Discover New Music from Pandora on Your Chumby®

New Content Keeps Music Fans Engaged with Pandora Radio, Music Videos from Avot Media and News Headlines from Rolling Stone

SAN DIEGO—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Chumby is now giving music fans a new way to stay constantly connected to the music of their favorite artists, while also introducing them to new music they’ll love. All chumby players can now tune into personalized radio stations from Pandora accounts and have Pandora set as the audio source for custom alarm clocks. Additionally, chumby users will now be able to search and view music videos and more from a music video widget powered by tipMotion from Avot Media, Inc., and receive up-to-the-minute music news and images from RollingStone.com, all without logging onto a computer.

“We know music is a big part of people’s lives and fans want to have always-on, always-fresh access to their favorite artists,” said Stephen Tomlin, CEO of chumby. “A benefit of buying a chumby is that the product is always improving as we add new content and features through automatic upgrades. Now chumbys can be used as radios for the Pandora service at no charge, so whether you bought your chumby months ago or today – you win.”

Pandora is an Internet radio service that is now accessible through chumby. When you indicate a song or artist that you enjoy, Pandora responds by playing selections that are musically similar. You can provide feedback on the individual song choices to further refine the playlist to suit your taste. Your chumby can also wake you with your favorite Pandora station and let you listen to “personalized” radio all day.

“Chumby’s innovative connected media player is a natural fit for Pandora,” said Tim Westergren, founder of Pandora. “With Pandora now available on chumby, our listeners have even more ways to hear their favorite artists and discover new music.”

Also available on chumby are music videos powered by Avot Media, a video formatting and streaming solution provider. Now chumby users can watch the most popular music videos each week, and search for thousands of popular music, entertainment, news, and sports videos on the most popular search engines at the touch of a button.

Chumby music fans will also be able to receive the latest news and images of their favorite bands through updates from RollingStone.com. In addition, Wenner Media, Inc., publishers of RollingStone.com, will also showcase content from other Wenner publications such as UsMagazine.com.

The addition of music content from Pandora, music video streaming from Avot Media and music news updates from Wenner Media complements the strong music and podcast offerings already on chumby, including thousands of AOL SHOUTcast stations, music news from MTV and VH1, and dozens of great streaming stations on Radio Free Chumby.

CHUMBY INDUSTRIES DEBUTS ITS INNOVATIVE chumby™ INTERNET DEVICE AND CHUMBY™ NETWORK

Company secures deals with leading content providers including: CBS, MTV Networks, MySpace, The Weather Channel Interactive, AOL's SHOUTcast and Scripps Networks to offer always-on personalized Internet broadcasts

San Diego, CA - Feb. 25, 2008 - Chumby Industries announced today the public launch of the chumby™, its much-anticipated compact consumer Internet device that enables people to receive a constant personalized broadcast of their favorite parts of the Web. The chumby device is currently available in the U.S. at www.chumby.com for $179.95 including shipping.

A little bigger than a coffee cup, the Wi-Fi connected chumby provides people with a fun, hassle-free way to enjoy what they want most out of the Internet at a glance and wake up to thousands of different streaming Internet radio stations, custom "alarm tones," videos and more. With a large and growing base of content from the Internet, including the latest news, weather and entertainment, as well as the ability to share photos, widgets and e-cards with family and friends, the chumby is one of the most versatile and lifestyle-friendly Internet enabled devices on the market today.

The company also announced that CBS, MTV Networks, MySpace, The Weather Channel Interactive, AOL's SHOUTcast and Scripps Networks will offer compelling content through the Chumby™ Network, a dynamic and rapidly expanding open pipeline of user created and sponsor-supported commercial widget applications.

ABOUT THE PARTNER CONTENT

CBS programming will provide the Chumby Network with up-to-date CBS news, CBS sports and entertainment buzz from Entertainment Tonight and more, as well as video widgets of the Late Show with David Letterman, Big Brother, The Early Show, Wallstrip and college basketball games.

"We are excited to provide a range of CBS content to the Chumby launch community," said George Schweitzer, president, CBS marketing group. This unique device is a great new platform and an imaginative and friendly interface. And you can't spell chumbys without C-B-S! "

MTV Networks will feature the latest music, movie and game news from MTV and VH1, interactive Babealizer photos from Spike.com and an animated SpongeBob SquarePants character widget from Nickelodeon.

