As for other "exciting announcements" that were hinted at on here by a Beta tester, I'm not entirely sure what he was referring to.

It was not a "beta tester" that I have been paying attention to, but rather Nanook, who is reputed to be an employee of Rio, who posted a "pending announcement" in this thread a couple of weeks ago:

As the announcement will include various information, including the status of the 40GB Karma, marketing is still working on the announcement and we should expect this soon.

I'm waiting to see if a larger one comes out, as I have more than 20 GB of music on my empeg and would love to have my full collection on a handheld.

-jk