chumby.JPG
I seem to always be looking for that thing – the one device that is going to make my life a little bit easier. Something that would help me keep on top of things. Or at least something that would make my life a little more fun. I started along these lines back in the early 1990′s when I got my first PDA: Apple’s Newton. I loved that thing, but it was a bit too big. Then I moved through Palm Pilots and WindowsCE/PocketPC devices. I’ve looked into linux PDAs, Playstation Portable (PSP), PDA watches, and smart phones. Each purchase is a risk since I’ve found there to be a very small line between that thing that makes your life a little better and junk that piles up in a drawer because it was not quite good enough: too slow, too difficult, too hot, too heavy, too locked down, too big, too fragile, etc…

Enter the Chumby. It’s like the offspring of a Mac Mini and a Tribble. More accurately, if a smart phone is a cell phone + PDA, then the Chumby is a smart alarm clock of sorts. It certainly will have the bedside/alarm functionality, but instead of the same old “the world is about to end” buzzing noise or a radio program of choice, the Chumby can run Flash Lite programs — simple widgets that can do things like download and display news feeds, show the phases of the moon, show webcams, play MP3 audio, and whatever else the community developers decide to create and share with everyone else.

See, that’s the beauty of all of this. They WANT you to hack the Chumby and write your own software for it. What a brilliant idea. It makes me want to dust off my Flash skills and write a Lost countdown clock like the one in the bunker. Games? Sure, why not. Okay, don’t think you’re going to get World of Warcraft running on a Chumby — the hardware isn’t up to it. But if you wanted a little Tetris before going off to bed, I don’t see any problem there as long as you find someone to program it.

They’re planning to sell these for around $150. That’s really not bad at all considering that digital photo frames sell for at least that much (often more) and all they do is show your photos. I’m ready to buy one now. Maybe two (one for my office, one for home). Unfortunately, they won’t be available until at least March 2007.

Until then, I’ll just have to wish them luck and spread the word.