Chumby announced that it'd be
bringing its snuggly little widgets to other devices all the back in February, and it looks like we're finally seeing some action -- "powered by Chumby" gear should be on shelves by the end of the year. The first device out of the gate will be -- surprise, surprise -- a digital picture frame from an unnamed partner that will apparently integrate with Flickr, Facebook, and Twitter, and offer new feeds, internet radio, and weather. You know, Chumby stuff. We're more interested in seeing the fruits of Chumby's new partnership with Samsung -- Sammy's already doing widgets like crazy with TouchWiz on mobile and Yahoo's Widget Engine in the living room, so we're wondering where Chumby fits in. We're also wondering what'll happen to the Chumby hardware now that the company seems focused on becoming a software company -- maybe we'll finally place that order.
[Thanks, Craig; Photo is that
sweet Chumby telephone mod]
posted Aug 20th 2009 2:44PM
My bosses son is one of the founders of Chumby. Can't wait to try some of these out.
"unnamed partner", lol, didn't realize that hadn't been said luckily I didn't slip in that last comment.
I have a Chumby right now.
Brought mine 2nd hand. It was a bargain I couldnt refuse.
It will probably be Sony, as they showed off a Sony/Chumby photo frame back during CES 2009.
http://www.sonyinsider.com/2009/07/17/whatever-happened-to-sony-chumbys-internet-alarm-clock/
I'm surprised Chumby hasn't gone the next step and sold Chumby widgets for the iPhone, Android, Pre, etc....
Maybe because the iPhone can't do widgets. That would require it to multitask which would cause it to explode.
Widgets as apps is ridiculous because widgets should work without disturbing whats on screen or drastically avert the users attention to something else kinda what the iPhone does.
That's tricky, seeing as how Chumby widgets are actually Flash animations, running in a Flash player developed specifically for the Chumby platform (IIRC, it's one of the few binary blobs in the entire device -- the rest is all open source). If, say, one of their devs were to take on the challenge of the port (and the license they had for the Flash player allowed recompilation onto such target devices, another thing I don't know about 100%) that could make "iChumbyPlayer" a killer iPhone app -- first to get Flash on the iPhone out to the public.
I am still angry that I can't get a Chumby in Canada. They ship to Germany, though not Canada! Outrageous!
I have a chumby and love it.
Not only is it fun for all the widgets and photo-cycling uses, but its also the ultimate alarm clock that wakes you to internet radio (or music from USB drive or mp3 player)
I had this design idea when the Chumby was in beta - but they didn't approve my request to have an early test unit - so I told them to bugger off.