Six BeagleBoard.org GSoC projects launching

BeagleBoard.org was approved to mentor six (6) students during this year's Google as they execute their projects.  The students, projects, and mentors are:

• Christopher Friedt's project is NEON Support for FFTW.  He is being mentored by Mans Rullgard.  I'm proposing Philip Balister as a co-mentor. Christopher attends C.A.U. Kiel, Germany.  You can follow his work at http://perpetual-notion.blogspot.com/.
• Tobias Arrskog's project is Optimizing rendering of XBMC and aiding the port to ARM.  He is being mentored by Mike Zucchi.  I'm proposing Mans Rullgard and Søren Steen Christensen to assist as co-mentors. Tobias attends Lunds University, LTH. Sweden.
• Yaman Umuroglu's project is RPC-like POSIX wrappers for DSPEasy. Yaman is mentored by Katie Roberts-Hoffman.  I'm proposing Laine Walker-Avina and Frank Walzer to assist as co-mentors.  Yaman attends Middle East Technical University in Turkey.
• Varun Jewalikar's project is a High level interface to exploit the Pulse Width Modulation abilities of the BeagleBoard.  Varun is being mentored by Søren Steen Christensen.  I'm proposing Cristina Murillo to assist as a co-mentor, but I'll be looking to see if we can add a co-mentor in India.  Varun attends Delhi College of Engineering in India.
• Nicolas Boichat's project is a USB sniffer on Beagle Board.  Nicolas is being mentored by Hunyue Yau.  I'm proposing Laine Walker-Avina and Frans Meulenbroeks to assist as co-mentors.  Nicolas is finishing his Masters at EPFL (Switzerland).
• Pramod Poudel's project is OpenCV DSP Acceleration.  Pramod is being mentored by Leonardo Estevez.  I'm proposing Katie Roberts-Hoffman and Luis Gustavo Lira to assist as co-mentors.  Pramod attends University of Texas at Tyler, Texas, USA.

Thanks all for each of the roughly 60 proposals submitted to BeagleBoard.org!!  I hope that you'll continue to participate and will consider submitting a proposal again next year.  There's been a bit of a lag in the weekly sponsored projects. Boards should be in the GSoC students' hands this week, so I hope that you register your project there to still have the opportunity to get a board and execute your idea.

From the GSoC timeline, we are currently in the Community Bonding Period and very close to launching our projects:

Community Bonding Period:	Students get to know mentors, read documentation, get up to speed to begin working on their projects.

May 24:	Students begin coding for their GSoC projects; Google begins issuing initial student payments provided tax forms are on file and students are in good standing with their communities.

Every student should be in contact with his/her mentor and co-mentors on a regular basis.  This Monday, May 17th will be an all-hands meeting on #beagle at 14:00 UTC / 10AM EDT.

P.S. Mentors registered with GSoC, please contact me if I don't have the roles defined adequately--I don't mind adding additional co-mentors.