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."

Comments

Re:bloat

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Watermarking is Stupid

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

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.