Spring cleaning and more news

While the reorganization is still going on and things like the "fine print" take more time to do properly, instead of just more tunnel at the end of the light we now start to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

On the donations-transfer side, Neo900 UG has so far received approximately 16 000 € from 88 transferred donations, with transfer processing still in full swing. This number is low not only because performing the transfers takes a lot of time, but also because about half of the donors have not yet told GDC what to do. Please bear in mind that the project will still need a minimum of 200 devices to build, in line with our original rationale and feasibility studies regarding mass production. So, if you haven't done so yet, please take your time and add a note to your order at GDC to indicate whether you want the refund sent back to you, or whether you're still with us and prefer to have the refund transferred to Neo900 UG (remember that this applies to credit card donations as well).

Sending a mail to donation@neo900.org when doing so is not mandatory, though it helps us to check if something got lost on its way along the bank processing. If you decide to send such a mail, please indicate clearly that you asked GDC to make the transfer. For a transfer from your account to Neo900 UG say that you have transferred money to Neo900 UG.

Reorganization status:

Neo900 UG (haftungsbeschraenkt) got established, including all IDs/numbers/papers and even a proper bank account. Transfer of funds from GDC to UG is ongoing. Please add a note to your order if you haven't done already, even if your original donation was made using credit card!

to your order if you haven't done already, even if your original donation was made using credit card! We are open to donations to the Neo900 UG account - conditions unchanged, but no fine print yet. It seems we're not legally allowed to promise anything, particularly not any rebate, but that doesn't mean your donation will not have the desired effect of getting you a device for a fair price.

Please note that we don't have a shipping service for worldwide shipping yet, and thus we can't tell if your destination allows shipping of a device to you, but be assured that we will make our best effort to facilitate shipment to your location.

Once we've passed the 200 threshold again, we proceed to build prototype board V3. For that, Neo900 UG plans to approach GDC and ask for contracted work. Our technical planning is unchanged, i.e. we want to use the same SMT fab as we always did, and we still have the same plans about the needed steps to reach "mass" production.

Let us again introduce Werner Almesberger who augmented the Neo900 team and brings in a lot of experience and a new perspective into the working process.

We realized that a lot of the things on the Neo900 website didn't make sense anymore, especially not the donation counter, so we've started cleaning up the confusing information. As a part of this clean up, we removed the increasingly misleading donation counter and replaced it with just the current status of transfer. A lot of things changed under the hood as well - the website is now based on full-blown static page generator named Pelican, instead of a set of our own handwritten bash scripts. This is a first step towards new things that we plan to introduce on the website in next days.

Speaking about new stuff, we're aware that official communication about the project's progress could be a bit more agile. To that end we decided to create a microblog for short, but more regular updates, so that you won't have to wait for a wall of text every one or two months or constantly follow channels like IRC or TMO forum. The microblog is coming really soon!

Please remember that we still need a minimum of 200 interested people who have the intention to get a device, and we hope to see this support on Neo900 UG as we did on our previous fundraiser.

Thank you!

Follow-up the discussion on: Reddit

July Trilogy, Part I: The Past »

« Neo900 Progress Update - May

The Neo900 project aims to provide a successor of N900 Nokia Internet Tablet™ device, with faster CPU, more RAM and LTE modem, basing efforts on an already existing, mature and stable free platform - the OpenPhoenux GTA04, following the spirit of freedom known from Openmoko devices.