(Photo: Uncubed)

The Uncubed tech talent fair is back, but this time it's taken on some major partners and expanded into a two-day, tech celeb-studded event plus awesome party.

As we told you back in April, NYC Uncubed is an initiative that seeks to buck traditional recruitment tactics in favor of innovative new ways for startups to recruit talent. Now, Uncubed has partnered with NYC Digital to host a tech festival on November 1st and 2nd November 12th and 13th* at the Altman Building in Manhattan.

The first day, called Scout, will be "for startups looking for talent and talented people looking for startups." Aside from having over 60 recruitment booths, there will also be classes and workshops, talks and stories by tech experts and a paper napkin pitch session. Also, because this is Startupland, there will be a ping pong tournament and a latte art battle.

The second day, Scale, will be for "startups looking to grow and brands looking to learn and collaborate." It's jam-packed with storytelling and talks from a slew of NYC tech luminaries like Scott Heiferman, Ricky Van Veen, Gary Vaynerchuck, Neil Blumanthal, Rachel Hoat and Jessica Lawrence.

The official afterparty will be DJ'd by Nancy Whang of LCD Soundsystem and Chris Keating of Yeasayer because of course.

Tickets for day one are $20 and for day two are $50. Sign up quickly for an earlybird discount, since next week they'll go up in price.

*Dates have been changed due to Hurricane Sandy.

This happened.

You know that tiny little corner of Mayor Bloomberg's office occupied by those primarily concerned with making the future of New York City totally futuristic (better known as NYC Digital)? They're at it again!

Yesterday, NYC Digital launched their NYC Open Data site on Tumblr, which is basically a bunch of datasets obtained by the city, and posted on the internet for anyone to play with the API.

The NYC Open Data Tumblr aims its sights on those who wouldn't normally sift through said data sets, and post them to Tumblr in hopes of provoking interest among the whisperyblogging set, or ideally, the results of opening up their API to everyone, which has the potential to yield some amazing stuff. In the mean time: Greenmarkets! Firehouses! Park locations! Baby names! And so on. Per the Tumblr:

As part of Mayor Bloomberg’s commitment to transparency and innovation, over 800 (and counting!) City datasets are now online for anyone in New York or around the world to explore and access via an API, for deeper, real-time integration into apps and websites.

Nerdy! Service-y! And so on. Even more compelling is the recently-launched NYC Food Recipes Tumblr, which—note of criticism—is being sorely underused. It could be the digital epicenter of the most underground ethnic food recipes from some of the best ethnic neighborhoods in the country, and yet: Low Fat Pumpkin Cupcakes? Where are the dumpling recipes of Flushing, the jerk chicken secrets of Crown Heights, and the best Bulgolgi in Bedford Park? This thing could be so much cooler. If we wanted boring recipes for boring muffins, we could go pretty much anywhere else on the internet—let alone, the world—to find them. Just because a municipality is spending cash on digital infrastructure doesn't mean it has to be as boring as the bureaucrats who run it. Just sayin'.