AKAIO is a user made firmware for the acekard, and no i dont think it is dead, if im correct they recently released 1.5, or is that old now?
AKAIO released 1.5.1 a few weeks ago, and then it was cracked by Rudolph for the R4i. Then Normatt just gave up on public releases and only works on the Beta versions which you can't get ahold of unless you know the password to the beta section on the AKAIO forums. It hasn't been updated in over a month....so it's dead for now...