to grow about a MobileMe update allowing streaming media to iOS devices.

The latest rumor from Cult of Mac, via MacRumors.com, claims that an Apple staff member has said a MobileMe update announced tomorrow will indeed allow music, TV shows, and even movies purchased via iTunes to be streamed over the cloud. CNET's reported on this likelihood before, and we'll see if it finally comes to fruition on Wednesday.

A music-streaming cloud service … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--A speedy launch of an iTunes cloud music service hasn't materialized the way many at the large record companies expected.

After Apple acquired Lala.com last December, the thinking among some music insiders was that Lala's streaming-music technology could easily be plugged into iTunes--once Apple obtained the proper music licenses. Lala.com, a music service launched in 2006 and shut down by Apple last May, possessed technology that scanned hard drives for existing music libraries and then enabled users to play back the same songs from Lala's servers via Web-connected devices.

But eight months after the … Read more

I'm a big proponent of cloud-based music services for mobile devices. I struggle figuring out which 500 songs I want on my 8GB iPhone at any given time, and the problem gets worse as as I download more apps. So it's gratifying to see an explosion of mobile music services in the last six months. Start-ups and established companies alike seem to believe that the current model, where users transfer songs from a computer to their phone using a wired connection, is not long for this world. Instead, these companies are coming up with various ways to dispense … Read more

Microsoft on Tuesday introduced the latest update to its plucky come-from-behind search engine, Bing, offering specialized results for music, TV, movies, and games. (CNET's Ina Fried has the full details.)

On the music front, Bing now offers playable search results: users can play a full-length version of each song once, and 30-second samples after that. The feature is similar to what Google introduced in October, provided by partner iLike. (Google also had a partnership with Lala, but Apple acquired that company in December and discontinued its online music-streaming service in May.)

If you like the song, you can then … Read more

One of the most interesting bits of news to come out of today's Google I/O conference was the company's stealth acquisition of Simplify Media a couple months ago.

Until March of this year, Simplify offered a free software application for PC and Mac that let users stream music from the iTunes or WinAmp libraries on their home computer, over the Internet, to other devices they own. The company also made an iPhone app that let the iPhone or iPod Touch receive these streams.

It was a nifty solution for users with big music libraries at home and … Read more

There's all kinds of vibrating on today's episode. from the server farm I imagine sits in Rafe's bedroom, to the oscillations of molecular computing, to the vibrations of sound from our rant about Drive Safe.ly. And Molly's rant on Net Neutrality last Friday also caused some vibrations, and we get to chatting about how much regulation you really need. Oh and don't forget you have no privacy.

Alliance of Wi-Fi and WiGig Standards in 60 GHz … Read more

Once again, it looks as if the recording industry is standing square in the way of giving users what they want: access to their digital-music collections from any device in any location.

Earlier on Friday, a notice appeared on Lala, announcing that the service would be shut down on May 31. Apple acquired Lala in late 2009, and a lot of folks have speculated that Apple would launch its own version of Lala's online-music locker service, which enables users to upload their music collections to Lala's servers, then stream those songs to any Internet-connected device.

(Technically, users don'… Read more