Chumby, the cute device that lets users play internet-based apps and music, has become a hacker's delight because of its extensibility and Linux-based operating system.
It's latest avatar is as the face and brain of a bipedal robot created by EMG Robotics. The robot is using accelerometers from Freescale to balance and walk. And while it is rather slow and clumsy, it's a pretty neat hack.
"One small step toward our future robotic overlords," wrote Andrew 'Bunnie' Huang, founder at Chumby on his blog. "But hey, at least they’ll be open source. That might even be an improvement over what we have today."
In itself, the $120 Chumby One is a pretty interesting device. It has a 454 MHz Arm0 processor, a 3.5-inch LCD touchscreen, Wi-Fi connectivity and USB port. It is designed as open source hardware so schematics and layouts for the device are available to everyone. In the past, users have taken Insignia Infocast, a photo and app viewer, running on the Chumby platform and turned it into a $170 Linux tablet.
The latest Chumby hack may not be as functional but it is definitely fun. Check out the video to see the Chumby One walking around. (The demo begins at the 1:40 mark and the earlier portion of the video has no sound.)
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