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ORBX.js: 1080p DRM-Free Video and Cloud Gaming Entirely In JavaScript
An anonymous reader writes "According to Brendan Eich, CTO of Mozilla and the creator of JavaScript, ORBX.js can decode 1080p HD video and support low latency remote graphics entirely in JavaScript, offering a pure JavaScript alternative to VP8/H.264 native code extensions for HTML5 video. Watermarking is used during encoding process for protected IP, rather than relying on local DRM in the browser. Mozilla is also working with OTOY, Autodesk and USC ICT to support emerging technologies through ORBX.js — including light field displays and VR headsets like the Oculus Rift."
Writes reader mikejuk: "The problem with all of this is that orbix.js is just a decoder and there is little information on the coder end of the deal. It could be that OTOY will profit big time from coding videos and watermarking them while serving virtual desktops from their GPU cloud. The decoder might be open source but the situation about the rest of the technology is unclear. In the meantime we have to trust that Mozilla, and Brendan Eich in particular, are not being sold a utopian view of a slightly dystopian future."
Watermarking, not DRM. This could be huge. OTOY’s GPU cloud approach enables individually watermarking every intra-frame, and according to some of its Hollywood supporters including Ari Emanuel, this may be enough to eliminate the need for DRM.
LOL.
"Hollywood Supporters". Those two words alone are enough to make this something to avoid.
Please stop turning Firefox into a OS. I want my browser back.
Unless I'm missing something, there is no need for any additional code in Firefox or any other browser. Your browser just executes the ORBX.js javascript.
Actually Netscape invented JavaScript. Mozilla got the code from Netscape (but did a more or less complete rewrite anyway because that code was too messy), but they are a different organization.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Firefox is becoming the Emacs of web browsers.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Yes, you are completely missing the point.
By now, the whole damn OS API is implemented in browsers. But slower. And shittier. And crippled.
s/browser/shell/g; s/tab bar/task bar/g; and you're done. In fact they already went that far, and called it ChromeOS!
In fact they went even further: The browser is not the new OS, but the new machine .
Don't believe they went too far? Then feast your eyes at THIS: http://jslinux.org/
Yes, that's right! The actual Linux kernel... running on an actual virtual CPU... actually implemented in JavaScript inside your browser!
If you don't think this path is fucked-up, you're fucked-up.
Except for the fact that every day I encounter websites that do not display properly and/or are non-functional in any browser other than Internet Explorer.. Despite the popularity of Firefox and Chrome, we are still very much locked into "Microsoft's vision of the net"
I am a professional software developer for a fortune 500 company, all the the projects I've been on for the past 14 years have been web related in one way or another.
If you were any fuller of shit you would simply explode.
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
Yes, you are completely missing the point.
By now, the whole damn OS API is implemented in browsers. But slower. And shittier. And crippled.
s/browser/shell/g; s/tab bar/task bar/g; and you're done. In fact they already went that far, and called it ChromeOS!
In fact they went even further: The browser is not the new OS, but the new machine .
Don't believe they went too far? Then feast your eyes at THIS: http://jslinux.org/
Yes, that's right! The actual Linux kernel... running on an actual virtual CPU... actually implemented in JavaScript inside your browser!
If you don't think this path is fucked-up, you're fucked-up.
Irrelevant examples are irrelevant.
You use your Web browser to go to a web page and there's a video. How do you play it? Your browser uses some sort of plugin. This is not an example of the "Inner Platform Effect" but simply the most efficient and straight forward way to do it. As for the other examples, yes they are stupid, but irrelevant. All browsers contain a Javascript interpreter and ORBX.js is just another Javascript file. In fact, this *reduces* browser bloat by eliminating the need for a video plugin and instead, just using the Javascript interpreter that already exists in the browser.
Yes, the inner platform effect is an anti-pattern, and browsers do represent an example of it to a large extent. But that's not actually a bad thing.
Browsers have become a major way to distribute/run applications and in many ways they are significantly better than other methods. Particularly, web apps are (for the most part) cross-platform, even to obscure platforms. Other pluses are that they are very easy to make accessible, easy for the end-user (or at least third-party extensions) to customize, easy to write, and auto-updating.
The slow evolution of HTML into an application platform is certainly weird, the blending of the document viewer with an application platform has issues, and the legacy in the technology isn't great, but it's still the best chance for a cross-platform application target.
From wikipedia...
"Eich is best known for his work on Netscape and Mozilla. He started work at Netscape Communications Corporation in April 1995, working on JavaScript (originally called Mocha, then called LiveScript) for the Netscape Navigator web browser. He then helped found mozilla.org in early 1998, serving as chief architect."
Since Eich both invented the language and helped found Mozilla, it seems like a pretty fair statement to say they (the Firefox/Moziilla team led by Eich) invented javascript.
Also note that he actually INVENTED javascript. He didn't just write an implementation of it. He is the original creator of the language itself.
Good points, but another key attribute of applications executed in the browser is security. The browser has a consistant security footprint that I trust a lot more than I trust new applications. I may visit hundreds of pages in a day from vendors I have never heard of before, but I'd never be comfortable installing hundreds of applications even if they were more efficient for the same tasks. Most of the time, I trust my browser not to do something bad to my computer regardless of the content and am placing my trust in a single application. Doing the same thing with an equivilant number of applications would be terrifying.
This is the single thing that makes Linux better than any other system for me. I can get practically all the software I want by investigating and trusting a single entity rather than dealing with dozens of different relationships with different levels of investigation and unpredictable levels of trustworthiness. If a browser based system can offer the same wealth of applications at a reasonable speed without serious security issues, then I find the idea quite interesting.
B) Eliminate all the stupid users. This is frowned upon by society.
I left Firefox too for a long time too.
I am typing this on Firefox 17 ESR because I do not like change that often when it breaks things, but it is much better thant Firefox 4. Versions 4 through 8 were really terrible and I do not blame his wife for switching.
My exwife used IE 6 right until IE 7 came out. I loaded up Firefox 2 and she was shocked how much better it was. She is not a loyalist and thinks IE is crap. Point being is that browsers and things change. Some people use Firefox out of habbit like some IE users now and wont change. Some like me use the best tool.
2 years ago IE 9 was the best browser. Secure, supported decent HTML 5, quick etc. Then Chrome was the better one. Now I find Firefox improving as it is no longer a bloated pig that breaks ever release and is OK. Once someone leaves due to performance the image is tarnished just like yours is with IE. Very hard to get people to switch back.
http://saveie6.com/
Watermarking is worse than DRM. Another person has already spelled out how to defang it - compare multiple copies and fuzz the parts that are different.
But the huge downside for the vast majority of regular joes is that it makes all of the customers responsible for "protecting" the videos they watch. If anyone hacks them or snoops the download stream or even infiltrates the server transmitting the video and releases their copy into the wild, that innocent viewer is now implicitly responsible for that piracy. It becomes a guilty until proven innocent situation.
No way am I going to watch a streaming movie, much less pay for it, if it means I have to now worry about the ultra-litigious MAFIAA coming after me with multi-million dollar copyright infringement lawsuits because I didn't know my PC was infected with a virus designed to pilfer the videos I watch.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Yes 'just' execute ORBX.js. And if ORBX.js will work as well the the pdf.js Firefox has started to use instead of arcoread, I will soon have to use another browser to see content besides HTML more than half of the time.
Javascript is slow and insecure. There is a reason I use noscript. I don't want every application re-implemented in Javascript and the browser using it instead of native applications just because it is possible.