Michael Mrozek was one of the main guys behind the original Pandora concept in 2009, and at FOSDEM (Free and Open source Software Developers’ European Meeting) yesterday he announced his own successor to the ageing machine – the Pyra. In the videos below, Michael (otherwise known as EvilDragon on the OpenPandora boards) outlines his goals for the new machine, discussing his decision for choosing another Texas Instruments SoC and playfully boasting of the OMAP5432 capabilities. The development board in the video below is running Battle Of Wesnoth at the same time as 2x PS1 emulators all whilst doing some image manipulation in The Gimp.

The full spec for the Pyra can be found on the official website, but to summarise it’ll be a dual core 1.7Ghz OMAP5432 with 2GB Ram and a 5 inch 1080p display. It’ll retain the keyboard and gaming controls that the Pandora had as well as the dual SDXC slots and the same 4200mah battery, but it’ll carry some extras such as a 3G and/or bluetooth modules as well as a HDMI output port.

Michael is keen to emphasise that Craig(ix) is not a part of the team working on the Pyra, which will come as a great relief to anybody interested in both paying for one and also receiving it. For a nice breakdown of the Pyra, as well as a list of the people involved in the project, check this post on the OpenPandora forums.

You can view Michael’s entire hour long speech from FOSDEM below. The first 15 minutes are mostly about the Pandora, and after that it’s all talk of the Pyra.

There is no release date given for Pyra, Michael states that he is understandably reluctant to commit to a timeframe, however he does say that the project is already funded up to prototype the stage and financial backing will only be needed once mass production is ready. You can follow progress of this project on the official blog.

Many thanks to Victor for sending this in.