Clouds on the horizon for Google and Samsung

Word on the Web this week is that two new clouds are on the horizon – Google Drive and Samsung’s S-Cloud.

The much-anticipated Google Drive is expected to launch next week, offering users 5 gigabytes of storage for free, according to reports. The Next Web said it managed to get a draft of Google’s announcement. The site reports that Google Drive will work “in desktop folders” on Mac and Windows computers.

Further bolstering this speculation, Talk Android also got a hold of a leaked screenshot describing the file-synchronizing service. TechCrunch reported that it was able to download an app for Mac OS X.

Competitors Box and SugarSync both offer users 5 gigabytes of storage for free; DropBox, however, gives users 2 gigabytes – unless they have an HTC phone, which can upgrade to 23 gigabytes.

Reports surfaced Friday that Samsung is about to launch its own cloud service to rival Apple’s iCloud next month. According to the Verge, Korean site Maeil Business claims that Samsung will introduce the S-Cloud service at its May 3 press event. Samsung is said to be offering more than 5 gigabytes, but whether that’s to be paid or free is unclear.

Maeil Business, in a rough translation by Google Translate, is also reporting that there won’t be the same kind of content storage restrictions that are on iCloud.

Samsung had shown off its “allshare,” which enables remote access to music, movies and pictures either from their home network or from copies stored online, at CES in January.

The company also demonstrated its Family Story app for sharing pictures and messages across several homes through connected TVs, smartphones and tablets. Essentially, the app let users store photos in the cloud and share them in a private social media group of authorized viewers.

Some reports suggest that Samsung delayed launching the product because it couldn’t find a suitable storage partner for a global market. Maeil Business reports that it has approached Microsoft to assist in building out the infrastructure for S-Cloud.

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Clouds on the horizon for Google and Samsung