"Across every demographic we serve, our fans want to connect with our brands through devices and platforms that are fun, engaging and relevant to their lifestyles," said Greg Clayman, executive vice president, digital distribution and business development, MTV Networks. "With its innovative design and open technology, the chumby device is a great fit for the sensibility of our brands and the growing variety of ways our audience interact with our content."

MySpace will enable chumby users to stay connected and interact with their MySpace friends. Its widget supports interactions with users' photos, friend requests, messages, comments, blogs, bulletins and much more. Users will also be able to view their friends' profiles and send messages straight from the chumby.

The Weather Channel Interactive will offer up-to-date custom local weather conditions, forecasts and radar images from weather.com.

AOL will provide its SHOUTcast service and allow chumby owners to tune in to over twenty thousand free online radio stations from DJs and broadcasters around the world.

"We're pleased to provide the Chumby user with unparalled access to radio stations and programming from around the world via SHOUTcast," said Lisa Namerow, general manager, AOL Radio and SHOUTcast.

Scripps Networks will offer a widget from its popular Food Network. The Food Network widget will present users with a variety of tantalizing, tasty recipes from the experts at the Food Network Kitchens - served fresh to your chumby daily.

"Food Network fans can use their chumby to get recipes from the famous Food Network Kitchens that can be used right where they need them most - in their kitchen or even by their grill," said Doug Hurst, senior vice president and general manager of non-linear distribution for Scripps Networks, parent company of Food Network. "As the leaders in lifestyle media, we continue to create new ways to deliver our content - like the fun, bite-size format the chumby offers - to best serve our audience's current digital lifestyle."

The Chumby Network is supported by commercial sponsors and provides free content to chumby owners and "virtual chumbys" that can be placed on other connected consumer devices and social networking sites. In addition, chumby users can exchange content with other users ("chums") and share their customized widgets, photos and more.

"The richness and diversity of information on the Web has become critical to our everyday lives, so it becomes more important than ever to stay connected to our 'Internet life' and be able to access a wealth of information simply at a glance," said Steve Tomlin, founder and CEO, Chumby Industries. "The powerful combination of the free Chumby Network and the open and always-on chumby creates a compelling offering to consumers to easily create, view and share what matters to them most from the Web without the need to browse on a PC. And media companies can showcase and monetize content on an exciting new distribution platform that reaches consumers in different parts of their lives and at different times of the day."

ABOUT chumby
With an LCD touchscreen and embedded squeeze and motion sensors, the chumby delivers a robust audio and video entertainment experience to owners, including:

• Personalized wake-up experience - programmed wake-up to any of the thousands of audio sources available on the chumby
• Fun - games, humor, e-greetings, gossip, cool entertainment content
• Photo sharing through top photo-sharing sites such as MySpace, flickr, Facebook and Photobucket
• Music - over twenty thousand free radio stations
• Constant updates from top Internet sites
• Monitoring - auction updates, on-going searches, such as Craigslist, and friend status updates from MySpace

The chumby can be plugged into any electrical outlet, so users have the flexibility of placing it on a nightstand, bathroom counter, office cubicle, coffee table, kitchen counter or out on a patio. It automatically finds an available Wi-Fi connection and streams personalized channels from the Chumby Network, which continuously delivers refreshed content via widgets such as music, games, movie previews, customized alarm clocks, special offers and more.

Some of the most popular content and widgets include top streaming Internet radio stations, podcasts, daily video clips, news from The New York Times and Google, various fun and animated clocks, the addictive chumball™ game that uses the chumby's embedded motion sensor, moon phases, sports news and game updates, tech news from Engadget and TechCrunch, entertainment gossip blogs, and web-cams pointed at traffic, zoo animals and everything you can imagine.

The chumby, which measures about 5" wide, 4" tall, and 3" deep, comes in a soft Italian leather casing in a variety of colors including black, latte and pearl. In addition, chumby owners may express their personality by decorating their devices with chumby charms for sale on the site or their own "bling."

