ProjectARA

ProjectAra.com   PA
Project has been running for 20 months as of 2014m04d16.   Scheduled to end in 2015.   Concepts were originally envisioned by Motorola.  Motorola was sold to Lenovo.  Google takes over PA.  Phonebloks and ProjectAra find each other... accelerate project transparency.
#ProjectAra has been running for 29 months as of 2015m01d13,  and the project has been unfriendly to small developers , to the spirit of OpenIP , to accepting input from outside enthusiasts. 

Anything that I miss or get wrong about ProjectAra ..... please comment and correct me/ update me

https://www.facebook.com/Phoneblocks

News

2014m06d06   ProjectAra & Phonebloks have been real disappointments during the last month.
Neither of these organizations has set up any kind of weekly status reporting.  I can't find any reporting at all.  Phonebloks has been obsessed with winning an award ( Design of the Year Award ) from http://www.designsoftheyear.com/
I asked Phonebloks ( tweeted ) about having more updates.... they responded by saying they would try harder.  I do not want them to try harder ..... I want them to be smarter and use the pent-up excitement of thousands of DIY designers.  
Google backed ProjectAra promised transparency .... I have seen very little.   Where can I get EPMs ?  The power bus design was promised for the end of May 2014 .... where is it ?  I want to base my designs on PA.  Will I be shut out because I am a little guy ?  Is this going be a closed project that pretends to be open ?


2014m04d16    Upcoming challenge   top prize is $100K 
        First conference has concluded      It was excellent.  I watched it online.
        Two more conferences planned.
        TransferJet technology will be used   3m range , 360Mb/sec    ( Toshiba )
        EPM ( ElectroPermanent Magnets ) will lock modules in
        Lots of open information.  Yet much is secret as well.  Significant attempts at control.
        Become an Ara Scout   ( and do not pout )   https://dscout.com/ara

2014m08d19   Bummer !
The last few months have been frustrating.  ProjectAra may be doing good things... but the little people will never know.  Google has shrouded the project in mystery.... the insides are a blackbox.  ProjectAra has missed significant milestones ( as far as I can tell ).  Linario is involved but have been sworn to secrecy.  ProjectAra does not respond to energetic, creative people on the forum.  Someone offered a detailed analysis of the connector scheme.  He has not received even an acknowledgement ( at least publicly ). ==>  Gyro Gearloose    or try Googling ==>xxGearLoose

2014m08d21   Full Speed Ahead
Even with the difficulty of finding anything out about ProjectAra .... I am proceeding full speed with the idea of using ProjectAra concepts. I especially like the standardized bloks and the standardized power and communication connections.  The EPMs are cute ... but not critical.  I am going to make my bloks thicker to start with ( 10 mm ).   I am working with a guy ( Ryan Diebel ) who has a great idea for using the blok concept.   Later today, I saw some posts that suggest that dev boards have not shipped yet.

2104m10d30    Much has changed
== I am not doing anything with Ryan Diebel.  I think he may have left the PA concept behind.
== I met some people who were looking at ProjectAra.  They are Mike Doty, Konn Danley , Jay Feldis, and more  at bitseed.org.  They and I are disappointed at the lack of progress and info.
== Paul Eremko ( lead at PA ) did a presentation at Purdue University  http://www.convocations.org/portfolio/paul-eremenko-10-08-14/   Then he started sending messages to the community.  Now there is to be a series of conferences centered around 2015m01.   He also promises more communications.  I am going to ask him to explain what is going on and what was going on.
The conferences are an opportunity for maker groups to  connect with PA and suggest more sharing and for sub-projects to be doled out to maker groups.
== I talked to some folk in Berlin, Germany who are doing a PhD study of PA.  Contact them if you have useful info to share.

Jana Deisner
Florian Eschenbacher
David Schröder

Project Ara Research at Berlin Institute of Technology
Department of Sociology
Fraunhoferstraße 33-36
D-10587 Berlin

== Phonebloks has been pretty lame about communicating.  Everyday hope is renewable.

== I am going to make efforts to contact Paul Eremenko ( he is the head of the project ... I think )
#1  What was going on before 2014m10d28 ?
#2  What is going to change ?  Why ?  How ?
#3  I will suggest holding mini-conferences around the country.
#4  I will suggest that PA dole out mini-projects to maker/hacker groups.
#5  What happened to suggestions from Gyro Gearloose and others ?

2014m11d17   PA is still pretty schizoid

PA now appears to have a customer relations kind of guy ( customers being developers ).
Elwin Ong, PhD.
Project Ara Developer Relations

On November 14th there is announcement that development boards will ship.   This piques my interest so I go look at the hardware agreement ( HA ) .  The HA seems to bear out my belief that Project Ara is not about OpenIP.  I was suspicious about there being insider only activites going on.  ..... Maybe not , since someone ( CaliforniaDev )  I know in California has been notified that they will receive development hardware soon.  The hardware was originally promised at the end of May ... so June , July , August , September, October, November ..... 5.5 months late.... The lateness does not bother me ... what bothers me is the profound silence emanating from PA land ..... with some recent spurts of random information.

So Elwin .... what is the PA plan for the future ?  Where can I go or what can I sign up for that will give me a regular stream of information about what is going on ?

2014m11d21
CaliforniaDev has received development hardware.  Will CD be allowed to share details about the goodies ?  time will tell .....  


Significant Others
Gyro Gearloose    innovative outsider
Paul Eremenko   head of project
Elwin Ong , PhD.
Jana Deisner , Florian Eschenbacher , David Schröder  Project Ara Research at Berlin Institute of Technology   historians and analytics
PhoneBloks      3rd party with non-obvious agenda

Hardware

Software

Ideas
Use modules for Personal body Computing



Links ....
Average user
Why UniPro
First recipients
Restrictions
PA photo and comments
Video that covers some concepts by Paul Eremenko


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