Chumby - Your New Bedside Pal
On a typical night, the contents of my bedside table generally amounts to a glass of water, an alarm-clock, my cellphone and the various meds I'm forced to take lest the demons inside reek their havoc on my loved ones. Well, it turns out that I could replace at least the alarm-clock with this adorable Chumby.
"What's a Chumby?" I hear you mutter, your mouth full of figs and bile. Well, a Chumby is an open-source computer-cum-clock designed to run tiny Flash widgets, pulling down information from the internet through its built-in wifi connection. Based around a 266 MHz CPU with 32MB SDRAM and 64MB Flash RAM, there are a variety of programs that can display anything from flickr photos to rss feeds on the 320 x 240 3-inch touchscreen. Internet radio is catered for with 2W speakers, so that you can be roused each day to the strains of obscure Bolivian harmonica-jazz, and there're two USB ports should the overwhelming need for expansion come upon you.
So far Chumby isn't commercially available, though they're apparently aiming for a sub-$150 pricetag. Hopefully we can get hold of one to have a play and let you know whether it's worth shuffling your precious nightstand real-estate for.