Orb was a

freeware Freeware is software, most often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the ...

streaming Streaming media is multimedia that is delivered and consumed in a continuous manner from a source, with little or no intermediate storage in network elements. ''Streaming'' refers to the delivery method of content, rather than the content i ...

software that enabled users to remotely access all their personal digital media files including pictures, music, videos and television. It could be used from any Internet-enabled device, including laptops,

pocket PC A Pocket PC (P/PC, PPC) is a class of personal digital assistant (PDA) that runs the Windows Mobile or Windows Embedded Compact operating system that has some of the abilities of modern desktop PCs. The name was introduced by Microsoft in 200 ...

smartphones A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...

PS3 The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. The successor to the PlayStation 2, it is part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. It was first released on Novemb ...

Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. It competed with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generati ...

and

Wii The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America and in December 2006 for most other regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major home game console, ...

video game consoles A video game console is an electronic device that outputs a video signal or image to display a video game that can be played with a game controller. These may be home consoles, which are generally placed in a permanent location connected to a ...

. In 2013, Orb Networks, Inc. announced that they were acquired by a strategic partner and would be shutting down operations. Also in 2013, Co-founder Luc Julia indicated that Orb Networks' technology had been acquired by Qualcomm, but no accompanying press release had been issued. Orb's website (accessed May, 2014) announced: "...about a year ago Orb's team and technology were acquired by Qualcomm Connected Experiences, Inc." and "Orb Networks will no longer be offering any Orb software downloads or support for our web based products such as OrbLive and Mycast." The statement invited people to "check out Qualcomm's AllPlay media platform" but did not specify how Orb software may have been utilized.

What it did

Orb was available for Intel Macintosh,

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for se ...

or Media Center PCs. Users create an online account to remotely access their computer.

Access Access may refer to: Companies and organizations * ACCESS (Australia), an Australian youth network * Access (credit card), a former credit card in the United Kingdom * Access Co., a Japanese software company * Access Healthcare, an Indian BPO se ...
to videos, audio, images

All the music, pictures and video files stored on a home computer are made available for streaming, provided that the computer is connected to the Internet. The media files are transcoded and streamed directly from that PC, or available for download with the use of a file explorer plug-in. The current version of Orb can be used as a replacement for

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...

Windows Media Connect Windows Media Connect (WMC) is a UPnP AV server from Microsoft for Windows XP and later Windows operating systems, to share and stream media on a Windows computer to WMC clients. The first two releases of WMC were made available as stand-alone sof ...

software for computers running the

operating system. This allows the

PlayStation 3 The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. The successor to the PlayStation 2, it is part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. It was first released on Novemb ...

consoles to access the videos, audios, and images on the computer with Orb installed, natively. This allows the user to also watch videos not in the

Windows Media Video Windows Media Video (WMV) is a series of video codecs and their corresponding video coding formats developed by Microsoft. It is part of the Windows Media framework. WMV consists of three distinct codecs: The original video compression technol ...

format without having previously re-transcoded their videos. Orb will transcode the video files from the computer on the fly as they are requested as long as the computer running Orb has the correct

codec A codec is a device or computer program that encodes or decodes a data stream or signal. ''Codec'' is a portmanteau of coder/decoder. In electronic communications, an endec is a device that acts as both an encoder and a decoder on a signal or ...

for doing so.

Access to a tuner card or Webcam and Web-based DVR

If there is a

TV tuner card A TV tuner card is a kind of television tuner that allows television signals to be received by a computer. Most TV tuners also function as video capture cards, allowing them to record television programs onto a hard disk much like the digital v ...

installed on that PC, live TV is also available for streaming. Furthermore, Orb offers a DVR functionality, like a

TiVo TiVo ( ) is a digital video recorder (DVR) developed and marketed by Xperi (previously by TiVo Corporation and TiVo Inc.) and introduced in 1999. TiVo provides an on-screen guide of scheduled broadcast programming television programs, whose fea ...

