Topic: Chumby Podcast + Social Purposes of Chumby

27 mins of chumby chatter for your listening pleasure...keep those flowers blooming with Steve Tomlin, CEO, Chumby Industries interviewed by Wi-Fi Networking News...

http://wifinetnews.com/

Nice work Steve. (You even got the sewing part in, yay! smile )

You've got me thinking on the social purposes stuff too...the social/community side of IT is my research interest...I'll sleep on it...

Initial thoughts...great for home-schooled teenagers to feel part of a social network....Australia is a vast country with a lot of distance between farms in the outback...chumby would make the kids feel a little less isolated, I think...(not sure how the wireless would go...we have a major rural/urban digital divide, primarily the fault of one national telephone company still owning almost all the (decaying) infrastructure.

Another group that may benefit is our refugee communities. Often refugees from one country, for example, Sudan or Somalia, are placed across several country towns....thousands of kilometres apart....they don't have a lot of tech skills or money. With chumby being low cost they could possibly be set up as a network. Community members could learn IT with the purpose of learning how to broadcast messages and photos to their communities...perhaps stories/experiences/advice/tips on living in Australia (do you know how to ???)/ mini-English lessons in flash movies. Those who are comfortable being active users could learn the skills they need to be active...those who are intimidated by tech could start by being passive consumers. The broadcasts could be initially centred around libraries, telecentres or community centres and aim to become more of a network community rather than a one way transfer. Also, the community members can make the choice of what they want the tech to do for them, in this case, which is a much better model than the one-way transmission and passive reception of info you get with ethnic/community radio/TV. I am a strong believer in the social construction of information and knowledge and that information literacy is a community responsibility.

Uh-oh. Steve you have created a monster. This could actually fit in well with my research method/topic. I'll keep thinking. I have some local communities in mind. (It would all depend on how your widgets/subs work too...).

The sewing side could also be an avenue to get the women to feel more comfortable and less threatened by tech in their homes....once they hold it, pull it apart, see it doesn't break....chumby is a heck of a lot less intimidating than a big black noisy tower...

Re: Chumby Podcast + Social Purposes of Chumby

completely offtopic, but i had an idea. Chumby FM. run a shoutcast server for chumby users. that would be pretty cool. possibly you might be able to write it so that as soon as you join the station, it plays a wakeup sound or something, then carries on with the currently playing music. i could serve music.

need upload space for the forums or a chumby blog? right here then
http://www.nophus.com/useru
username is chumby
password is chumby