Chumby: Almost Here

A year ago, Widgets and the Real World were announced to finally be married: Chumby was coming to the market. A perfect device, Chumby was billed as the ultimate bedside companion/office clock, with built in WiFi, "squeeze sensors," and, most importantly, complete support for almost all the widgets you could imagine. Picture a device that sits by your bed, and downloads your favorite RSS feeds, wakes you up with any song form your music library, shows you the weather, and more. The Web was abuzz with excitement.

A year later, and we are still Chumbyless. But help is on the way! TechCrunch reports that Chumby is due out in just a couple of months, and will sell for $180. While I'm thrilled to see Chumby coming to market (probably about the time the next round of iPhone shipments will finally arrive, that $180 price point is pretty hard to take for what is essentially an uberclock. I was hoping for the magical $99 price point, but alas, I am out of luck.

If you're still jonesing for Chumby, here's what you get for those 9 Jacksons:
Features: 3.5" LCD color touchscreen • two external USB 2.0 full-speed ports • 350 MHz ARM controller • 64 MB SDRAM • 64 MB NAND flash ROM • stereo 2W speakers • headphone output • squeeze sensor • accelerometer (motion sensor) • wi-fi connectivity • integrated microphone

Ok, Chumby...bring it to market, then let's see what happens.

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