ProCon.org, a nonpartisan 501(c)3 nonprofit public charity dedicated to promoting critical thinking, created the new website http://www.socialnetworking.procon.org to explore the core question “Are social networking sites good for our society?”

Social networking and blogging sites accounted for 17% (about one in every six minutes) of all time spent on the Internet in Aug. 2009, nearly three times as much as in 2008. The popularity of social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Classmates.com more than quadrupled from 2005 to 2009. As of Sep. 15, 2009, Facebook had 90 million users in the US and 300 million users worldwide.

Virgin America, the airline that is reinventing domestic travel, today announced an exclusive partnership with Google to offer free in-flight WiFi to all of its guests during the holidays. The two California-based companies known for innovation, entrepreneurialism and for connecting people in new ways, have again joined forces to give Virgin America fliers the gift of in-flight connection during the holiday travel season. From Nov. 10, 2009-Jan. 15, 2010, guests on all Virgin America flights will be able to check email, gift shop online, stay in touch with family and friends via social media, or just go wherever the web takes them - all for free. In May, Virgin America became the first airline to offer Gogo® Inflight Internet service on every flight.

“Since the launch of WiFi on all of our planes, we’ve seen an overwhelmingly positive response from travelers,” said Porter Gale, Vice President of Marketing at Virgin America. “We’ve found that both business and leisure travelers are using the service at a growing rate, and many consider the availability of in-flight WiFi one of the key factors in their booking decision. We’re thrilled to team up with Google to deliver this special holiday gift to our loyal guests. We also hope it persuades more new users to try out the service -as once people try Gogo, they rarely go back.”

NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer, or IBEX, spacecraft has made it possible for scientists to construct the first comprehensive sky map of our solar system and its location in the Milky Way galaxy. The new view will change the way researchers view and study the interaction between our galaxy and sun.

The sky map was produced with data that two detectors on the spacecraft collected during six months of observations. The detectors measured and counted particles scientists refer to as energetic neutral atoms.

The wait is over. Kohjinsha plans to ship a laptop that packs dual 10.1 inch LCD screens. On display at Japan’s Ceatec, the machine is based on a 1.6GHz Athlon Neo MV-40 processor from AMD.

You can view the video right after the jump.