The design philosophy of the Chumby gadget was intended for the open source community to interact on both the hardware and software. In other words, the idea of hacking into this gadget brings further popularity from the interest of Linux community and other programmers all over the world. It is hacker-friendly, easily customizable, and built on the Linux platform. The strategy is to encourage Chumby users to hack the device and offer small apps, but to not use the hardware in ways that jeopardize its creator.
The idea is geared toward customer-driven and customer-designed perspective, in respect to the current philosophy that says: the customer is always right. The customer uses and creates widgets for themselves and other customers. Widgets are little add-on software “packages” that allow users to easily customize their product to function in the way they want. Some of the most popular widgets that work on Chumby are:
1. Google News
2. Google Calendar
3. flickr Photo Viewer
4. Daily Horoscope
5. digg
6. Digital Clock
7. Internet Radio
8. Slashdot
9. ShamuCam
10. Make Magazine
And here is an example of a widget that was created, proving is hack-ability:
Tomorrow, I’ll contrast the Chumby with other devices, such as the iPod. 
Stay tuned, and thanks for reading.
Tags: Chumby, chumby device, chumby gadget, chumby widget
