YouTube music chief departs ahead of long-delayed Music Pass launch

YouTube's upcoming music subscription service has been hit with yet another setback. Chris LaRosa, YouTube's product manager in charge of music, is parting ways with Google at the end of the week to join an undisclosed startup according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.

The write-up claims LaRosa decided to leave in part because he was frustrated that YouTube hasn't yet been able to launch its long-delayed music subscription service, tentatively known as YouTube Music Pass. Sources say the first internal version of the service was developed more than a year ago.

Last year, former music boss Nikhil Chandhok departed from a similar position according to his LinkedIn profile.

Those familiar with the matter say the delays stem from disputes over how the service should be designed, what features YouTube should charge users for and how it should fit into YouTube as a whole. All of this is in addition to recent disputes with major and independent record labels over licensing.

The Music Pass app will be ad-free and allow subscribers to keep listening to music even if they switch to another app. What's more, YouTube is said to be working on the ability to store tunes for offline listening - or in other words, it'll pretty much function like other paid music streaming services.

Google is expected to introduce the service sometime in the next few months although no solid date has been announced.

No word yet on who will be replacing LaRosa.

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Marketing material for Nvidia's Shield Tablet hits the web ahead of unveiling

There's been a lot of discussion regarding Nvidia's upcoming Shield Tablet over the past few months. And now thanks to a cornucopia of leaked slides obtained by the crew over at VideoCardz.com, we know virtually everything there is to know about Nvidia's new gaming machine.

The slides, if legit, leave little to the imagination. The Shield will carry an 8-inch IPS LCD display operating at 1,920 x 1,200 with Nvidia's Tegra K1 SoC under the hood (192 core Kepler GPU, 2.2GHz quad-core A15 CPU) alongside 2GB of RAM.

Storage capacity checks in at either 16GB or 32GB depending on model although a microSD card slot will allow for additional space. Elsewhere, we find a 5-megapixel rear camera and a matching 5-megapixel front-facing shooter, 802.11 a/b/g/n 2x2 MIMO (2.4GHz and 5GHz) Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 LE, GPS, GLONASS and an included stylus.

Battery life is rated at 10 hours of HD video playback from the 19.75 watt hour lithium ion pack.

Pricing starts at $299 for a 16GB with Wi-Fi model. An extra $100 will double the onboard storage to 32GB and net you LTE connectivity. Nvidia will also offer up a controller as a separate accessory priced at $59 while a cover / stand will carry an MSRP of $39.

The publication claims the tablet will be announced on July 22 and hit stores a week later on July 29 in Canada and the US. Availability for Europe is slated for August 14 with additional regions getting the Shield Tablet this fall.

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