The original Chumby was fun and whimsical; the One is up-tight. Just look at the two next to each other. The Classic is like the over weight and funny looking party boy that can always score with the ladies. But the One on the other hand, looks more like the straight-laced, classically handsome church boy. I mean, if you’re actually going to own one of these things, don’t you want one that’s fun?

[Chumby via Engdaget]

Not only was the functions innovative two years ago, but the design was as well. The pillow-like design had character and style. It was something you wouldn’t see at Target. But the new One model is made out of cold, lifeless plastic and will look right at home next to clock radios and cordless phones at Walmart – if it ever reaches that distribution channel of course. But anyway, the new model is expected to run $100 when it drops in a month or two.

UPDATE – Chumby is reporting that the Chumby One is much different from the Chumby shown here. The plot thickens.

Chumby, everyone’s favorite desktop and bedside companion, is now available in kit form from Maker Shed! [nerdgasm]

At only $99, they sold a bunch right off the bat, but there are still a few left if you’re one of the types that get into this sort of thing. I’ll give a thousand bonus points to whoever shoves the kit into a working toaster first. Just think about it: while you’re waiting for your morning Eggo, you can check the weather, sports scores and even watch a bit of YouTube. It’s the perfect example of convergence.

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.

It appears that you won’t have to lay out $200 for an actual Chumby device, either, since it’d all be built into your TV, set-top box, or Blu-ray player. So that should help grow Chumby’s user base somewhat. And if you can’t find the widget you’re looking for, you can use Chumby’s open development platform to create your own.

Here’s a video demo:

Here’s the full press release:

Broadcom Extends chumby(R) Platform to Internet-Connected TVs, Set-Top Boxes and Blu-ray Disc(R) Players

Collaboration with chumby Delivers Cost Effective, High Quality and Rich Media Content to Consumer Devices Enabled by Broadcom(R) Technologies

IRVINE, Calif., Feb. 23 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Broadcom Corporation (Nasdaq: BRCM) and chumby(R) today announced the integration of the chumby rich media Internet platform into Broadcom’s latest digital television (DTV), set-top box (STB) and Blu-ray Disc(R) system-on-a-chip (SoC) solutions delivering cost effective, high quality and personalized user experiences to Internet-connected TVs. The collaboration will enable users to access chumby’s extensive library of entertaining, compelling and interactive Internet content across a variety of personal interest categories as well as a vast offering of Internet radio streams and podcasts. This will give users the ability to view individually customized channels of streaming Internet and personal digital content on devices enabled by Broadcom solutions, delivering an enhanced interactive consumer experience across multiple connected screens in the home.

Chumby enables users to select their favorite parts of the Internet delivered to them in a convenient, always-on, always-fresh format. Chumby content currently consists of over 1,000 widgets in 30 different categories ranging from news and entertainment to videos, music, and sports provided by leading media partners such as CBS, MTV Networks, The New York Times, Pandora, The Weather Channel Interactive, AOL’s SHOUTcast and Scripps Networks. Chumby also delivers thousands of Internet radio stations and podcasts. Chumby’s free and open content network enables individual creators to publish creative and compelling content. And chumby users themselves can share their own user-generated content, including photos, e-cards and more, with family and friends via chumby’s integral social network. Chumby is constantly expanding, bringing users new widgets, media and services, as well as the most interesting content from the Web.

Viewing Internet-based streaming video, music and other media content on household televisions is growing in use and popularity. To satisfy consumer demand, Broadcom and chumby are delivering an easy-to-use personalized Internet content experience that supports interactive multimedia widgets and Internet-based audio selections from leading online providers, major media brands and the worldwide community of chumby developers. Broadcom and chumby also are enabling social connections across devices such as DTVs, STBs and Blu-ray Disc players supported by Broadcom solutions that will enable users to share content, photos, video clips, games or messages with friends and family who own any chumby-powered device.

