Chumby

Chumby presentation at BarCampNYC3

I have gone (and will go back tomorrow) to the BarCampNYC3. The requirement for every person to speak was not enforced, but I figured I have something to contribute anyway. I brought and talked about the Chumby. I entitled my talk “Chumby - Open, Cool, Cute”. My session must have only had 6 people in it, but I think all those people were interested and asked good questions. I certainly got some queries after the talk and even later in the evening, when I put Chumby on display again.

Interesting Chumby articles and videos around the web

Since Dave Winer declared Chumby the next breakthrough device, there has been a small flood of people talking about how cool it is and how much they want one. The usual TechMeme effect, I guess. I admit, it is a cute device. I have a black one, which I am hoping will work well as a picture frame for less-technically minded parents. It is certainly worth learning Flash for (Flash Lite actually), a decision I kept putting off.

Chumby HowTo: Playing internet radio from Bee.fm

Bee.fm is an internet radio station that allows to stream custom playlists or individual albums. It is similar to pandora.com, but with full manual control over the playlist. It uses open streaming that can be listened to from iTunes as well as from its own flash player. It can be also listened to with Chumby’s btplay command. To get Chumby to stream the Bee.fm’s radio, you need to get the URL for the playlist you are interested in.

Chumby: Digital picture frame for parents and much more

I want to get my parents a digital picture frame. But at the moment I cannot. That’s because I don’t want my somewhat less-technical parents to have to fiddle with memory cards, choosing and transferring photographs or running Vista. My ideal digital picture frame for them would be one sitting in a living room or a bedroom with new photos to delight my parents every so often. Such a device would have to be: