Remember Chumby, the huggable, widget-powered alarm clock that everyone wanted but just couldn’t figure out what to do with? Well it’s back and it wants to mate with your TV. The NeTV is a Chumby that sits inline with your TV and powers a Webkit browser and RSS/social media feed right on your screen. The device is powered by a small remote or an Android phone and it works with most Android photo apps.
The tiny device runs an 800MHz CPU and it connects to your network via Wi-Fi. The open source device is under development right now (availability is up in the air) but it really points to some interesting work being done on a device that, at least in terms of hype, has fallen into a trough of interest.
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Everyone’s favorite extra screen/robot/app platform, Chumby, is back for another round. They showed off their new model at CES (where we interviewed them) but there was no sign of pricing or availability. No longer! The Chumby 8 (named for its 8-inch screen) will ship on April 5th, and you can pre-order starting tomorrow (the 23rd) for $199. Good deal? You be the judge. → Read More
Your desk needs a Chumby. It will bring joy and fun to your otherwise boring workspace. Am I right? Does looking at your desk bring thoughts of tall buildings and pills to your mind? Yeah, the Chumby will effectively counter those nasty feelings and Woot is here to help. The It’s-On-Sale-Until-It’s-Gone retailer has the Chumby One up for only $50 with $5 shipping today. That’s $75 under the price on Chumby.com. This model features a clean exterior casing, 3.5-inch touchscreen, FM radio, over 1,500 web apps and an ecosystem that begs to be hacked. Plus, it will bring a smile to your face every time you sit down at your desk, which is worth a hell of a lot more than $50. → Read More
CAT IS NOT FOR SALE Our good friend Phil Torrone sent us this list of cool homebrew deals on Chumby devices, Adafruit boards, and other goodness. Fist, you’ve got some Chumby-powered devices that are actually little Linux PCs. The Infocast, for example, is $129 on Best Buy. This thing has an 800MHz processor and small screen and can be used either as a little info monitor or as a fully-fledged Linux device. → Read More
This video could be the prequal to iRobot. It all starts with a sleek white Chumby developed as a novelty, but the following generations will likely follow an evolutionary path until they’re smart enough to chase down Will Smith on the highway. This will not end well. → Read More
If you can handle a bit of SSHing, it doesn’t take much work at all to exploit a Chumby One easter egg that turns the not-so-cuddly model into a 3G router. That’s pretty awesome. Of course since it’s not officially supported with a widget or software, there isn’t a GUI or any type of user interface. Here’s how you do it. → Read More
Good news. You can finally pre-order the Sony Dash. You know, the Chumby clone announced at CES 2010. That is, of course, if you actually want the $199 table-top thing. → Read More
Does the name Bunnie Huang ring a bell? It might if you were around the Xbox “scene” in 2002, when people from all over the world were on Xbox hacking forums trying to figure out what made Microsoft’s first console tick, so to speak. It was truly exciting—we’re talking Paris in the 50s exciting. Mr. Huang has since gotten a job at Chumby, putting his technical know-how to good use and helping to create the adorable little clock-widget-thing. While in China, Mr. Huang discovered a problem with a number of Kingston-branded microSD cards that were to be used in Chumby production. The problem was that they were counterfeit, or “irregular” in the measured parlance of the blog post. → Read More
We missed this one. But then again, the onle mention of the Chumby Sunfury tablet at CES ’10 was in the Marvell booth. We were too busy palling around with Stan Lee to notice anything else. Good thing the nerds from technabob has our back and managed to get a spec sheet. → Read More
In case you’re one for hard lines and plastic over soft and cuddly, head over to the Chumby store and order yourself the new Chumby One. It’s way more advanced than the original model with a faster CPU, a lot more storage, FM tuner, and is half the price at only $99. But like I said before, I still want the older model. → Read More
The original Chumby was soft, cuddly, and cute. The new Chumby One is uptight, all-business, and commercial. I hate it. → Read More
Chumby, everyone’s favorite desktop and bedside companion, is now available in kit form from Maker Shed! [nerdgasm] → Read More
Everyone’s favorite hacky-sack-with-a-screen, Chumby, will soon make the leap from your nightstand or desk to your TV or Blu-ray player. Future internet-connected TVs and Blu-ray players containing Broadcom chips from companies such as Samsung and Sharp will feature Chumby’s web-based widgets – there are currently over 1,000 – ranging from music and video streaming to news and weather to photos and social networking platforms. → Read More
Is $599.95 too much to spend for a hand-painted Chumby? Maybe not if you’re a die-hard fan of artist Sara Antoinette Martin. She painted five (yes, five) Chumby devices by hand, which are now being sold in the Chumby.com store for $599.95 each. → Read More
iRiver has managed to take the Chumby, add a sweet remote/phone, and throw it into a slick matte white package. This desktop touchscreen is arguably one of the hottest products at CES primarily ’cause info didn’t leak about it before hand and its a pleasant surprise in the mix of gadgets we already know about. The company expects to add a VoIP service like Skype and if they do, this would be a killer desktop companion. Pricing isn’t set in stone yet but expect it to drop around $400 when it hits Korean shelves next month and US stores in six months. Extensive picture gallery after the jump. → Read More
A recent update to the net-connected Chumby device adds Pandora Radio as an option under the Music menu. Check out the above video for a quick demonstration of everything. It’s pretty straightforward – you’ll need to reboot your Chumby to get it to show up initially but once that’s done, you’ll find the Pandora option amongst the other available music sources. Then, simply enter your Pandora username and password and you’ll have access to your stations. You can create new stations straight from your Chumby device and they’ll show up on Pandora.com as well. → Read More
Liam Casey, a Cork, Ireland-born entrepreneur, traveled to Taipei in 1996 on a whim to attend an electronics trade show. Within a year he had started his own supply chain manufacturing company in Shenzhen, China called PCH International (PCH stands for Pacific Coast Highway, a famous highway in Southern California where he lived for a while in the 90s).
Jump to 2007. PCH International rode the wave of Chinese growth to 800 employees and $125 million in revenue. The Atlantic Monthly did a long profile on Casey and his company, noting his deep connections to the U.S. and Europe as well and his ability to find the right factories for any any hardware project, and calling him “Mr. China.”
Until now the company has grown soley from cash flow and is “very profitable.” But Casey thinks it’s time to expand his operations and so he took $21 million in venture capital, a relatively small sum, from three Silicon Valley based venture funds: Lightspeed Venture Partners, Norwest Venture Partners and Focus Ventures. → Read More
