Made in China

Developers of the Chumby, an always-on device that will display information from the web, promise that it will soon be available, and at a cost of less than $200. In the meantime, check out Andrew "bunnie" Huang's blog on how the Chumby is being manufactured in China (below). Huang is Chumby's vice president of hardware engineering and one of the company's founders. His behind-the-scenes account not only highlights the impressive engineering skills found in Chinese factories today, but also the cultural differences between the U.S. and China. For example, when one of the Chinese women working on the Chumby asks what the device does, Huang discovers that she does not know what the Internet is, despite her considerable expertise at building and testing computers. In the end, he tells her it's a device for playing games.—Dawn Stover

Read more about the Chumby:
Anything You Want in a Gadget

Images: Chumby Industries, bunniestudios.com