Web search giants Google is looking into entering yet another market,  after unveiling its new online Google Music service at a keynote presentation yesterday at its annual Google I/O developers conference.

Google Music is set to be an online service that will allow users to store their music in the cloud, and then stream it to a myriad of different devices, be it your tablet, smartphone or PC.

According to CNET, the service will allow users to store up to 20 000 songs in the cloud, just like you may store your Google email and work documents online today. The benefits of storing the music online is clear, as customers will be able to access it from any Flash supporting web browser or Android device.

At the moment the service is still being tested, and is available in closed Beta form for a number of invitation-only users. The service will also initially be available free of charge, but the company may be planning to charge for it in the future, hinted Paul Joyce, a Google project manager.

At the moment there are no plans for an online music store, with users only able to upload and store their own music in the cloud. It's possible that such a service will be made available at a later date though.

When the question of legality came up, Google responded that the service is “completely legal”, only asking users to upload their own privately owned music. When asked how Google would police pirated content, Google's Andy Rubin responded by saying that the company will respond to any rights holders who believe a user may have uploaded illegal content to the Google service.

The company also demonstrated a number of highly innovative additional features, such as its Android @Home technology and so-called “Project Tungsten” allowing users to stream music to speakers and stereos throughout their home completely wirelessly.

The company also demonstrated future NFC (near-field communication) technology, with a demonstrator taking a CD filled with music and touching it to the Tungsten speaker system. When touched the music from the CD is automatically uploaded to the Google cloud service, and the Tungsten speakers began playing the streamed music.

Sounds like we're in for some highly impressive technology in the future, let's just hope Google doesn't take too long to release its music service into the wild.