No, we haven't set an official release date - but it will certainly me more on the June end than the April end.

I can't see where you are referring to...in the store I can see Spring 2007 mentioned. Can you explain? Or have they fixed it?

Well, we've done our first real test production run of boards in China.  There's still some work to do on the software - we just received a new version of Flash from Adobe and are in the processof porting it, plus it's going to need to go through QA.  We've cleared up most of the other bugs in the drivers, and the new Control Panel is in pretty good shape.

We should be entering the integration phase shortly.  After that, it will be a coupe of weeks to get everything shipped to China and put into production.

We're going as fast as we can while making sure everything's as best as we can make it.

Yes, we're currently working with Flash Lite 3, and you're right, testing is an issue, since we haven't as as much time with it as with 2.1.

Fortunately, the chumby can do over-the-air firmware updates so we can fix bugs in the player should they manifest.

Hi Duane,

I was just thinking, FL3 is not public at all yet is it (should it be mentioned here)? In which case would you be waiting till it is released to go into production with the Chumby's or use an OTA update later on instead?

Adobe publicly announced Flash Lite 3 back in February, so it's no secret.  They have delivered their final code to us, and we've ported it to chumby.  We'll be shipping with Flash Lite 3.

Who will be selected for the "Beta launch" in July?

I just filled out a first fifty application. Fingers are crossed. Makes it sooo hard to type.

shoe

Why USA only. I don't see what the big deal would be to ship a few to Canada.
It would be good for international relations. 

OK...don't forget Australia when you get around to it though! ;-)  This waiting is killing me!

Well, if they're not available from Chumby Inc, you can build one yourself, or bribe me enough and I can assemble something similar for you. You can build a fairly nice "Breakout board" simply by buying the connector (a few bucks, available via Digikey) and getting a PCB printed up using the connector's layout broken out into pins and from there, do with it whatever you want. That's what I've been doing anyways. The "hacker sensor package" was something given out at Foo Camp IIRC.

It'll be interesting to see if the "Chumbilical" is changed with the "First 50"/"Ironforge" version as well, so keep that in mind.

... drool ...

I think The Chumbster needs to find a place on my dash... ET, HP computations... drop a GPS thumb on him and he learns speed.

Chumby at the drag strip!