OpenHack London was a great opportunity for me to get introduced to a powerful set of web development tools by Yahoo and get inspired by the ideas of some talented hackers that were produced over a 24 hour period. Before starting hacking, Yahoo! Engineers gave presentations about the tools and technologies including BOSS, Fire Eagle, GeoPlanet, Pipes, YAP and YOS. All of the talks can be seen on Skills Matter’s web site [1]

Kizoom Team won the “Most Awesome Hack” prize with their robot finger that presses a button when it hears a loud noise. It is based on Lejos which allows programing LEGO ® robots in Java with a built-in Java virtual machine. Open Free Cycle, developed by Premasagar Rose and Tom Leitch using OpenMail, YQL and some other technologies won the “Hacker’s Choice” award, selected by the audience. It is an attempt to make community sharing for free. A list of all hacks presented in the event can be found here

[1] Yahoo! Application and Social Platforms

Martin Barnes – Yahoo! GeoPlanet. Exploring Places without Maps

Christian Heilmann – Remixing Web Data for Your Hacks

Ted Drake – Unlocking the Secrets of BOSS

Dav Glass – YUI3

Mike McKenna – PHP and Internationalisation

Also take a look at the following links:

A Very Personal Ramble Down Hackday Memory Lane

Sad Robot by Pornophonique, that gave a concert during the event