Amazon Beats Apple And Google To Cloud-Based Music Storage/Streaming

Well, the rumors were true. Not only is Amazon entering the “music locker” space, they’re doing it before both Google and Apple — as their “Cloud Drive” and “Cloud Player” have just gone live on their site tonight.

Cloud Drive is the name Amazon is giving to its media storage space on their servers. They give you 5 GB of storage for free and allow you to access the media from any computer. Cloud Player is the name of yes, the actual player. And it comes in two flavors: a player for theweb, and one for Android devices. You’ll note an absence of an iOS player…

A bit more:

• Any album bought through Amazon MP3 is stored for free in your Cloud Drive — a very nice perk.
• If you buy one album from Amazon MP3, they’ll upgrade your Cloud Drive storage to 20 GB for free for a year — another nice perk.
• Normally, 20 GB of Drive storage will cost $20 for a year. 50 GB is $50. 100 GB is $100. And so on. All the way up to 1 TB for $1,000.
• The Cloud Drive storage isn’t just for music — Amazon notes that 1 TB will hold 70 hours of HD video.
• Other files can be uploaded — this includes music, movies, photos, and even documents.
• The MP3 uploader accepts MP3 or AAC files, but they must be DRM-free (.wma, .wav, .ogg and others are not supported)
• Old Amazon MP3 purchases aren’t put in your Cloud Drive, only new purchases going forward (though you can manually upload).
• The Android Cloud Player is built into the Amazon MP3 app — it’s in both the Android Market and Amazon’s new Appstore.
• This is for U.S. customers only for the time being.
• Cloud Player for the web works on IE 8 and above, Firefox 3.5 and above, Chrome, and Safari. There is no Opera support. And Flash is required (but for uploads only).
• There’s also a stand-alone uploader app for Mac and PC.
• You can’t upload music from your mobile device “at this time”.

So there you go, Amazon has won the race of the big three to deliver a fully cloud-supported music option. Current whispers have Google launching something very similar at their I/O conference in May. And Apple is working on a similar concept as well — but it may not launch until this fall. At least that was the original plan, Amazon’s move may alter things, obviously.

More: Amazon Cloud Player Doesn’t Work On iOS — But It’s Not A Flash Issue

Firefox 4 Downloaded Twice As Much As IE9 in 24hrs

Sees 4.7 million downloads, thanks to HTML5 and WebGL support for 3D graphics

Microsoft Internet Explorer's ironic case of having a sizeable installed base and yet being considered an underdog changed with the release of Internet Explorer 9 (IE9), which caused quite a scare in the Firefox and Chrome camps with a staggering 2.35 million downloads within the first 24 hours of its release. Much of IE9's success is attributed to the adoption of new features like HTML5 and hardware graphics acceleration support. However, Mozilla reaffirmed its might by raking in 4.7 million Firefox 4 downloads in the same time frame according to Mozilla Glow website that keeps logs of the download.

This is far lower than the first day downloads of the previous version of Firefox, which clocked in 8 million within 24 hours; albeit that event was highly promoted by Mozilla. Firefox 4 also packs in the same features introduced by IE9, and additionally faster page loading, optimised JavaScript support, improved security and privacy options, and incorporation of new standards like WebM video and WebGL 3D graphics. Firefox ups the ante with 3D acceleration support that's even compatible with Windows XP.

Over the years, Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser has seen a steady decline in user base thanks to a clunky interface, constant glitches, poor security, and an abject lack of features. It had become a browser that no one touched with a ten foot pole, let their technically inclined peers term them n00bs. However, that changed with Internet Explorer 9, which ushered in new technologies like in-built graphics acceleration support, HTML5, CSS 3 mated to a much improved UI, better security, host of new features and better performance and stability was well. 

Mozilla is counting upon the latest iteration to increase its user base, which is already pegged at 400 million. However, the browser giant had to contend with Chrome, a relative newcomer, spoiling its party by beating it in the global browser usage pie-chart. Chrome now finds home with 10 percent of Internet devices worldwide. Question is, will Firefox 4 help Mozilla regain its spot from Google's Chrome? Only time will tell.