Hi

We expect to ship 40 Mark 2 car players this week. This "mini release" will enable us to ensure that our procedures are up to speed before bulk shipping starts in July, and also allow our developers to get feedback from a good number of real clients in the field.

The players are hardware-complete, with appropriate coloured knobs and so forth. We feel that the screens may be darker than desired, however, so we will send out lighter replacements as soon as they have been manufactured. This is a simple user fitted modification.

The players are expected to ship with a Beta release of software, which will essentially be Beta 11 with the addition of Ethernet synchronisation and, of course, the extra bits and pieces needed to make a Mark 2 work - such as rotary control support. Voice Recognition software will not be included at this stage, although the hardware support is present. A utility to transfer your music from a Mark 1 to the Mark 2 will be included.

All 40 players will be blue. If required, we will provide a colour change free of charge when they become available in July. The tuner module is not yet available - it may yet be a month or two away. It will be shipped on as soon as it is available.

We have a specific split of capacities - if we get too many requests for a given capacity, we will prioritise by registration number.

Later today I will send an email to the first forty clients who confirmed for the owner upgrade discount. That is, the first forty by registration number. I will then contact successive clients until all of these players have been allocated.

I'm aware that a few clients didn't confirm before the page went offline, so if you are entitled to the owner upgrade discount and have NOT completed the online confirmation page, please send me an email now (rob@empeg.com).

Any client that we contact will be free to pass up on this mini batch, and wait for the full release next month, which will ship with consumer release 1.0 (of course, these players are fully software upgradable).

Regards

Rob