orb posts

Filed under: Audio, Internet, Photo, Video, News, P2P, Social Software, iPhone, Mobile, Web

Now finally available - ubiquitous media sharing with Orb for Mac

by Dolores Parker Nov 5th 2009

It was pretty exciting news at Download Squad to hear Orb, the "sort of software version of Slingbox," was available for Mac. Orb allows you to broadcast your media to any device that has a web browser. After downloading Orb to your "always on" Mac with a high speed internet connection, you can access all your photos, songs, TV shows, and videos from any device with a browser and media player.

After downloading the app, Orb indexes your media and then prompts you to either log in to mycast.orb.com, or create a log in if you don't have an account. After you log in you can see your dashboard and all your media goodies.

Though my songs appeared immediately, my photos did not. There are various feed settings you can play with and channels to explore. Also, with a simple drag drop interface you can share your media with your friends via email, SMS, widget on your blog, or a public URL.

Checking it out from my home computer is one thing, but would it work on other devices? Success! I was able to access my media from my Dell PC.

A note for iPhone owners: The esteemed and indefatigable Jay Hathaway noted that he received errors when he tried to download the free version of OrbLive for the iPhone, which he tried from both his iPhone and his iTunes account on his Mac. There are 3 flavors of Orb available for the iPhone: OrbLive free, OrbMedia ($4.99) and OrbLive ($9.99)

Note to Orb: Please update your landing page to include PC and Mac, ok?

Tags: iphone, Mac, media sharing, media streamer, MediaSharing, MediaStreamer, mobile, Orb

Filed under: Internet, Video

HAVASoft: Stream live TV over the web without a Slingbox (or Orb)

by Brad Linder Jan 11th 2008

If you've got a TV tuner in your home PC, you can turn your PC into a streaming web video server using software like Orb or SageTV Placeshifter. Now Monsoon Multimedia is getting into the game with the announcement of HAVASoft.

Monsoon Multimedia is probably best known these days as the first company to be sued for violating the GPL. But they also make a set top box that allows users to stream live video over the internet. You know, kinda of like a Slingbox, but less popular.

While Monsoon might not be a household name, their upcoming software does appear to have a few nice features. For example, it will bring some of the cooler features of the Hava set top box to the PC, like the ability to stream video to multiple users simultaneously. If you have a home network, you can also install the software on one PC with a TV tuner installed and use that tuner to record shows on another computer using Windows Media Center.

There's no word on pricing yet, and the release date is listed only as "early 2008," but we're going to wait until we try HAVASoft before we write it off as an also-ran.

Tags: HAVASoft, Monsoon-Multimedia, Orb, Slingbox

Filed under: Audio, Internet, Video, iPhone

Orb Networks to let you stream media from home to your iPhone

by Brad Linder Dec 12th 2007

The Register reports that streaming media company Orb Networks plans to announce support for the iPhone and iPod touch this week. Orb is sort of like the software version of the Slingbox. You install a client on your home PC and then you can login from pretty much any device with a web browser and stream your music, picture, and video collection over the internet to a remote computer or mobile device. If you've got a TV tuner on your home computer, you can even watch live TV over the internet.

While you could theoretically access Orb's web interface using Safari on an iPhone today, Apple blocks Orb's usual streaming protocol. So the folks at Orb went and reworked their system to stream MP4 files instead.

Oh, and if you're wondering why the video above is showing Winamp Remote, it's because Winamp and Orb have teamed up to provide support for controlling your Winamp playlists over the web.

[via Engadget]

Tags: iphone, ipod-touch, orb, streaming, winamp-remote

Filed under: Audio, Internet, Web services, web 2.0

WeBot: Stream music from multiple PCs over the web

by Brad Linder Sep 10th 2007

When you're at work, do you wish you could listen to your home music collection without an iPod or other portable media player? When you go to visit the extended family, do you always forget to bring the latest photos of the kids with you?

Most of the time, we'd recommend Orb. Install an application on your home PC and you can access your media from pretty much any web browser, including the browser on your mobile phone. But if your data is scattered across multiple computers, you might want to check out WeBot.

WeBot lets you install a "bot" on any computer you like. When you login using WeBot's interface you have access to your photos and music files from each machine running a bot. There's no video. And there's no download option. This is for streaming your own media collection, not for letting your friends download all of your music tracks.

