With the identification of hundreds of brown dwarfs in the solar neighborhood and young clusters, the origin of sub-stellar
objects has become a topic of widespread interest. Infrared and millimeter detections of dusty disks as well as spectroscopic
signatures of gas accretion and outflow suggest that young brown dwarfs undergo a T Tauri phase, possibly implying a common
formation mechanism with Sun-like stars. Binary properties provide another important diagnostic of brown dwarf origin: while
binary frequency and maximum separation appear to be low in the sub-stellar regime, recent observations have revealed a
number of wide pairs, posing a challenge to some formation models. Now we are able to extend studies of disks and binarity to
young planetary mass objects, which are found both in isolation and as companions. Remarkably, the star formation process
seems to be capable of producing planetary mass objects directly.