Not too meaningful, but it’s something we want to hear:

The final nub firmware is amazing. The new code is tight. Should make for a great experience on the Pandora and whatever else…

That’s good to hear.

We won’t leave you with just that bit of info, of course, recently Craig said at the GP32X Boards the following:

I’m feeling great because this week we should see the first mass production Pandora PCBs.

The bare boards, populated photos next week. Probably all as one big blog post however.

And of course you know that when those photos come we will be posting about it here. So stay tuned!

Discussion Thread

With a new look at the MAME emulator.  Looks pretty smooth to me, can’t wait to play some more Metal Slug on the go! The Pandora its self actually looks quite slick here, the new keyboard looks right at home.

Just a little update:

MWeston has just added a new picture on his Photobucket album. He shows us the fixed keymat with the letter positions corrected and some other things tweaked.

Comments?

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Engadget have reviewed HTC’s latest Android offering, the Hero. With it’s updated looks and interface, it is being hailed as the first proper Android competitor to the iPhone.

So, what did the Engadget guys think of it? Find out here:

http://www.engadget.com/2009/07/23/htc-hero-review/#continued

Looks like it’s all going well down at Pandora lane, according to EvilDragon’s latest blog post!

Hiya folks! It’s been a bit calm around here in the blog, right? Well, that’s for one good reason: Everything is going smoothly right now.

The first check of the case data is finished, the company started creating the moulds. As soon as the first rough mould is finished (which will surely take a while, the case is a pretty complicated mesh), they are gonna do a first rough case and check that everything fits (with a final board, so that nothing can go wrong here!)

In the meantime, the PCBs are still in production. It will take them a few days longer, as they optimized the machines a bit more in the beginning. This does mean, that the boards will probably ship 10 days later (beginning of August). But it does also mean, that the build quality will be better and the failure rate is way lower. No time lost, as the case company won’t need the board before August. And if the failure rate is lower in the beginning, mass production itself will be faster. So when the cases are ready, we can go full speed ahead!

Michael also did some quick checks already, the Pandora doesn’t do any bad things, radiation seems to be within the allowed areas. It’s just a rough test, but if there was something really wrong, we could certainly find it out that way. The only really critical part for radiation might be the WiFi antenna. But that is something that can be fixed within a few days, so we’re positive CE / FCC will go smoothly. That’s it for todays posting. I’ll make sure to keep you informed!

So everything is going pretty well at the moment. Seems like Murphy is on holidays – which is something, we’re really glad of

Of course, we used the waiting time for other stuff. The first prototype of the TV Out cable is working, we are now designing that thing and optimizing it (i.e. put IN and OUT on the connectors, decide for the colors, etc.)

Another thing we’re working at is CE / FCC. You might have seen the discussion on the gp32x.com boards. One guy said, that you need a final PROTOTYPE for FCC. The company I did ask said, the final UNIT is needed. I’m going to find out, if a prototype is enough – as that would mean, we can do FCC and CE at the same time and do have all the needed certificates when the Pandora is ready for shipping! That should speed up everything

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Looks like it’s not going to be long until we see our next Pandora video, according to Craig’s Twitter.

Craigix:Doing a new Pandora software roundup video with the latest wares. Going well.

Who knows, this might be the last video we will see before we can video the thing our selves. Well, I hope so, anyway.

Looks like we’re going to be seeing the first 105 mass produced Pandora boards soon!  Want proof?  Have a read of this post by EvilDragon!

The next really interesting thing will be next week – when the first 105 mass produced boards should be finished

Then the moulding company gets a PCB so it can optimize the case to make the PCB fit perfectly – well, and then it’s all set for the mould production and the real real REAL mass production run

Any one else excited?

On another note, 840×480 is not enough to blog with.

At a T-Mobile sponsored event in San Fran, Phone Scoop discussed Android with the division’s main man Andy Rubin. Among other juicy details about the future of Google’s mobile OS, Rubin laid a roadmap for future iterations of the ‘Droid. Starting off with Donut next, followed by Eclair and Flan. Anyone else getting hungry?

Rubin also announced that various phone manufacturers were looking to get a staggering combined figure of 15 to 20 more Android based phones by the end of the year!

Read the whole story at:

http://www.phonescoop.com/news/item.php?n=4558

openXile is now twittering away at https://twitter.com/openxile so feel free to follow us, it makes us feel like some one cares.  Even mpsecondjo20371 followed us, telling us about money making scams on the internet!  What a lovely girl!

(this post doubles up as a test, to see if my RSS to Twitter thing worked)

We have a new blog post from EvilDragon, and oh boy! This one is something you really want to know!

Hi folks! You’ve been waiting for the weekly report, haven’t you?

Well, I’ve been very very busy with various things, so I coldn’t catch up with everything until now.
And I’ve got some short but really good news for you:

Dave finished every single step which was on the ToDo-List of the case!

This does mean, that the case moulding could start REALLY soon.

We’re currently waiting for a review from the company – and will tell you more about the status as soon as we get some more information!

Oh, on a side note, most parts for the boards have arrived in Dallas (95%). This means that mass production for the full 4000 run can most probably start as soon as we give them a green light (which means: After we tested the 105 boards).

This is definitely good news!

Yes folks, the end of the road is closer and closer, so keep in touch while we cover every exciting step for you.

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