Why is Ken Steele, Principal Software Architect and Founder of Crumby, shooting human profiles with a 9mm pistol?
http://www.yout...h?v=EATE9756NuI

I’m concerned…are we going to be enslaved and forced to work in Chumby labor camps?

Don’t drink the Kool-Aid folks…resist the Chumby!

By building (or dealing) at the backend to such a social site where the chumby, once connected and logged in, directly comes into a buddy-friends group, would made it really fun if possible to upload videoshots without an add-on cam.

Or maybe you should work-out this idea with a special gift-package: chumby+cheap webcam. Might even has that advantage, over one built-in, that Chumby and the separate camera don’t have to look into the same direction

Personally I think the idea of a Chumby as a multifunction hardware front-end of a social network has a good chance to catch on …. But then, easy video generation and upload is a must …

what about a story, that does not need to get sold !

Lets look at touchscreen / Game console market for fun device (not hard core players):
Games + Wifi = Nintendo (although not hackable)
You’re targeting: 100$ Laptop + Web 2.0 interface (no camera included yet)

You have Linux, because cheaper, Apple seems to be also a competitor, but is far away with their target price and target consumer group – e.g. iphone, mac book mini, etc.

So you’d either sell quickly to Nintendo or make it real Web.2.0. I.e. include high resolution camera (3 mp) and microphone. Get kids to upload their stuff !

The kids will buy the story: “I can become a reporter with chumby and publish immediately up to my homepage in the internet !”. The parents will pay at most 200 – 220 bugs (including camera – and everything work great!), to put it under the christmas tree and have their kid become famous or at least productive.

The hackers are only interested, if this device is cheaper, than something else they can hack, but gives them the same. E.g. XBox in the early days.

So thats your maximum price, the rest you can make with the internet page, that surely would by a myspace for kids and come along really cool.

You don’t believe what my kids do with my digital camera and its video function in the back of my car, while I’m driving – just unbelievable. All they need, is an upload button !

What about another version for adults ? LOL

We’re definitely not a handheld game machine, definitely not a phone — and we’re always connected to the Net, and we play streaming video. It is our hope and expectation that owning a chumby makes your other devices better, e.g., you can plug your iPod into a chumby to turn it in a “boombox” or radio. But I think people will have to experience Chumby, and we’ll have to do a better job of explaining it, for the differentiation and value to be clear. Fortunately a lot of people seem to be “getting it” and understanding where it fits in their life and what a chumby can do for them.

For instance Nintendo makes money on the DS selling it for 130.00 USD. The DS has 2 QVGA touch screens slightly small than the Chumby’s and a rechargable battery where the Chumby needs still needs to be teathered to the wall. I know Steve in his post was pretty adamant about how hot this device will be wth the teen market but i have to believe that with the Wii, DS, Helio and other options at close to the same price i don’t see them picking the chumby over these other devices.

If the Chumby price was dropped say sub 80.00 USD then i see a market for it. I think between the price, being non carry-able and non rechargable it hurts the device

I’m sure the Chumby will be quite operational by the time the final SDK arrives.

- Would be better if it could play Gamecube cartridges

- 800gig hard drive would be a nise fit

- why not make dos be is usable for it? HUH?!?!

I’m dissapated.

– Runs Linux (large learning curve)

– would be better if it ran Ubuntu – but still more adoptable with XP or CE

– would be better with mutitouch and bigger HD.

– Basically a poorly designed – under featured palm pilot pillow thing

is Skype possible (or some other public phone service) ?

but I can follow your view perfectly…

BTW … Just wanna repeat myself: what a wonderful product (or shall I say idea?) for the new generatation… this could mean a lot more fun then the iPhone … after all one can make a phone call with a chumb as well I guess )

The $179.95 price includes the shipping and handling.

@marc

I guess we thought it was a bit creepy to have a bedside computer with a webcam built-in – however, we’ve built (but not yet tested) USB webcam drivers into the kernel. There are all sorts of things we could have built into the device but we had to draw the line somewhere and instead provided expansion through USB.

First of all: many congrats with the chumb. It’s cute, it’s original and it’s realy appealing. IOW: could have a bright future … Just one thought…. I’m no thech geek, but I was wondering: why no small (web)cam into the device? Ok I understand it’s possible by USB, but it could have been that more cool if a chumb was able to “observe” it’s environment whenever it (or he/she?) wanted to do so …. or am I just dreaming now ?

Marc

Don’t want to belabor this, and sorry if I’m grumpy and “un-PR” about the topic, but the prototypes were expensive for a start-up and were offered with the very specific and stated quid pro quo that people who took them o requested them needed to be willing to do something of value for us in return — hack it, write widgets for it, play with it and blog about it, provide *informed* feedback after some reasonable expereice with it, whatever. We also made it a point to say that if someone decided they really weren’t interested in doing anything with their chumby or didn’t have the time (completely understandable), to please return it to us and we’d find other hands for it (and several people did this). Would’ve been delighted with constructive and informed negative feedback based upon some reasonable level of experience with the prototype. Minimally we hoped that alpha-prototype recipients would at least take the 5-10 minutes to download the firmware patch to enable their chumby to reliably connect to the network. If you did this and connected to the Chumby Network then I think you would have discovered singificant functionality. After all, the chumby is a *connected* device, not a standalone device. If you never connected it to the network, then I agree, it’s completely useless and pointless — I mean who wants to spend this amount of money for a simple clock? But this just isn’t the point of Chumby at all. If you did connect it, play around with it and offered us thoughtful feedback, then *I’m* the one who should be grateful to you, and sorry for responding with this tirade if you did — but from your post, I don’t sense that this happened.

So you’re right in the sense that “ingratitude” is the probably the wrong word, but there was an expected and explicit, though certainly non-binding, commercial understanding on the part of alpha recipients. If someone took one and then did nothing with it, or even make much of an attempt to do anything with it, didn’t return it (we’re even willing to pay return postage) and then criticizes it when they didn’t even avail themselves of its early functionality, I don’t know what to call that.

Okay, no more axe to grind. If you’d like to return your original prototype, let us know and we’ll send you a self-addressed postage-paid box for it. Still lots of people who would want this. If you’d like to download the software patch, it’s still available from a link on the front page of our Web site — and I really hope you will do this. Would still be interested in your constructive and informed feedback if you do. Regardless, I do hope that you won’t continue to publicly criticize a product that you essentially didn’t even “plug in.” The alpha prototype was far from perfect — but it was an alpha prototype. People are right to be pretty excited about the new chumby. It’s very cool and greatly improved from the original crude prototype and, we believe, a heck of a value for consumers given what it does for the money — essentially an open IPTV-enabled Linux computer with a very simple and friendly interface. And if someone happens to be a Flash programmer or a hardware or software hacker, it should be a dream.

I guess all I’m saying is to please keep an open mind about the product given the presumably self-imposed limitations of your experience with it.