“Consumers want a powerful, yet simple, consistent and exciting chumby experience across multiple screens,” saidStephen Tomlin, CEO, chumby. “We are delighted to work with Broadcom to support the chumby content platform with system-on-a-chip solutions that enable personalized streams of each user’s favorite parts of the Internet for delivery to next generation Internet-connected TVs, set-top boxes and Blu-ray players.”

As a result of this collaboration, consumer electronics manufacturers will be able to quickly deploy chumby platform support on Internet-connected TVs, set-top boxes and Blu-ray Disc players without additional cost, external components or expensive PC hardware. As an open source Linux(R)-based platform and “cloud-based” content network with graphics that scale easily to any screen size, chumby allows users to create a complete personalized Internet experience without the need to establish a new configuration or install separate software or widgets on each device, thereby enabling new applications and content to be accessed and easily shared across all chumby-powered devices. Additionally, chumby supports an established framework with standardized tools for developers and manufacturers to create and enable consistent, high quality content.

“Broadcom and chumby are delivering a personalized Internet experience to the consumer via Internet-connected TVs, set-top boxes and Blu-ray Disc players without increasing bill-of-materials cost or complexity for Internet-enabled consumer products with chumby support,” said Dan Marotta, Senior Vice President & General Manager for Broadcom’s Broadband Communications Group. “We are very pleased to continue our collaboration with chumby as Internet-connected consumer devices herald the convergence of traditional PC-based Internet content with the comfort and convenience of living room viewing, positioning the connected TV as the information and entertainment hub of the digital home.”

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.

They’re listed as “in stock” if you can believe it. Based on the results of my very informal polling, some people have argued that $199.95 is too expensive for the regular Chumby, some think it’s priced just right, and others shrug their shoulders and happily cycle through the many hilarious and/or informative widgets loaded onto the device.

Chumby Store [store.chumby.com via Engadget]

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.

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.

Full release:

DISCOVER NEW MUSIC FROM PANDORA ON YOUR CHUMBY®

New content keeps music fans engaged with Pandora radio, music videos from Avot Media and news headlines from Rolling Stone

San Diego, CA – October 7, 2008 – Chumby is now giving music fans a new way to stay constantly connected to the music of their favorite artists, while also introducing them to new music they’ll love. All chumby players can now tune into personalized radio stations from Pandora accounts and have Pandora set as the audio source for custom alarm clocks. Additionally, chumby users will now be able to search and view music videos and more from a music video widget powered by tipMotion from Avot Media, Inc., and receive up-to-the-minute music news and images from RollingStone.com, all without logging onto a computer.

“We know music is a big part of people’s lives and fans want to have always-on, always-fresh access to their favorite artists,” said Stephen Tomlin, CEO of chumby. “A benefit of buying a chumby is that the product is always improving as we add new content and features through automatic upgrades. Now chumbys can be used as radios for the Pandora service at no charge, so whether you bought your chumby months ago or today – you win.”

Pandora is an Internet radio service that is now accessible through chumby. When you indicate a song or artist that you enjoy, Pandora responds by playing selections that are musically similar. You can provide feedback on the individual song choices to further refine the playlist to suit your taste. Your chumby can also wake you with your favorite Pandora station and let you listen to “personalized” radio all day.

“Chumby’s innovative connected media player is a natural fit for Pandora,” said Tim Westergren, founder of Pandora. “With Pandora now available on chumby, our listeners have even more ways to hear their favorite artists and discover new music.”

Also available on chumby are music videos powered by Avot Media, a video formatting and streaming solution provider. Now chumby users can watch the most popular music videos each week, and search for thousands of popular music, entertainment, news, and sports videos on the most popular search engines at the touch of a button.

Chumby music fans will also be able to receive the latest news and images of their favorite bands through updates from RollingStone.com. In addition, Wenner Media, Inc., publishers of RollingStone.com, will also showcase content from other Wenner publications such as UsMagazine.com.

The addition of music content from Pandora, music video streaming from Avot Media and music news updates from Wenner Media complements the strong music and podcast offerings already on chumby, including thousands of AOL SHOUTcast stations, music news from MTV and VH1, and dozens of great streaming stations on Radio Free Chumby.

