TechCrunch » Chumby http://www.techcrunch.com Startup and Technology News Fri, 27 Nov 2009 13:20:25 +0000 en hourly 1 Video: Hands-on With the Chumby One http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/12/video-hands-on-with-the-chumby-one/ http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/12/video-hands-on-with-the-chumby-one/#comments Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:41:10 +0000 John Biggs http://www.techcrunch.com/?p=119425 Ladies and germs: the Chumby One. Hot on the heels of its soft, leathery older brother, the Chumby One goes for a more non-nonsense aesthetic with hard edges and a more clock-radio feel. As you recall, the device costs $99.95 and allows you to play back little widgets on a tiny touchscreen. It is at once banal in its simplicity and amazingly unfettered in the amount of content you can stream to the device. Our Chumby One came pre-installed with a few widgets including our own news feed and Twitter, which lets you view your Tweets whenever the widget rolls around. I'm going to place this thing on my desk and treat it like a third screen in order to really test the value of this wee fellow. More soon. ]]> Ladies and germs: the Chumby One. Hot on the heels of its soft, leathery older brother, the Chumby One goes for a more non-nonsense aesthetic with hard edges and a more clock-radio feel. As you recall, the device costs $99.95 and allows you to play back little widgets on a tiny touchscreen. It is at once banal in its simplicity and amazingly unfettered in the amount of content you can stream to the device. Our Chumby One came pre-installed with a few widgets including our own news feed and Twitter, which lets you view your Tweets whenever the widget rolls around. I'm going to place this thing on my desk and treat it like a third screen in order to really test the value of this wee fellow. More soon. ]]> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/12/video-hands-on-with-the-chumby-one/feed/ 0 Chumby Reborn As Chumby One, Now Less Beanbaggy http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/30/chumby-reborn-as-chumby-one-now-less-beanbaggy/ http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/30/chumby-reborn-as-chumby-one-now-less-beanbaggy/#comments Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:44:55 +0000 Matt Burns http://www.techcrunch.com/?p=105894 The original Chumby was soft, cuddly, and cute. The new Chumby One is uptight, all-business, and commercial. I hate it. The draw to the original Chumby was that there was nothing like it on the market two years ago. You could load it up with all sorts of pre-made widgets like YouTube, weather, news, or one you made thanks to the open source hardware and software. Sure, the upcoming Chumby One still has the original capabilities if not more thanks to the upgraded 454MHz CPU, but it doesn't have the same crazy beanbag form factor. It's missing the "cute."]]> The original Chumby was soft, cuddly, and cute. The new Chumby One is uptight, all-business, and commercial. I hate it. The draw to the original Chumby was that there was nothing like it on the market two years ago. You could load it up with all sorts of pre-made widgets like YouTube, weather, news, or one you made thanks to the open source hardware and software. Sure, the upcoming Chumby One still has the original capabilities if not more thanks to the upgraded 454MHz CPU, but it doesn't have the same crazy beanbag form factor. It's missing the "cute."]]> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/30/chumby-reborn-as-chumby-one-now-less-beanbaggy/feed/ 0 $21 Million For Mr. China http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/29/21-million-for-mr-china/ http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/29/21-million-for-mr-china/#comments Mon, 29 Sep 2008 18:21:15 +0000 Michael Arrington http://www.techcrunch.com/?p=22757 Liam Casey, a Cork, Ireland-born entrepreneur, traveled to Taipei in 1996 on a whim to attend an electronics trade show. Within a year he had started his own supply chain manufacturing company in Shenzhen, China called PCH International (PCH stands for Pacific Coast Highway, a famous highway in Southern California where he lived for a while in the 90s). Jump to 2007. PCH International rode the wave of Chinese growth to 800 employees and $125 million in revenue. The Atlantic Monthly did a long profile on Casey and his company, noting his deep connections to the U.S. and Europe as well and his ability to find the right factories for any any hardware project, and calling him "Mr. China." Until now the company has grown soley from cash flow and is "very profitable." But Casey thinks it's time to expand his operations and so he took $21 million in venture capital, a relatively small sum, from three Silicon Valley based venture funds: Lightspeed Venture Partners, Norwest Venture Partners and Focus Ventures.]]> Liam Casey, a Cork, Ireland-born entrepreneur, traveled to Taipei in 1996 on a whim to attend an electronics trade show. Within a year he had started his own supply chain manufacturing company in Shenzhen, China called PCH International (PCH stands for Pacific Coast Highway, a famous highway in Southern California where he lived for a while in the 90s).

Jump to 2007. PCH International rode the wave of Chinese growth to 800 employees and $125 million in revenue. The Atlantic Monthly did a long profile on Casey and his company, noting his deep connections to the U.S. and Europe as well and his ability to find the right factories for any any hardware project, and calling him “Mr. China.”

Until now the company has grown soley from cash flow and is “very profitable.” But Casey thinks it’s time to expand his operations and so he took $21 million in venture capital, a relatively small sum, from three Silicon Valley based venture funds: Lightspeed Venture Partners, Norwest Venture Partners and Focus Ventures.

