Another company I caught up with at CTIA was Orb, which has a very nifty piece of technology for sharing data already on your computer with your mobile, while you’re out and about.

You sign up to Orb with a free download to your PC (XP only). Thereafter, you can stream anything on your PC direct to your mobile, assuming you have a net connection and a suitable media player.

Just to spell this out, this means that you can get photos, music and audio, video, monitor your webcam or even beam live TV on your phone, without subscription charges. Of course, if you want to stream TV, you need a TV Tuner installed if you haven’t got one already, which will cost about $130 from a third party such as ADS. However, this also turns your PC into a Personal Video Recorder in its own right, so it adds lots more features than just live TV.

Of course, if you’re on an expensive European Data Pillage Plan, whereby your operator reserves the right to make you pay through the nose if you actually try to use those data services they’re so keen for you to try, this would be very expensive indeed. But if you’re on an all-you-can-eat plan, which is increasingly common in the US and will start to happen in Europe pretty soon, Orb offers a great solution.

Orb also significantly disrupts all those business models that are trying to sell subscriptions to mobile TV and video. I’ve long held that these ventures will fail, mainly as I believe that providing mobile TV to those that want it will simply become a cost of doing business to operators. But Orb provide another, technology-based way of wrecking the mobile TV concept. Why would you want to pay twice, or pay at all for what you can get free on your computer, simply to see it on your mobile?

In terms of quality, it’s impressive and will clearly improve further as data speeds get faster. I particularly liked the ability to stream audio, which turns Orb into another potential iPod killer. Why store audio on your device, when you can stream it just as effectively?

Another comparison that we can make with Orb, is Slingbox, who had a very high profile presence at CTIA and seem to attract quite a bit of media attention. It’s not the same thing as Orb, but can achieve a similar result of streaming TV to your mobile.

A Slingbox is a cool little piece of hardware, costing $249.99 that you hook up to your TV. This then allows you to “place shift” both recorded and live TV programmes to where ever you happen to want to watch them, by streaming them over the net to your laptop or computer. A mobile trial is already in beta testing, with the extra software planned to be retailed at a further one-off $29.99.

For me though, the Orb solution is simply way superior. You don’t need hardware, it’s free (or significantly cheaper if you need to buy a Tuner) and by hooking up my mobile with my computer, as opposed to my computer/mobile with my TV, offers far more potential uses.