Can anyone tell me what is the skinny on this new board cnPod from artofcnc?

It's not from Artsoft. It's made by the DeskCNC developer. Art has written a plugin so that Mach3 supports it. It's still in beta, but the Mach3 plugin is mostly complete. I think there are some firmware changes still being done, and I've heard when the ncPod beta testing is complete, the hardware may change slightly, or more features may be added.