PCH won’t disclose their clients, but say they work with most of the large PC and device manufacturers. And it has been reported that they are the primary hardware partner for the Chumby device, handling the assembly of components and ecommerce/shipping.

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]]> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/29/21-million-for-mr-china/feed/ 15 Chumby To Get Accelerometer-based Casual Games and Flash Animation http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/29/chumby-to-get-accelerometer-based-casual-games-and-flash-animation/ http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/29/chumby-to-get-accelerometer-based-casual-games-and-flash-animation/#comments Tue, 29 Apr 2008 22:57:35 +0000 John Biggs http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/29/chumby-to-get-accelerometer-based-casual-games-and-flash-animation/
I’ve just wrapped my head around the Chumby as sort of a clock radio with a brain and now they want to add games? Albino Blacksheep and Everybody Panic! are offering accelerometer-based “casual games” for the Chumby. When they come around on the screen you pick up the Chumby and swing it around, moving balls and whatever else you need to manipulate on screen.

Read more…

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]]> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/29/chumby-to-get-accelerometer-based-casual-games-and-flash-animation/feed/ 3 Chumby: One Year Later http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/06/23/chumby-one-year-later/ http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/06/23/chumby-one-year-later/#comments Sun, 24 Jun 2007 03:44:50 +0000 Michael Arrington http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/06/23/chumby-one-year-later/

Chumby is a small, wifi-enabled linux hardware device is designed to be hacked and changed by its owners. The device has a 350MHz ARM controller, 32MB SDRAM, 64 MB Nand Flash Rom, a 320×240 3.5 inch touch LCD screen, two speakers, audio output, a microphone, and two USB ports. Chumby also has a squeeze sensor. All of this is housed within a soft, sqeezable shell about the size of a coconut.

It was announced a year ago at Foo camp, and the company gave out about 500 of the first generation devices. Users register the device on the Chumby home page and connect the device to their network via wifi. Once registered, content widgets are added – so the Chumby may include a news widget, flickr widget, etc.

Now, a year later, the company has made upgrades to the hardware and sofware that makes up the device, and say they will make it available for sale in a couple of months. The biggest change is that Chumby now runs Flash Lite 3, which is the first mobile version of Flash to support streaming audio and video. Users can now run music or video over the Internet and play it on the Chumby. The Chumby will be sold for $179.95, fully delivered.

The company has 23 employees and is headquartered in San Diego. They raised just over $5 million from OATV, Avalon Ventures and Masthead Venture Partners in December 2006.

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]]> http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/06/23/chumby-one-year-later/feed/ 55 Chumby Devices Handed Out at Foo http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/08/27/chumby-devices-handed-out-at-foo/ http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/08/27/chumby-devices-handed-out-at-foo/#comments Sun, 27 Aug 2006 19:46:19 +0000 Michael Arrington http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/08/27/chumby-devices-handed-out-at-foo/ The founders of Chumby wanted to create a new device that begs to be hacked. Yesterday, they introduced a prototype of their new gadget to 100 or so attendees of Foo Camp in Sebastopol, California. I was lucky enough to get one.

Chumby is a small, wifi enabled, touch screen information device. When you take it out of the box and plug it in it is essentially a glorified alarm clock. But when you take a moment and register your particular Chumby at their website, it can become just about anything you like. A number of widgets are available now and can be enabled on Chumby with a click. And Since Chumby is completely open source and has made a HDK and SDK available for developers, expect modifications to come quickly.

I enabled a few of the available widgets, and my Chumby now shows pictures from my flickr account as well as Google News headlines. Other Foo attendees have new Digg front page stories, Google Calendar and Slashdot stories on their Chumby.

The device has a 266MHz ARM controller, 32MB SDRAM, a 320×240 3.5 inch touch LCD screen, two speakers, audio output, microphone input functionality and a USB port. Chumby also has a squeeze sensor. All of this is housed within a soft, sqeezable shell about the size of a coconut.

Don’t like somthing about your Chumby? Hack it. The founders not only allow it but are actively encouraging modifications, even leading a number of hack sessions here at Foo. The hardware can easily be ripped out of the shell and put inside something else. The hardware itself can be hacked, or developers can use the tools available on the Chumby site to simply create new widgets.

The examples are limitless. Use the USB port to take a thumb drive with MP3s and build a music player widget, for example. Or a divx player. Or use Chumby to control the air conditioning in your house. Or as a remote control for your television. Etc.

Chumby will not be generally available for purchase until March 2007, but developers can request one now on the Chumby home page. Tell them why you want it, and they may send you one. When it does eventually go on sale, the target price point is $150. The basic service is free, and Chumby may add paid premium services over time.

Most of the Chumby team, including Ken Steele, Bunnie Huang Joe Grand, and Duane Maxwell, is here at Foo demo’ing the product. They are pictured below leading a Chumby hack session.

More on the Chumby site and at CrunchGear.

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