Anthony Ko

A friend pointed me to Orb.com a few weeks ago. He had an EDGE phone that had the Windows Mobile operating system, and was able to stream video and live TVfrom his desktop at home to his phone. It took a few seconds of fussing with his mobile's web browser, but he was able to bring up a TV show he had saved on his computer. It was pretty impressive and got myself an account when I got home. The service performs even better on a computer with a broadband connection (the video display size gets readjusted based on the available bandwidth).

It is pretty easy to set up. After you register at Orb.com, you download and install their software that basically turns your computer into a server (so that means you have to leave your computer on). Then just select which directories of media to share (video, photos, audio, live TV). To access your selected media, you log on to orb.com with your web browser, click on the link you want to play, and a stream will be delivered to your device.

Orb Networks could use some minor refinements...
The user interface could use some work, movies with a separate subtitle files aren't fully supported, sharing media with your friends is a bit cumbersome, and it is only available for Microsoft platforms.

Besides its minor drawbacks, this free service is pretty freakin great. It is so far the closest thing I have found that will allow me to have persistent access to my media library (I would rather have it hosted on some server with fatter pipes, but I'm sure that's coming in the near future). With this service, I can have podcasts downloaded on my desktop, and then delivered on demand to my car through a cell phone’s audio jack. If I had a video out on my cell phone (hopefully Helio will release some), I could go to a friend's house, plug the phone into their TV, and start streaming movies without having tto haul around DVDs or a hard drive. Perhaps it is the mobile phone will conquer the living room, and in-car entertainment all at once.

Posted by Anthony Ko at 2:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Getting files to my iPod is still a pain in the butt.
I listen to podcasts every once in a while, but I listen to them on the computer because its easier than having to plug my ipod into my laptop to do a daily sync. Yeah, I am lazy. I cringe when I see multipage guides like the one for converting your own videos onto the new ipod. It's too much of a hassle.

Having a media player that has a wireless broadband capability to automatically download audio or video podcasts, streaming audio, would be ideal. I am sure its coming any day now, perhaps from Amp'd or Helios?

All that said, there is plenty of media out there suited for portable devices. A quick browse through the some podcast directories such as podcastalley.com, podcastpickle.com, odeo, and iTunes will reveal some fairly entertaining shows, both video and audio. Tons of other stuff can be had through bittorrent and USENET, and it will be interesting to see if there will be any changes to ifilm since it has been recently purchased by MTV.

There is now a conference for portable media, and I just registered for it. The Portable Media Expo is being held November 11-12, at the Ontario Convention Center. Has anyone else signed up for this?

Posted by Anthony Ko at 4:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Every time I see a picture for the iPod nano, I am reminded of the cellphone Talby cell phone that Marc Newson designed for AU in Japan, and then I start to think about how much I want that mobile phone, and how the nano doesnt seem all that cool.

Posted by Anthony Ko at 11:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)