New inbound data transfer price for all regions (effective July 1, 2011)

• $0.000 – all data transfer in

New data transfer price for US-Standard, US-West and Europe regions (effective July 1, 2011)

• $0.000 – first 1 GB / month data transfer out
• $0.120 per GB – up to 10 TB / month data transfer out (10 TB total)
• $0.090 per GB – next 40 TB / month data transfer out (50TB total)
• $0.070 per GB – next 100 TB / month data transfer out (150 TB total)
• $0.050 per GB – next 350 TB / month data transfer out (500 TB total)
• Contact us - next 524 TB / month data transfer out (1PB total)
• Contact us - next 4 PB / month data transfer out (5PB total)
• Contact us - data transfer out / month over 5 PB

2. How to use Twitter in the classroom
The advantage to using a tool like Twitter for education is that it’s instant and it’s to the point. There have been countless articles about whether or not social media makes us lazy, or whether it affects our attention spans. If that really is the case, why not use that to our advantage?

3. Laptops Powered by Typing Could Be on the Way
Australian researchers have figured out a way to harness the energy we use while typing to power a laptop. Using piezoelectricity, this method works in a similar way to cigarette lighters that create a spark by striking a piezoelectric crystal.

4. Stack Exchange Gets In The Conference Game With Stack Overflow DevDays
Q&A network Stack Exchange will be launching Stack Overflow DevDays this fall, a two day series of conferences targeting coders who want to brush up or dive into the latest programming technologies like MongoDB, HTML 5 and Coffeescript, with hour long tutorials put on by speakers culled from the developer community.

5. GitHub Releases Mac Client
Today GitHub announced a client for OSX, GitHub for Mac. The client walks developers through the process of creating a GitHub account and uploading repositories and provides a local admin interface similar to the traditional Web-based one.

BONUS

6. Cloud computing requires new thinking on privacy
The move to the cloud has broad implications on privacy and requires a lot of discussion on the boundaries and expectations for data in a cloud environment. The government’s approach to data privacy, in particular, is of great concern, from the legislation it enacts to the way law enforcement uses it, said Nolan Goldberg, senior counsel for IP and technology at law firm Proskauer.

2. Mashape, the Marketplace for APIs, Moves to Beta
An app is like a Lego construction, Mashape is your Lego box. Search the API you need an easily integrate it in your project.

3. Robots With Laser Vision, Ford’s New $100M Investment
Ford’s new army of laser-sighted robots has the very benevolent aim of reducing wind noise in your next car.

4. Why +1 Could Crush Facebook (And How Google Could Blow It)
Yesterday they were joined in hope by Google +1, and while many are saying that it too will fail, I believe Google has a SERIOUS opportunity here.

5. Microsoft refuses to comment as .NET developers fret about Windows 8
There is a long discussion over on the official Silverlight forum about Microsoft’s Windows 8 demo at D9 and what was said, and not said; and another over on Channel 9, Microsoft’s video-centric community site for developers.

BONUS

6. Cloud Computing Takes Us Into The Future of Technology, Chrome OS Leads The Way
In the future, computers could be distributed via a monthly subscription and the hardware and software update could become history.

Web API’s are the hottest thing on the Internet and in Web development. Application like Twitter and Facebook provide third party applications access to their data through API’s. Companies like Kynetx use Web API’s to enhance the web experience. Applications like Foursquare not only have their own API, but use API’s to connect Facebook, Twitter and other services.

These web accessible data points are becoming more and more common, and key parts of application development. Web parts make getting products out the door faster with less development time. As platforms move their storage and web servers to the cloud, the easier it is to compete on global level with fewer resources.

However there are a few drawbacks. And for the me the biggest of these is the dependence on another companies ability to stay online. Take for example applications that rely solely on the Twitter API. If that API goes down, you application is dead in the water. This is a risk yo take when relying on these web parts. But in the end, the risks generally outweigh the risk, especially if your application is non-mission critical.

Bottom line is, Web API’s are here to stay, and are all the rage. But more importantly, they are a useful integral part of the web landscape.

Amazon CloudFront Streaming
This new services gives you a world class media server in the cloud. You can now stream media files, audio and video, from a server using Adobe Flash Media Server. As with all Amazon AWS services, this is a pay for what you use, no upfront costs to start and no minimums.

CloudFront puts your files on the networks edge, delivering your content quicker, which is a great benefit when streaming audio or video files. No need to spend thousands on hardware and software.

Amazon EC2 Spot Instances
This is an interesting concept, your basically given the opportunity to bid on unused EC2 capacity. Minimum prices are set for the unused capacity, called a Spot Price, and as long as your bid doesn’t exceed that Spot Price, you can continue to use the service. I’m probably not doing it justice here, so read more about it.

Because this service may not be available for an extended period of time, suggested uses for this option would be video processing and conversion, processing research data, or modeling or analyzing data. There is some risk for data loss when using EC2 servers in this manner. You will need to make sure your price is high enough that your instance isn’t turned off in the middle of processing data.

Amazon VPC Unlimited Public Beta
This is probably the most exciting feature of the three. VPC stands for Virtual Private Cloud (similar to Virtual Private Network or VPN). It’s a standard used by companies allowing users and networks to connect with each other securely. Now the cool part. You can extend your current companies IT infrastructure into isolated Amazon compute resources via VPC, instantly adding secure private capacity to your existing infrastructure. You can also use your existing management tools to safeguard the server while on your network.

This is a hot new feature. It’s worth taking some time to review the options. If your organization often meets or exceeds existing resources, this could be an incredibly cost effective option to increase capacity, and maintain total control as if the servers were on your own network.