Since we last updated you a month ago, a lot of great things have been happening.

Reg and Erik are on their way to Austin, speaking at SXSW on Friday. If you’re in town, do come by and talk to us. We’ll have some BRCKs with us and will show you how it’s going. You can also ask any questions and geek out with us on what you can do from the software and hardware sides to extend the BRCK core functionality.

Though Austin is always a fun place to be for SXSW, this isn’t the only reason we’re there. While the BRCK is designed and engineered in Kenya, the final assembly and manufacturing is done in the US – in Austin, TX. We’ve started our production orders, production boards are being flashed, and we’re doing regulatory testing now as well, trying to get that all accomplished quickly so we can get your BRCKs to you as fast as possible.

Some other goodies:

The BRCK Eclipse Expedition A couple months ago you might remember that the BRCK team was chasing a rare hybrid eclipse in Northern Kenya, to the shores of Lake Turkana. If you missed out on following our adventure, you can read about it on Erik’s Blog. Here’s the video of that trip:

BRCK Eclipse Expedition to Lake Turkana from BRCK on Vimeo.

Boxes and Dashboard Sneak Peek

Jeff Maina joined the team in February and we’re excited to have someone of his design skills on the team. Here’s a sneak peek of the box and the dashboard.

Jeff holding the BRCK packaging (note: the final will be cardboard colored, not white).

Both Jeff and Emmanuel have been crunching out a bunch of pixels and code, so that everything from the initial setup process to the dashboard work. It’s all completely responsive design, so that you can access it via your browser on a phone, tablet or computer.

The Sandstorm (@SandstormKenya) team in Kenya is making the special pouches for the BRCK backers who came in at over $300. The original design was cool, but they just came back to us this week with an even more amazing and rugged case made of canvas, leather and brass. It feels like we moved from a Landrover to a Range Rover with it!

But, when does the BRCK ship!?

This is the date we’ve been hunting as much as you. It’s been a longer road than we though, due mostly to component manufacturing issues and having to redesign things at the last minute. While we could have pushed out a basic BRCK earlier, it would not have been something that you (nor we) would have been happy with. Assuming all of the final issues lined up around components, assembly and regulatory issues, the BRCK should ship in April. We’re bending all of our time, energy, sweat and tears towards making that happen. Thank you for your patience!

Erik Hersman, for the BRCK team

BRCK’s been lucky enough to get some exciting press attention in the last month, here are the highlights.

Der Spiegel has a great article about mobile changing Africa and gives a great context for BRCK.

The Conversation featured BRCK as well

OH, we also made it into Wired UK back in November!!!!

We hear a lot about how the internet makes the world flat. But in practice the topography is more diverse.

While good internet access is growing all over the world, there are still 3 billion people in the world who don’t even have the opportunity to access broadband internet, let alone the financial or infrastructure means to do so. BRCK was developed, in part, to lift up the availability and quality of internet access for people all over the world. Shortening the distance between remote regions of the world and places more familiar with the internet is to everyone’s benefit. Both sides have incredible things to share and gain from better access to the web.

On November 3rd, we’ll be using a BRCK to show you something amazing from one of the most remote part of the world. We’ll be streaming a stunning Hybrid Solar Eclipse out to the world live from Lake Turkana in the far North West of Kenya. People all over the world will get to see this incredible event from their own homes. The world will get a little flatter.

In addition to being a prime location for viewing the eclipse, Lake Turkana is about as remote as it gets. You may have heard us say “If it works in Africa, it’ll work anywhere”? Well, if it works in Turkana, it’ll work in Africa. The journey will be two days from Nairobi on mostly dirt roads. We’ll be using the adventure to pressure test the BRCK ahead of production in January, and have a little for with the internet in a very remote location.

We’ll be spending the next week prepping and then heading out on the 31st.

You can keep up with us on Twitter (#brckeclipse), here on our blog, and also at our special site for the event: http://brck.com/eclipse.

Details to come next week, but just something to share with everyone over the week.

Spread the Word, share the Internet of Things love.

BRCK shirts out in the world

Here’s the lovely Chirstopher Neu of Tech Change (@neuguy) sporting his BRCK shirt. If you love your shirt(s) tweet them to @brcknet and we’ll share them on our tumblr.

Share the love, spread the Internet of Things revolution.

BRCK Prototyping, Powered by Sugru

BRCK stickers and T-Shirts ship today!

We’re just a few months away from shipping and our work is moving along faster than ever. Engineering is getting the last little details finalized, and we are just about happy with the case. Here are a few images of this near finished version.

See the rest of the images on Flickr.