"The chumby is a low-cost, wifi-enabled information delivery device that's so appealing you'll want to keep one close," reports Christine Herron.
Chumby's team of hardware hackers wanted this device to be fun and open, the anti-iPod. While iPod has a clean look and expensive molded plastic, it's not very accessible. The Chumby is meant to be personalized. If you're crafty, you can redesign it with a seam ripper; if you're a hacker, it's all open source inside.
One you've plugged in your chumby, it connects to your home network via wifi. Select "Trust the chumby" and it will autodiscover. Once you've registered online and picked from a selection of free widgets, the chumby displays a Flash stream of whatever you've configured - weather, news feeds, alarm clock, movies, pictures, stock tickers, etc.
See Christine.net for more technical details. The official Chumby site appears to be down at the moment.
