Of Dust and Creation

SPACE WATCH
NASA – This infrared image taken by NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, shows a star-forming cloud teeming with gas, dust and massive newborn stars. WISE, which is surveying the whole sky in infrared light, is particularly sensitive to the warm dust that permeates star-forming clouds like this one. In this way, WISE complements visible-light observations.

The mission also complements Hubble and other telescopes by showing the ‘big picture,” providing context for more detailed observations. The cluster contains some of the most massive stars known. Winds and radiation from the stars are evaporating and dispersing the cloud material from which they formed, warming the cold dust and gas surrounding the central nebula. This greenish “halo” of warm cloud material is seen best by WISE due to its large field of view and improved sensitivity over past all-sky infrared surveys. more> http://tinyurl.com/266h8kv

Youth Worldwide Risk Becoming A ‘Lost Generation’

World Bank – According to a new ILO report released today, of some 620 million economically active young people ages 15 to 24, about 81 million were unemployed at the end of 2009, the highest level in two decades of record-keeping by the organization. The global youth unemployment rate increased to 13% in 2009 from 11.9% in the last assessment in 2007.

“Either we do nothing—and risk alienating youth from the mainstream and instilling in them a legacy of distrust and hopelessness—or we invest in the biggest source of human potential that the world has ever had, and reap the benefits of that investment through greater growth and social well-being for generations to come,” says Dr. Wendy Cunningham, a senior economist and head of the Bank’s Children and Youth Program. more> http://tinyurl.com/25atx2a

How Wireless Net Neutrality Could Kill Kindle Business Model

By John P. Mello Jr. – Operators of the Information Superhighway shouldn’t be erecting toll booths where they feel like it or acting as traffic cops who determine what data and how much of it gets to their users. Giving operators that kind of power will thwart innovation. Or so we’re told. But pure Net Neutrality could have a downside, too.

“In theory, a very, very strict version of Net Neutrality, taken to its extreme, could, in fact, outlaw, or at least make it very difficult, to operate a business service like the Kindle,” argues Peter Suderman, an associate editor with Reason Magazine in Los Angeles. more> http://tinyurl.com/2dxo3b5

Google’s motives for abandoning Net Neutrality

By Seth Weintraub – It’s now clear that Google underestimated the public’s desire for true net neutrality over both wireless and wired services — something the company quickly discovered after issuing a joint policy recommendation with Verizon last week.

So when Google’s interests were only in data centers, it was completely beneficial to be net neutral. Now that Google is moving out of the data center into your house with devices and OSes and even wires, the priorities are realigned. more> http://tinyurl.com/2anmal2

After Google-Verizon fizzle, FCC should force Net neutrality

Editorial – The FCC brought part of this on itself by putting broadband Internet access in an “information services’’ rather than a “telecommunications services’’ category in 2002, largely deregulating it. This set up a DC Circuit Court ruling earlier this year that effectively stripped the FCC of power to regulate service providers. more> http://tinyurl.com/2cpbexq