The dream has come to fruition and it’s called a Chumby. At first glance it’s difficult to really understand what it is –I couldn’t even describe its shape. For what it’s worth, I think it’s a rounded plush semi rectangle. Take a look at it.

Now I bet you still have no clue what it is – many bloggers have tried to define it. But, alas there is no classification for this device – it’s carving out a market of its own. From looking at the applications that have been created for it, it seems to be trying to remove those annoying walks to the PC for pieces of small information. It’s a pretty much a throw pillow stuffed with Wi-Fi, a 3.5” touch screen, two USB 2.0 ports, an accelerometer, speakers and a headphone jack. Click through for more pictures and to read what really makes this device unique.Out of the box, it displays your Flickr and Facebook accounts when you want to show those digital photos to friends and family when they come over, there’s no need to crowd them up the stairs and to your office. Instead, you can throw them a Chumby and let them pass it around. It displays the 5-day forecast in the mornings, it updates you on that EBay auction you’ve been watching, watch a quick YouTube video, view some RSS feeds, or grab a quick Rotten Tomatoes review on your way out the door to the movie.

Most importantly, it is an open platform. So the applications won’t end there. Not only do they have a software developer kit for it to create widgets, but it also has hardware developer kit too. So use Chumby as it was intended or don’t and build whatever you please from it – they like to call them Chumby crafts.

It’s somewhat launched now but will be official in January of 08’ where it will be selling for about ~$180. I like the direction of this unique new product and hope to see more consumer electronics heading in the same direction in the near future. I can’t wait to get my hands one of these things, the fun widgets can have with the accelerometer are endless (ala iPhone) – at the very least it’ll be an alarm clock that I can throw at the wall in the mornings. Go get one and start developing!