Google Launches Music Service, Refreshes Maps
Google revealed Wednesday that it is launching its own subscription music service called All Access. The company also unveiled a new version of its Google Maps.
The world's top search engine announced the music streaming service, which has built-in features to help users discover new music, at its annual developers conference in San Francisco.
Google aimed to combine the power of its data to make recommendations more relevant, said Chris Yerga, an engineering director, at the conference.
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"We wanted to service the power of Google to surface music we know you are going to love," he said.
The new service will be a direct competitor to the music streaming service Spotify and Pandora, and will launch in the U.S. for $9.99. However, everyone will get a free trial for 30 days and early adopters will get a discounted subscription price of $7.99, Yerga said.
Spotify charges $4.99 for the unlimited, uninterrupted music streaming service on a user's desktop or laptop and $9.99 for the same service to be available on a user's mobile devices.
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All music that users store in their Google Music lockers will automatically be pulled into their Google Play Music All Access service.
"Radio without rules, your one click access to music, your personal library blended with ours," Yerga said.
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The company also showed off its redesigned Maps product for desktop, which will roll out sometime this Summer. Google also added new features to its Maps product for mobile that include integrated lists from Zagat and new navigation functions, like real-time accident alerts and a rerouting function that changes a course based on traffic ahead.
Google also unveiled a refresh for its social network Google Plus with a new design.
The company's redesigned interface of its Google Plus service will feature a new stream design, photo experience and more. The new design will also roll out on Wednesday.
In addition, the company announced a unified messaging system called Hangouts. The app—which is available on Android, Chrome and iOS—allows users to message with text, images and emoticons and also enables video chat free of charge. It's similar to WhatsApp and the Facebook Messenger app.
Google also revealed that it is taking on Apple and making a big push into the education market with its Android and Chrome platforms. Google is launching a new custom app store called Google Play for Education in the Fall, which will allow educators to sync educational apps to all of their students tablets.
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—By CNBC's Cadie Thompson. Follow her on Twitter @CadieThompson.