A developer is working on a research project that involves working with new  technologies. The concepts are also new to the developer, and the developer is working on building a product on top of the new API's.

As a result of the technology being new and undocumented, the developer spends a lot of time tearing apart demos and analyzing data in order to understand the technology.

Since many agile methodologies involve daily or frequent team updates, such as Scrum and the daily stand up, how should developers give updates to both technical and non-technical stakeholders without it sounding like he or she accomplished nothing?  **Note that the meeting we have currently doesn't have a name.**

When the work involves a fair degree of learning or acquisition of knowledge, as a PM, how can I advise these developers give their updates without making them feel as if they aren't making any progress, since there may not be anything to show for days/weeks?

Should the frequency of status meetings be reduced, or should the frequency remain the same with a different approach?