Chumby humbly set to charm Aussie owners

Stephen Withers
Tuesday, 11 November 2008 11:21

Your IT - Entertainment

Internode's already taken advantage of the Flash capability: "We've developed our own widget that allows you to read news and network advisories, and we plan to offer various new customer service tools in this way as well," said Richard Burke, content and communications coordinator for the company's content services group.

"Chumby can play streaming audio from around the Internet, and we are working with Chumby Industries to provide convenient access to the Internode unmetered streaming radio station service in the near future," he added.

"Chumby provides the perfect Christmas gift for anyone who wants their favourite Internet content at their side, without being stuck behind a keyboard."

About the only downside is that although chumby is a wireless device, it does need to be plugged into the mains to operate. Apart from that, it's hard to argue with Burke's assertion, unless you insist on taking "anyone" too literally.

Although chumby is only just going on sale in Australia, it's been out in the US for some time. Following a beta program - the Insiders Launch - in late 2007, it went on general sale in February this year. There's certainly an enthusiastic user community around the product.

The idea of having easy access to resources such as weather reports, photos and audio streams anywhere in the house (I'm sure that somewhere there's a chumby that lives in a bathroom) is very attractive. You don't always want to bother with a computer, or even a mobile Internet device such as an iPhone. Like a clock or a thermometer, some stuff should simply be there when you glance at the device.

If the name chumby seems vaguely familiar, you just might be thinking of the Chumblies, a variety of robot that appeared in the 1965 Doctor Who story 'Galaxy 4'.

If you haven't already seen it, you probably won't get another chance because the Galaxy 4 story is among the lost episodes.

But there's nothing stopping you from getting a chumby as long as you can find $A299!