YouTube Music Key subscription service lets you get rid of ads, listen in the background

YouTube’s much anticipated subscription service has been officially announced today. It’s called YouTube Music Key, and it will be in beta for an unspecified amount of time.

It brings you an ad-free YouTube experience, along with support for background playback on mobile, and offline viewing too.

All of these perks will cost you $7.99 (for a limited time, the normal price being $9.99) per month. But the nice thing is that if you pay for Music Key, you’ll also get a Google Play Music subscription, which gives you access to more than 30 million songs and expert-curated playlists. That in itself costs $9.99 per month, so you’re essentially getting two services for the price of one here.

Music videos will soon show up in the Play Music app, and the YouTube apps and the website will get a new Music tab, housing your favorite music videos, recommended playlists, as well as playlists of trending music across YouTube. Also new to YouTube will be the ability to see an artist’s discography, and play a full ‘album’ of official music videos.

YouTube Music Key is currently an invite-only thing, but if you receive an invite you do get a long six-month trial period for the service. YouTube’s “biggest music fans” will apparently get access first, though it’s unclear how the company chooses who those people are.

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Google Play Music gets contextual music stations, Material Design

Google has announced a big update for its Play Music service. First off, the Android and iOS apps have received a new, Material Design-infused coat of paint. Second, the service now brings you contextual music stations.

These have apparently been “hand crafted” by a team of music experts, including DJs, musicians, music critics, and ethnomusicologists, to give you exactly the songs you need for a particular moment.

When you open the app, you’ll be prompted to play music for a time of day, mood, or activity. You can choose an activity, such as a workout, a commute, or so on, to get shown several music stations you can then instantly start listening to. These music stations can be downloaded to listen to when you’re offline too. You can also see what song is next, and even reorder the contextual playlist, add songs to it, or remove songs from it. And you get to start a new station for any song in the mix.

Play Music’s Listen Now page has been redone too. Your recently played music, new songs you may like, and radio stations based on what you usually listen to are presented in a card-based interface, complete with Material Design.

The contextual music stations are available today for Play Music subscribers in the US and Canada, through the Web, as well as the Android and iOS apps. The new Listen Now page is showing in all of the 45 countries where Play Music is available, and it too is out for the Web, Android, and iOS.

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Google enhances 2-step authentication with USB Security Key

Google has today announced it’s started supporting a new type of two-factor authentication for its websites, as long as you use its Chrome desktop browser. The existing 2-step verification system is based on you entering your password followed by a six-digit code that you either receive via SMS or get from a special mobile app.

The new system replaces the code-entering with inserting a physical USB device into your computer, then tapping its sole button when prompted to do so.

Obviously then, this is a simpler way to perform two-factor authentication, from the user experience perspective. It relies on a specific physical object (the required USB device), which you can carry with you on your keychain, for example. On the other hand, that device seems easier to lose than a phone, so understandably the new system will be opt-in. And you’ll still be able to use the old code-based one if you so choose.

The Security Key USB device only works after having verified that the login site truly is operated by Google, thus preventing against phishing attacks. All of this works because Security Key and Chrome (since version 38) incorporate the Universal 2nd Factor (U2F) protocol developed by the FIDO Alliance. This means other websites with login systems will also be able to use the same system if they want to.

The new Security Key will be free to use for Google accounts, but you have to purchase a special USB authenticator device – your existing USB sticks won’t work for this purpose. Google helpfully recommendsa couple of Amazon-listed products, the cheapest currently going for $5.99.

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