An example of the versatility of the platform is hb’s recent port of the Qt UI framework running webkit to the Infocast, pictured running above. For those who want to build it themselves, there are instructions on the chumby wiki and a forum for questions; or you can just download a pre-packaged binary image that you can uncompress to a USB thumb drive, toss it into one of the ports on the back, reboot and use. Note that the implementation assumes a USB keyboard plugged for text input.

Of course, this is just scratching the surface on what you can do with the platform. There are folks working on porting Android and OpenEmbedded, and the hardware reference schematics are available for those inclined to the soldering iron.

(Photo by Adafruit)

The hacker board is currently being sold through Adafruit and also soon through Sparkfun as part of a limited-run beta program. The board is priced at around $89. The goal of the beta program is to collect feedback from users who purchase the board to fine-tune the design and to figure out what I/Os and accessories make sense to bundle with the board. Like the Arduino, we don’t integrate a lot of features onto the mainboard itself (keeps base cost low). Instead, we’d like to make sure that adequate I/O resources exist for developers to hack in the peripheral module they require to complete their project — or for more enterprising developers to build their own flavor of peripheral board and sell their own accessory.

There’s a few resources available to get people started on using the boards: a forum for general support and questions, and a wiki containing links to datasheets, schematics, and other more permanent documentation that people will find useful. Adafruit also has available a snazzy hackerboard page with tons of info, well-documented tutorials, and nice photos to boot.

One other point of note about the hacker board is that you can install a native gcc toolchain on it, so you don’t need to configure/install a cross-compiler on your host PC to develop for it. Heck, it’s got a 454 MHz CPU and plenty of disk space, so why not? Adafruit has a tutorial on how to install the compiler using a downloadable self-extracting script and a USB dongle. I’ve also heard rumors that an OpenEmbedded port is coming to the board soon, so stay tuned.

If you do end up purchasing a board and participating in the beta, please do contribute to the fora and wikis with your feedback. As always, happy hacking!

Taking this ware apart was particularly enlightening because I had thought about building one of these myself quite often, and now that I see the insides I realize I had over-complicated my schemes.

I snapped these photos a couple months back when I happened to find myself at Asus HQ in Taipei. The silicon cow is across the lobby from the more famous “Mona Lisa” sculpture that was mentioned in the guesses.