Anodos, a start-up based out of Tokyo, is currently developing a device, which is slightly similar to the Chumby. The so-called Anobar measures 354×85.5×97mm and weighs 2kg.

The device features a FED screen (size: 288×43.2mm) with 640×96 pixel resolution to display information retrieved from the Internet over Wi-Fi (OS: WindowsXP Embedded). Content includes i.e. RSS feeds and data from 2chan [JP], a Japanese discussion forum that happens to be the biggest in the world.

Users can display their self-developed Flash animations, play games, view pictures and listen to music with their Anobar. Sending and receiving email is also possible.

The Anobar comes with 1GB of memory, an additional 2GB of flash memory, built-in stereo speakers, a touch sensor and a remote control.

Price and delivery date (both for Japan and a possible overseas version) are not yet fixed. According to Anodos, the costs per prototype are currently amounting to a whopping $1,900, mainly incurred by the FED display.

The Chumby is not yet released in Japan [JP].

I really like the Chumby so I won’t harsh on this too much, but it’s kind of a dopey concept. The widgets are rarely on the screen enough to play much of anything. I was wrong. The widgets will stay on the screen as long as you’re playing. So that’s good. They’re also working on adding Flash animations to the Chumby for your viewing pleasure. And you thought it was just a soft, open platform for reading the CG RSS feed.

Linux, as we’ve been stressing all week, is not just for desktops. Linux works in all sorts of ways on all sorts of devices. Embedded Linux is a popular choice with many manufacturers to keep development costs down on new hardware. It’s also good for portable devices with open architectures because if you know desktop Linux, you know portable Linux.

Peter highlighted a handful of cool mobile devices running Linux, and here are a few more cool devices running different versions of the OS, including a forerunner to KITT.

KITT must run on Linux, right?

Belkin WiFi Skype phone

Belkin has a WiFi-connected Skype phone that we’ve been digging for awhile now. Did you know that it runs Linux? It does! Powered by Linux, it uses Skype’s own VoIP system to make voice calls over any WiFi hotspot.

It’s not the best Skype phone out there, but it’s inexpensive (you can find them for under $100 now) and works quite well.

Sony Mylo

The Sony Mylo 2 is a niche product that we neither love nor hate. It’s one device that we must give a qualified “meh” to. Looking very much like a Helio Ocean, the Mylo is a communications device with WiFi and VoIP built-in, as well as a usable QWERTY keyboard. It runs the same Qtopia-based flavor of Linux as the Belkin phone above. It also runs the NetFron Web browser customized with multimedia and Flash elements.

TI’s new security cams

Texas Insruments and Aptina have put together these very inexpensive Linux-based IP security cameras. Each one runs Linux via a RISC/DSP system on a chip. It can record and transmit live video at up to 720p and should cost less than $150 a unit when they ship later this year.

No WiFi, but the cameras are equipped with an Ethernet port that connects them to your network and provides their power. Pretty slick.

Stanley

We’ve heard of the DARPA Challenge, a road race for autonomous vehicles through the Californian dessert for cash and prizes, and we love it. Stanford University’s entrant, which won the race, was called Stanley, a Subaru SUB modified with lots of radar, ground-sensing, and optical gear, all running Linux.

While cars running Linux aren’t common yet, they could be in the future. The OS is suited well to the kinds of tasks someone driving might need — directions, music, environment, and even motor and drive operations, as Stanley demonstrates.

Chumby

We love the Chumby. We’re not sure what category it really fits into, but like the Mylo above, it’s a WiFi-enabled portable, well, thing. It’s not for newbies to Linux, but besides powerful it’s also fun, something not usually ascribed to Linux devices.

The Chumby is a fully open and customizable hardware platform. You make your chumby your own, and it loves you for it.

I just built a little RSS reader for the Chumby. Pop over to the Chumby site to check it out or just stare at it here. Never let it be said that we will ever force people to buy small, beanbag-like devices to consume our content.

