I spoke to one of the early investors sometime ago, who put me on to it. This investor has a great track record in networking equipment… but basically said this kind of thing (Orb) that starts to use the power of networks is the way forward. Fair enough, I see that.

And I do like being able to get to my music and photo collections from my phone. Good one.

But I believe you’re underestimating the usability aspect of having to leave your PC running.

For one thing, what if your stuff is on a laptop that’s in your bag, just at the moment you want to access it (i.e when you’re out)? For another, people like to turn their PCs off when they’re not using them… err, especially when they’re out or away. The problem is similar to those services that relay Skype calls to your mobile via your PCРyes it’s kind of cool, but it is also geeky and somewhat a hassle.

Here’s another perspective. I work for a mid-sized FTSE 250 company based in London. We currently have an energy efficiency drive throughout the building. This means turning off computers, monitors, printers, drinks machines, when they’re not in use. Take the stairs not the elevator, etc. Lots of UK firms are have similar initiatives.

After all that, it feels wrong to leave a PC on 24/7 in case I might like the radio.

Ian from Orb, you guys must have a plan (or partner) to use your tech/platform in a way that doen’t require the end-user to have a PC turned on. Care to share?

thx for the great shout-out, russell. i too think that radio – in the sense of through-the-aether access to audio content – is due for a resurgance, and not in the restricted, if interesting, ways XM and Sirius propose (i remember being mightily disappointed when i learned that the delphi devices for XM wouldn’t let me get my favorite internet radio stations – Orb, on the other hand, streams my fave internet radio to my everyday nokia phone’s realplayer)

jukka – this capability re youtube is indeed live today. you’ll need to have or to install the opensource ffdshow codec (http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow) on your orb PC, and then you simply add the URL of the youtube videos to your Custom Channels in Orb TV

technokitten – your own take on the always-on-PC question is the same as my own; i think that when folks have a REASON to take continuous advantage of their broadband capacity (skype, orb, etc.), they do; no one does it just because they can – it’s all about being jacked-in to an ongoing activity (communication in skype’s case, content access and photo/video-stream sharing in orb’s)

Admittedly, I’m ahead of the curve vs the general consumer for things like this, but I’m not the earliest of eary adopters either. If it is as easy to use as something like logmein then it will become a no-brainer in a year or two.

It does beg the question of how the economics of content will pan out and what effect that will have on the quality of content available.

I really like the rate adaptation thing — but wouldn’t it work better if you could access online storage?