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8" Insignia Infocast from Best Buy

Posted by ecc 
ecc
8" Insignia Infocast from Best Buy
February 11, 2011 10:57AM
My apologies if this is off-topic, but I think this might appeal to
the same kind of person who likes hacking on a DockStar.

Best Buy is selling the 8" Insignia Infocast for $80. It's a 800 MHz
ARM device with an 8" touchscreen and WiFi, running Linux, and seems
very hackable. Out of the box you can use it to run any of the Chumby
apps, plus display photos from memory cards.

See here for a review, and
see here for lots of information about hacking it

from Andrew "bunnie" Huang, one of the designers.

Disclaimer: I just bought one but haven't started hacking it yet.
(And I have no affiliation with Best Buy, etc.)
Re: 8" Insignia Infocast from Best Buy
February 11, 2011 11:44AM
Thanks for the post, that looks like it's going to be a lot of fun!
Re: 8" Insignia Infocast from Best Buy
February 11, 2011 12:22PM
Yep, that thing looks great. Too bad that there's nothing comparable available in the EU ATM. At least I don't know about anything that would come close in terms of price/performance ratio.This sure will be fun to tinker with. Oh, well I think I can live with "only" having a dockstar. :-D
davidnewton
Re: 8" Insignia Infocast from Best Buy
February 14, 2011 11:16PM
I also bought the Insignia Infocast. It looks very nice. Now I am trying to figure out how to install Asterisk on it. Anyone has idea how to start? Thanks.
8" Sony Dash from Future Shop Canada
February 18, 2011 05:17PM
For Canadian members of this forum, Future Shop has Sony Dash on sale for $120, it is very similar to Insignia Infocast.

Roman
ecc
Re: 8" Insignia Infocast from Best Buy
February 23, 2011 10:44AM
davidnewton Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Now I am trying to figure out how to install Asterisk on it.
> Anyone has idea how to start?

If you put a script called "debugchumby" in the root directory of a USB drive, it will be executed at startup. So you can install whatever you want to the USB drive and get the device to run it that way. If you search the Chumby forum you can find an example of running a web browser using this method.
Re: 8" Insignia Infocast from Best Buy
February 26, 2011 12:49PM
So bummed that I missed this and the sony refurbs on woot too.

I believe that the mobo has a minisd on it to provide the boot environment. It should be pretty easy to load a new OS and make it do whatever you want. Not to mention an easy way to back up the current system. :)
Re: 8" Insignia Infocast from Best Buy
April 11, 2011 12:45AM
Woot has the Sony Dash right now for $79.99 + $5 shipping.

And BTW, anybody knows if this can be hacked (like previously mentioned about the Infocast)? or any other way?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/11/2011 02:52AM by bodhi.
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