There's also a pretty slick iPhone interace, although WeBot leaves something to be desired if you try using a mobile web browser beside Safari.

WeBot is in a private beta right now, but we learned about WeBot from GigaOM, who has been kind enough to give us a registration code that will let you download and try out the service right away.

Tags: orb, streaming, webot

Filed under: Audio, Internet, Video, Features, Windows Mobile, Web services, Mobile Minute

Access your media collection from your handheld - Mobile Minute

by Brad Linder May 29th 2007

You probably know that you can listen to music or watch movies on your Windows Mobile device. But did you know you don't need to carry around a massive storage card?

Flash memory cards are getting cheaper and cheaper. While a 16MB CompactFlash card used to cost an arm and a leg, now you can pick up 8GB cards for under $100. But why bother when you can access all the media stored on your PC remotely? Let's take a look at a few ways to stream multimedia content from the web or from your home PC or network.

Tags: logmein, networking, orb, streaming

Filed under: Internet, Windows, Productivity

SoonR: Access dekstop files from your phone

by Brad Linder Mar 2nd 2007

It's been a while since we've talked about SoonR, a company that lets you access your desktop files on the go from your mobile phone. Recently SoonR was named one of 25 startups to watch by Business 2.0, and the company put out a nifty promotional video (with really horrible microphone placement. Make sure not to listen to this with the volume cranked up, or your ears will burst).

SoonR looks to me a lot like Orb, but for productivity rather than entertainment. Orb lets you access music, movies and pictures from your desktop on the go, with scaling technology to stream data to small screens over slow internet connections.

SoonR does the same thing for PowerPoint, Microsoft Outlook, and other desktop files and applications. You can route Skype calls from your mobile phone through your computer.

The program should work on most web-enabled cell phones, although you'll need a computer running Windows NT, 2000, or XP

[via UberGizmo]

Tags: orb, remote access, RemoteAccess, soonr

Filed under: Internet, Video, Windows Mobile

Orb adds mobile search for YouTube and other sites

by Brad Linder Dec 4th 2006

Who needs TinyTube? As one method for browsing and watching YouTube videos on a mobile phone disappears, another pops up to take its place.

Orb Networks had already developed a method for reading RSS feeds of YouTube and other online video sites on your phone. And Orb 2.0 also let you stream individual video files. Now Orb's offering the whole package, by adding online video search to the mobile client of Orb 2.0. You can search YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo, and DailyMotion.

Unfortunately, while the search function worked well for me, I was unable to get any videos to stream. I've used Orb for some time to stream recordings from my home PC to other computers and to my Pocket PC. But it doesn't seem to want to stream YouTube videos right now.

Update: Well, as the guys at Orb pointed out, my problem was that I installed Orb 2.0 on my computer too long ago. If you've been using Orb for a while and haven't updated the PC software, you might have to download the latest version in order to stream video from sites like YouTube to your mobile device.

Tags: mycast, orb, streaming, youtube

Filed under: Internet, Video, Windows, Microsoft

Microsoft to launch Media Center TV streaming

by Jordan Running Jan 20th 2006

In what sounds like a show across the bow of the likes of Orb and the Slingbox, according to BetaNews Microsoft is testing an add-on to Windows Media Center which would allow users to stream live TV from their Media Center PC across the Internet through their web browser. BetaNews says Microsoft is being "wary of copyright issues," so expect the software to be DRM-heavy. The product is currently in internal testing but Microsoft will likely conduct an open(ish) beta in the future.

[Via Engadget]

Tags: media center, microsoft, orb, slingbox, tv, windows

Filed under: Audio, Internet, Utilities, Windows, Productivity, Web services, Freeware

Orb meets Skype with V4s

by Victor Agreda, Jr. Aug 9th 2005

Need to stream your voicemails anywhere in the world? Want an SMS any time you get voicemail in Skype? Well it looks like that API thing is already bearing fruit, because Orb has released a little add-on called V4s, which allows you to sort of integrate some Skype-ability into Orb-powered PC's.

All you do is install V4s on your Orb-enabled machine at home and (after setting up Skype naturally) you can access your voicemail from any web-enabled device by going to Orb's site (the my.orb.com site). Just like getting your music, video, and all those other personal media items... The add-on is free, Skype is free, Orb is totally worth the price— what have you got to lose?

Tags: orb, skype, sms, streaming, voicemail

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