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chumbysphere forum → Software → The ultimate single screen!
Does anyone remember Pointcast? One screen, many tickers, everything you needed in one place. THATS WHAT I WANT!!!
I want a single widget that displays the weather, news, etc. This rotating through widgets thing is driving me nuts.
Does anyone have any thoughts on how to develop something like that?
This probably isn't as fancy as you want, but there are ways to combine multiple RSS feeds into a single feed (eg. Google Reader). Then publish that aggregate feed and monitor it with the "Chumby RSS Reader" widget (under the News category). I just tried it and it works.
So all you have to do is find the RSS feeds of the information you're interested in and pull them together in Google Reader.
Here are a few aggregate feeds I created for a group that I manage:
"tech-news" via Canadian Techies
http://www.google.com/reader/public/atom/user/02145095643734265253/label/tech-news"tech-blogs" via Canadian Techies
http://www.google.com/reader/public/atom/user/02145095643734265253/label/tech-blogs"mixed-bag" via Canadian Techies
http://www.google.com/reader/public/atom/user/02145095643734265253/label/mixed-bag
Does anyone remember Pointcast?
I do - I bought the company back in 1999. A poor investment in retrospect, but there you go.
In any case, there are indeed many similarities between the Chumby system and Pointcast, but one major difference is that the chumby's screen is only 3.5" diagonal. While one could cram all that info on the same display at once, it wouldn't be legible at the distance at which we believe the chumby is used.
However, it's quite possible to create a single widget that pulls data from all these sources and provides a more Pointcast-like experience - all it takes is somebody to write it. The Pointcast system was rigid and did not have that kind of flexibility.
Heh, back when Pointcast was around, we had a guy at the office who was a typical internet addict, but also felt compelled to email every single article he read ... to everyone... everyday. Eventually, it got to a point where ridiculing him was mandatory. And so it was born.. Gregcast:
http://www.hacksrus.com/gregcast/
~Rolan
I do - I bought the company back in 1999. A poor investment in retrospect, but there you go.
Boy, it seems like there's a reallllly good story there just waiting to be told.
Duane wrote:I do - I bought the company back in 1999. A poor investment in retrospect, but there you go.
Boy, it seems like there's a reallllly good story there just waiting to be told.
I was a PointCast subscriber. It seemed like the coolest thing back then on my Philips Velo!
Duane, I'd love to hear the story, could you please share with us?
I'm suspecting that what Duane meant to write was "I bought *shares of* the company back in 1999".
I started a company called Launchpad Technologies in 1997 with initial investment from ideaLab. We acquired Pointcast in 1999.
You couldn't "buy shares" of Pointcast because it was a privately held company, not a public one.
Some people on these forums seem to assume Duane and the rest of the Chumby crew are just engineers and moderators.
They all have some serious backgrounds in the tech and internet industry (and history for that matter).
Check out http://www.chumby.com/corporate/team to see where they are all coming from.
Yeah, that bio's a bit abbreviated - it skips past much of the interesting stuff in the Apple ][ and very early Macintosh days, and the pre-Toy Story Pixar period. There's some scattered stuff that's Googleable from that period, as long as I'm not confused with the other guy with the same name that does all the fantasy role-playing games.
Ok - but getting back to the original post.
While I agree with Duane about long distance readability, I am sure that MANY people use Chumby as something they read up close, as I do in bed when I wake up to get the news. Furthermore, almost all the news widgets I use are small and cannot be read at a distance.
The thing that CURRENTLY bothers me about the Chumby is the slideshow approach to the web. I know that many of you will say "that's what Chumby is" but I am under the impression that Chumby is a platform to experiment. I truly believe it is worth experimenting to see what an "all on one screen" widget might look like.
If someone with the Flash know-how can just hack something up - 4 panels, weather in upper left, top stories rotating in right, news and stocks tickers on bottom (and date and time small across the top) I think the reaction from the community might be *interesting.*
-J
They all have some serious backgrounds in the tech and internet industry (and history for that matter).
And here I was cutting them slack every time my Chumby hanged. I'll be expecting much better performance in the future. (Kidding, sorta.)
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