With Slingbox making its official debut in Canada next week, it was interesting to see a post on MobileCrunch about Orb, which lets you access digital content (live TV, videos, photos, music) over the Web. "The coolest thing of all that Orb really works," MobileCrunch's Oliver gushed. Orb may not have all the bells and whistles of a Slingbox but it seems to offer a useful tool for people who want digital content while away from home. Orb and Slingbox are both great examples of how the Internet's "big pipes" are being leveraged to provide people with on-demand access to digital content. The idea that you can be flying over the Atlantic Ocean and watch an  episode of The Sopranos stored on your PVR at home is pretty awesome. Slingbox just sent me a trial unit so one of my weekend "chores" will be setting it up.

So, Alcatel and Lucent are thinking about doing a $34-billion merger? While they will only admit to be "discussions", a deal could have huge ramifications on the telecom equipment landscape. Nortel, for example, would find itself with a formidable competitor in "Alcacent" and the speculation about Nortel doing a dealing itself - possibly with Siemens - could intensify. The Alcatel-Lucent deal, which has been rumoured before, is the kind of transaction the telecom equipment industy has expecting for the past several years because it is widely believed the market has to consolidate. So far, however, everyone has been afraid to make the big leap. That said, there have a series of joint ventures (Nortel-Huawei, for example) established, which suggests there's a lot of dating happening but everyone is still commitment-phobic and refuses to get married.
Update: The Networking Stock Blog has a nice round-up of buzz within the blogospher of the Alcatel-Lucent talks, while Om Malik provides an in-depth analysis of why the deal makes sense, and Mark Goldberg looks at how the consolidation within the telecom equipment would impact R&D activity in Canada.