About Chumby Industries
Headquartered in San Diego, CA, Chumby Industries makes, sells, and licenses the chumby™, a compact device that connects via a wireless Internet connection and gives people a fun, hassle-free way to enjoy what they want most out of the Internet, always on and simply at a glance. Chumby Industries also runs the Chumby™ Network, a rapidly expanding open pipeline of user created and commercial widget applications from high-profile media partners such as CBS, MTV Networks, MySpace, The Weather Channel Interactive, AOL's SHOUTcast and Scripps Networks among many more. Offering the latest news, weather and entertainment as well as the ability to share photos, widgets, e-cards and more with family and friends, Chumby Industries provides an open platform, enabling the chumby to be constantly updated by any user, developer, media company or content creator to enhance and improve the Chumby experience.

If you're not familiar with the basic premise, chumby is a Wi-Fi gadget with a touchscreen centered around widgets. Think little snippets of the internet that it automatically picks up after you've subscribed to them, kind of like mini-channels. Like Chuck Norris facts. Or the weather, or MySpace, which has a pretty rich widget actually—you can add or delete friends, check out pictures or whatever. You don't pay a monthly subscription for access, BTW.

My favorite (weirdly) was a clock that uses numbers clipped from Flickr photos. (It's even kind of pitched as a brilliant desktop clock, ironically.) Streaming video, like for the Letterman Top 10 is a little better than YouTube. You could stream a whole half hour program and get through it, but I don't recommend it.

Best of all, it's not a totally closed device—it's Linux and Flashlight 3-based running an ARM processor, and totally hackable—they've even thrown up the schematics online. So it's easily to program new widgets or really dig into it to do something entirely different. The catch is that for now, you've gotta use the Chumby Network, which, as Saul points out, isn't quite as open, and some widgets have ads.

The interface was designed by Susan Kare, who did the icons and fonts for the first Mac. It's a great actually—clean, bright and attractive—only hampered by the slightly fidgety nature of the touchscreen. It responds better to taps w/ the back of your finger, but some of the widgets do scrolling, which isn't as smooth as it is on the iPhone. But stil, fairly good.

Other than the touchscreen, there's a button on top which sort of does everything. It's easy to feel through the fabric, though I kind of resent it being there at all. Not really used yet are the mic (it's developer candy) and the accelerometer, though I played a game that makes use of it which could kill hours of productivity time.

The squishability is ace, and I think kind of key to its appeal. I'm not big on the current color selection—black white and tan, but I was promised more were coming. I suggested green and blue, at a minimum, but they wanted to avoid giving off a kiddy vibe at launch.

The big question: Who is this for? Well, us, you. It's for people with a "rich internet life" who "already have all those other things" like an iPhone. It's supposed to sit on our kitchen counter or on our desk, bringing in little digestible bits of stuff we're already neck-deep in, the morsels we "really care about."

I'm not sure if they're going to get people to care about chumby though. If you already have one, I could see it quickly becoming embedded in your personal sphere, something you look at constantly and regularly—but I think it's going to be a challenge to get people to add another internet gadget to an already crowded desktop. [chumby]

This video is more for the hardcore Chumby enthusiast, but fast forward to the middle if you want to see the Chumby in action. YouTube seems quick on the device, with fluid playback. And for $200, it might be a nice toy to fiddle around with on a lazy Sunday morning. Did that come out perverted to anyone else? It wasn't meant to. (For once, I know.) [cheapedia via engadget]

This neat display reminds us of Chumby, the little device that displays the widgets of your choice, continuously updated. We like widgets (WTF is a widget, anyway?) in any form, and would like to have a whole wall full of them. But as a desktop trinket, the Widget Station will do just fine.

No one is saying when it might be available or at what cost, but we're ready now. We're chasing after the company, trying to get one in here to test. Stay tuned. – Charlie White

Here's a video (in Spanish), but even if you don't speak the lingo you can still see how it works:

Product Page [Emtrace Technologies]

Given the open nature of the Chumby, it's trivial to load up a USB thumb drive full of MP3s and have a custom-made MP3 widget. It'll even play Divx (and presumably the more popular Xvid) files, though the screen's resolution is only 320x240.

Basically, Chumby has the possibility to be whatever your sordid little mind wants it to be, which is simultaneously frightening and wonderfully forward-looking. If all goes according to plan, it should be widely available for around $150 in March 2007. – Nicholas Deleon

Chumby Home Page [Chumby Industries via Crunch Gear]