• an alarm clock
• radio
• picture frame
• game
• weather center
  
• web/e-mail appliance

or something else?

The chumby looks pretty cool, even though it  is in a long line of failed web appliances.  Will it replace burning your thighs on the bottom of your 6-lb. laptop while you prop yourself up in bed?  Probably not.  But it may become a common item on the kitchen counter, coffee table, or nightstand replacing the clock radio, picture frame, weather station, video game and newspaper or paperback book.

 

It appears that you can download a host of "widgets" much like Google Gadgets and Yahoo! Widgets, or developers can invent their own.  Their website even has a place where you can build your own virtual chumby.  I'll probably give that a shot before I buy one.  No, this isn't a review because I don't have one...yet.  But if I do get one, I'll show you my chumby if you show me yours.

 

Sounds promising, doesn't it?  Or will it go the way of the 3Com Audrey?