Movies In The Cloud ?
iTunes have recently added movies to their cloud services in the States.
This enables their clients to view films and television programs on multiple devices though it appears that they may be short on Universal and Fox releases.
Hopefully this will be rectified by the time the service is enabled in Canada, though it should be noted that no official date in regards to its introduction has yet been published.
Cloud Services & PVRs At Risk ?
Ottawa professor Micheal Geist has posted an interesting entry on his blog about the potential risks for Cloud services and the usage of personal video recorders in Canada after the passing of Bill C-11.
Apparently telecommunication giants Rogers and Shaw and voiced some concerns about provision 31.1 (5) in Bill C-11 :
Subject to subsection (6), a person who, for the purpose of allowing the telecommunication of a work or other subject-matter through the Internet or another digital network, provides digital memory in which another person stores the work or other subject-matter does not, by virtue of that act alone, infringe copyright in the work or other subject-matter.
Concerned about the vagueness of this provision, the Liberal Party Of Canada had attempted to introduce an amendment in committee but failed.
On March the 26th, the House Of Commons will be in session and the amended version of Bill C-11 will likely pass through its third reading shortly after.
Google Merges Services
Google has merged its Android application, eBook, film rental and cloud services into one service, entitled Google Play.
Canadians with Gmail accounts are able to access Android applications and a limited selection of films and books at the moment. But the online entertainment hub is expected to expand shortly.
The music service on Google Play, which enables users to store up to 20,000 songs on a cloud service that can be accessed by any Android device, is only available to Americans.
Cloud Computing & The Patriot Act
It appears that some non-American cloud services are warning people to avoid US based cloud services because of the Patriot Act.
According to Politico.com, some companies have been claiming that this anti-terrorist legislation may enable the US government to access data stored on U.S. cloud computing providers like Google and Microsoft. And this is hindering the adoption of these services in some countries.
RIM Announces Blackberry Music
Research In Motion, a.k.a RIM, has published details about their new BBM Music service today.
According to their press release, this new Blackberry Messenger based music service will feature over 45 million recordings from major labels Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and EMI, which will be made available via a cloud service to Blackberry users in Australia, Canada, Colombia, France, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, UAE, the United Kingdom and the United States.
This Omnifone powered service will allow users to access 50 songs for US$4.99 a month but is currently in beta testing, with a limited amount of users.