The best part is the Chumby is still only $180, and don’t forget that you can get all your TechCrunch and CrunchGear news as an included feed, free.

Chumby Industries Debuts Its Innovative chumby™ Internet Device and Chumby™ Network [Chumby press release]

Chumby is officially available for $179.95 with free shipping. Run, nerds, run!

Chumby

With every Chumby piece I read, the desire to whip out my credit card increases in kind. Bits bought a Chumby—it’s not a review unit, in other words—and gave it the thumbs up. Chumby, if you’re not aware, is a sort of Internet-connected alarm clock with a 3.5-inch touchscreen that’s used to display widgets, like the weather, news, photos, etc. It’s one of the few gadgets I’ve read about of late that, like I said, I’d be willing to buy. (Christmas, maybe? Come on, Santa!)

Some caveats: the touchscreen isn’t as responsive as the iPhone, the fonts are a little on the small side and some widgets cycle by a little too fast to be reasonably readable.

I may start one of those Web sites where I sell pixels for 10 cents each, all with the aim of having that Linux-powered bean bag on my desk.

A Night With Chumby [Bits/New York Times]

Surely you remember Chumby, the adorable little widget monster who has been in development for well over a year. If you’ve been waiting to get one into your living room, you can now do so thanks to the new Chumby store that has opened to the public. For $179.95, you can get a Chumby in pearl white, basic black or latte tan coloring. Heck, you even get a free set of Chumby charms for your keys/cellphone while supplies last. Talk about a deal!

Chumby is open-source, so you can make your own widgets for it should you fancy yourself a decent enough programmer. You can view Digg stories, weather reports, sports scores and a whole lot more on its 3.5-inch LCD. Don’t like the way Chumby looks? Get creative and throw some devil horns on it! After the jump, Chumby’s full specs and requirements.

Chumby Store

Wi-fi connectivity
Access to the free Chumby Network
Over-the-air software updates
3.5″ LCD color touchscreen
Two external USB 2.0 full-speed ports
350 MHz ARM processor
64 MB SDRAM
64 MB NAND flash ROM
Stereo 2W speakers
Headphone output
Squeeze sensor
Accelerometer (motion sensor)
iPod® support
Leather casing
AC adapter included
5 1/2″ wide
4 1/4″ tall
3 1/4″ deep at the base
2 1/4″ deep at the top
Just under a pound

For the chumby to play “widgets” (the bite-sized programs) you must provide:

Broadband Internet connection
Wireless router
Computer

Less than 1 year ago a startup called Chumby began handing small squeezable Internet-ready devices at the Foo Con in Sebastopol, Cal. Recently, they have begun prepping the final version, which features some updated specs and features.

This small alarm-clock-type thing packs a 350MHz CPU, 32MB RAM, 64MB flash ROM, Wi-Fi, 320×240 3.5-inch touchscreen LCD, speakers, audio output, microphone and two USB ports. It also features motion and squeeze sensors.

Although it comes with a slew of widgets from sites like Flickr, customers are encouraged to take advantage of their Chumby by hacking and modifying it to their hearts content.

Chumby [via TechCrunch]

TechCrunch got a chance this weekend to check out the Chumby, a device that is certain to make a huge impact next year. It is notable because of its complete hackability. What one does with it is essentially limited only be one’s imagination. Users can program this small handheld device to perform pretty much any desired function.

It features a 266Mhz ARM controller, 32MB SDRAM, a 320 x 240 3.5″ touchscreen display, WiFi, two speakers, audio in/out and a USB port. It can be controlled via the touchscreen or squeeze sensors on the casing. The internals can be easily removed from its housing and fit into another shell. It is expected to be available in March 2007 for an MSRP of $150. Developers can visit Chumby now and request a sample unit.

Chumby Devices Handed Out at Foo [TechCrunch]
Announcing the Birth of Chumby [Christine]
Story of Chumby [Chumby]