Hi, it's time again for the weekly report on what has happened.
Craig finally resolved the customs issue, so the parts (parts for 2000 Pandoras) finally are moving towards their destination.
The other 2000 parts did pass the customs without any problems a few days earlier, btw.
So, first test mass production is still due to be finished on July 20th (you know, the ones we ordered a while ago) and all the parts are also on their way - which means: COMPLETE mass production of the boards could be happening soon!

The final puzzle piece for the final unit is the case. What's the status with that, you might ask?
Well, as said a while ago, Dave doesn't have too much time at the moment, as he is very busy with his normal job. However, he continues to work on the case, day by day. And I'm really happy that the To-Do-List has really grown short.
So short, that he might even finish it within the next few days! There's a light at the end of the tunnel! Finally, I can see it!

On to some other questions and stuff I've seen on the boards: A lot of guys are asking what happened to the video craig promised to you.
Well, as you all know, he planned shooting a long one. That does take time, though. And during that, the custom problems happened. Craig spent all days trying to resolve those issues... so he couldn't spend any time on the video.
- And I guess you wouldn't want more delay because of the video, right?
Also, there's not too we could show you: You've seen the working prototype... and that is the last status before the FINAL unit is ready. I know you love videos... and the time between the protoype and the final unit seems endless - but there's not much we can do except wait for it. Those things do take time and we also have to wait for the boards and cases to be finished.
Heh - you know what's funny? I read somewhere on the boards that for some time moves so slowly while waiting for the Pandora... it's the complete opposite for us. Time seems to fly by. Whoops, another week gone.

Let's wait together, shall we? I know there are some OMAP3 devices coming - but none will be as open and supported for homebrew and Linux as the Pandora is.

Things are always a learning curve the first time you try them. Apart from maybe suicide.

Anyway, the point is the last couple of weeks have had delays caused by a most unexpected event - US Taxes and UPS.

See the thing is we ship the parts to the USA, Dallas to be exact, they put them on a PCB and then all that comes back to the UK. But here is the weird part - UPS keeps wanting us to pay taxes on these parts - even though they are to be re-exported soon after. We have tried the recommended routes 'Temporary export' and 'Controlled goods' but still, randomly, a huge tax bill arrives. It's frustrating stuff which we are having to try to deal with yet UPS keep moving the goal posts.

Now, here is the community involvement part - does anyone out there know the real way to deal with this? The real rules? As UPS just keep changing the story every time.

So is there anyone out there who can shed some light on how we should be doing this to avoid those taxes? An expert on US customs and taxes maybe? You can answer over on the forum.

Aside from this we are very pleased and happy to have chosen to manufacture in the USA rather than China - I hear, alas, that's a pretty rare thing these days.

Well, sort of. We placed our order for the production run of the first 105 boards today!
Yes, it's really happening. Production of the boards does take about 4 weeks from now on, around July 24th (they need to be shipped to us), the first REAL boards will arrive. One of it could be yours, as those boards will be used in final units!

On the case side, things are still being worked on, but the to-do list is getting shorter and shorter.
It's really hard to say how long DaveC still needs to work on this, as he has very little time, but he is barely doing anything else except going to work and working on the case... thanks for that, Dave!
That's our short snippet for today, I'll keep you updated when more stuff happens.

Hiya, it's EvilDragon again.

I got some more fresh news, and those are not about delaying or anything like that.

As you have all read, the only driver problem is WiFi. To put things short (and as they are pretty complicated), here is what was our problem:

There's a closed-source driver available for the WiFi chip, but we didn't at all want to use it (hey, we're OPENPandora, not ClosedPandora). Then we found an OpenSource project for that WiFi chip - we used it and it worked well at the beginning (you might remember some WiFi testing videos).
But that driver was poorly coded - and it did have more and more problems. We can't even get to work it anymore with the latest Angström image, only with our testing rootfs (which is good, as we do know that the hardware is fine.

Well, DJWillis wanted to take on the WiFi task - and it's already looking really good. He found another driver which should work way better - and it already compiled with our latest kernel.

So basically, that WiFi issue MIGHT be solved faster than we thought. There's still a lot of work needed, but this has been a HUGE progress.

I'll keep you informed.

Geez, I just got some up-to-date news I don't want to hold back.

The TV Out cable design is also finished and a prototype can be produced within five days. Nice :D