Google’s new App Engine looks like an all-in-one version of Amazon’s cloud computing stack with a few differences. Here’s how things stack up: Amazon Web Services (AWS) vs Google’s App Engine EC2 virtual server, use any language. Dynamic webserving, using Python S3 persistent storage Google File System (GFS) – data storage SimpleDB – database BigTable…

I’m helping to organize a Barcamp-style iPhone Development hackathon at Brooklyn Polytechnic later this month. Our official blurb describes the event as follows: iPhoneDevCampNYC will bring together iPhone developers, explorers, professionals, and owners, to share the current state and their visions for the future direction of development on the iPhone. Topics may include – but…

Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody on the Colbert Report. Clay has a fantastic way of taking complex concepts and transmogrifying them into simple ideas which make them much easier to grasp. He’s also one of the most animated professors I’ve ever had. Highly recommended.

Silicon Alley Insider has a story with a we’re-really-not-trying-that-hard-but-sensationalism-just-comes-naturally-to-us headline boldly proclaiming that they can teach you How To Hack Facebook In 51 Seconds. Take a look a the video below and see what you think. Wrong! Yeah, that’s what I thought too. That’s not Facebook. That’s a Facebook app. A custom application, written by…

It’s been two weeks since I left SXSWi and while I had a fantastic time again, the intensity of this year’s festival was somewhat muted (at least for me) in comparison with the last time I was there in 2006. Why? A couple of reasons, two of which were: Size. SXSWi was on three levels…