Test Drive of the Chumby

06/01 Update: I had to remove the chumby widget as it never stopped loading (passing traffic) on my web site.

Today I have an opportunity to test drive an alpha prototype of the Chumby. It is on loan for a few days (over the holiday) for me to play with for review's sake. Their web site states:

"The chumby is a compact device that displays useful and entertaining information from the web: news, photos, music, celebrity gossip, weather, box scores, blogs — using your wireless internet connection. Always on, it shows — nonstop — what's online that matters to you."

While it is too soon to give any deep feedback, it was able to detect and connect to an open network fairly easily when I first turned it on. This was after resetting the clock from a date that was like 30 years in the past(?). I also noticed that, after a few minutes, it did seem to freeze up.

As I continue to play with it, below should be a feed of what my Chumby is doing right now. That is nifty is nothing else. If you can no longer see an image below then that feed is probably broken (let me know and I'll amend the site.)