These kind of weekend projects make me feel insignificant.
But then I see that author is on Chrome UI team so he is familiar with technology required (App Engine, Chrome HTML5).
Without that context it is just magic(and even then idea and implementation is great). But I think there must be something many of us can do in a weekend that will look like magic. But it was possible because of months/years of experience.
I am currently studying your code. Thanks for making it available.