. One can schedule TV recordings and stream the recorded video files remotely via the Web-based interface. The same is true for a

webcam A webcam is a video camera which is designed to record or stream to a computer or computer network. They are primarily used in videotelephony, livestreaming and social media, and security. Webcams can be built-in computer hardware or peripher ...

(there is also a webcam surveillance feature).

Sharing Sharing is the joint use of a resource or space. It is also the process of dividing and distributing. In its narrow sense, it refers to joint or alternating use of inherently finite goods, such as a common pasture or a shared residence. Still ...

Orb also allows the user to share photos and videos without having to upload them to an online service. To do that, one has to select the files one wants to share, and enter the email address of the person that should have access to that data. That person will receive an email with a link to view the files.

Mobile phone usage

Supported mobile phones

Orb supports streaming to

Windows Media Windows Media is a discontinued multimedia framework for media creation and distribution for Microsoft Windows. It consists of a software development kit (SDK) with several application programming interfaces (API) and a number of prebuilt techn ...

, RealPlayer,

3gp 3GP (3GPP file format) is a multimedia container format defined by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) for 3G UMTS multimedia services. It is used on 3G mobile phones but can also be played on some 2G and 4G phones. 3G2 (3GPP2 ...

and Flash format, supporting a wide range of 3G cell phones, including the iPhone.

Adaptive streaming inside a LAN or to a mobile phone

Orb will detect the type of device being used, and adapt the stream according to your player availability and the network quality. For example, on the

Nokia N80 The Nokia N80 is a 3G smartphone from Nokia announced on November 2, 2005, part of the multimedia Nseries line. It runs on Symbian OS v9.1 and the S60 3rd Edition interface. It was first released in June 2006. It has support for high-speed UMTS ...

, Orb will use the native web browser and RealPlayer When the device used to connect is on the same local network as the PC where Orb is running, it will connect directly to the stream from the PC without going through the Internet (provided no

firewall Firewall may refer to: * Firewall (computing), a technological barrier designed to prevent unauthorized or unwanted communications between computer networks or hosts * Firewall (construction), a barrier inside a building, designed to limit the spre ...

blocks the connection). This provides a much higher bit rate and quality when streaming inside a

LAN Lan or LAN may also refer to: Science and technology * Local asymptotic normality, a fundamental property of regular models in statistics * Longitude of the ascending node, one of the orbital elements used to specify the orbit of an object in spa ...

New features in Orb 2.0

Orb 2.0

beta Beta (, ; uppercase , lowercase , or cursive ; grc, βῆτα, bē̂ta or ell, βήτα, víta) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 2. In Modern Greek, it represents the voiced labiod ...

Ajax Ajax may refer to: Greek mythology and tragedy * Ajax the Great, a Greek mythological hero, son of King Telamon and Periboea * Ajax the Lesser, a Greek mythological hero, son of Oileus, the king of Locris * ''Ajax'' (play), by the ancient Gree ...

-based and offers a home page similar to

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

Personalized Homepage or netvibes. It is organized into tabs, with each tab containing user-defined modules, such as TV guide, personal media files, RSS/

Atom Every atom is composed of a nucleus and one or more electrons bound to the nucleus. The nucleus is made of one or more protons and a number of neutrons. Only the most common variety of hydrogen has no neutrons. Every solid, liquid, gas, a ...

feeds such as

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

videos, the local weather forecast, etc...Orb 2.0 beta - more Web 2.0ish
pvrwire.com

Similar products

Similar solutions are Synology and Slingbox, which does not require a PC, but comes with its own hardware. Another similar solution for remote access is ifunpix, which additionally includes tools to create and upload content to a personal mini-site support video as well as audio and music. Unlike Orb, iFunPix uses a proxy storage server between the user and the home computer which can help prevent attacks on the source computer. iFunPix is ''not'' able to stream live television. There is also TVersity, another freeware program, much like orb. Other similar solution for remote access via mobile is Younity as well a
Orbweb.me
both of those products enable mobile access to digital files in your computer.

References

External links

* dead

{{Home theater PC (application software) Web services Companies based in Oakland, California Media players Media servers Qualcomm software