With easy media consumption on the iPhone, it seems that Google wants to one-up Cupertino by introducing movie rentals of their own, and if the side-effect means that rentals will trickle down into Android and other mobile platforms, then we’d be happy. In conjunction with the Sundance Film Festival, Google is in trials to offer rentals of select films from 2009 and 2010 available to movie audiences; the rental program will start on January 31. Google is stating that:

These are early days and in the coming weeks we’ll also invite a small group of partners across other industries, in addition to independent film, to participate in this new option. Anything that brings more content to the YouTube community is a good thing. And making content available for rent will give our partners unprecedented control over the distribution of their work — they can decide the price of their videos and the rental duration; they can decide when and where their content is available; and they can keep 100% of their rights.

The move to use YouTube, which houses content in the cloud, rather than using a file-transfer system that iTunes currently uses is not surprising. Competitor Apple, through its acquisition of media streaming service LaLa, is rumored to be doing something similar for purchased contents on the iTunes ecosystem where users wouldn’t have to download files of what they purchase. Instead, with the growth of Internet-connected devices, the ability to purchase content, store it in a cloud, and retrieve that content from anywhere at any time with any device is Apple’s rumored goal with the LaLa purchase. Google, leveraging its cloud-based streaming service in video content from YouTube, could give Android a boost.

Of course, with talks about Android and iPhone, Windows Mobile shouldn’t be left out. With Windows Mobile 7 just around the corner, there have been plenty of rumors for Microsoft’s mobile OS and multimedia features, including some sort of Zune integration or a Zune with a cellular radio. Microsoft’s also making a big push towards cloud computing and has so far focused its resources on Office and Office in the cloud. We’ll have to wait and see how Microsoft leverages the cloud for consumer technologies, in particular how it will affect gaming (Xbox for mobile?) and music and videos (Zune ecosystem, Mediaroom technology).

(via: YouTube and AndroidCentral)