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Submission + - Population Control is a Taboo Subject - Should it Be?

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: "In the world of solutions to environmental problems," writes Adele Peters, "one topic rarely gets any discussion: Birth control. By 2050, the U.N. estimates that the human population will hit 9.6 billion, putting unprecedented pressure on the planet's energy and agriculture systems. But that estimate tends to be accepted as inevitable, rather than as a number that could (or should) change." Peters continues, "The subject of population control wasn't always taboo. "The bestselling environment-related book of the '60s and '70s was not Silent Spring, it was Paul Ehrlich's Population Bomb," says [Foundation for Deep Ecology's Tom] Butler. "So this was a huge and integrated topic of conversation decades ago, and then it fell off the radar screen." Part of the challenge is that the topic is now politically fraught both for the right and left. "On the right, if we're talking about the demographic trajectory of the human family, inevitably, this brings up questions of sexuality, abortion, immigration, women's rights, gender equity—all kinds of hot button issues," he says. "And then on the far ends of the left spectrum, there's a radical fringe that has tried to portray family planning as equal to coercion."" So, should we continue to ignore the 9.6 billion elephants in the room?

Submission + - Java API are protected by copyright (arstechnica.co.uk)

Submitted by nickweller
nickweller writes: The Justice Department is weighing in on the hot-button intellectual property dispute between Google and Oracle, telling the Supreme Court that APIs are protected by copyright. ..

A federal appeals court ruled that the "declaring code and the structure, sequence, and organization of the API packages are entitled to copyright protection."

Submission + - Swift vs. Objective-C: 10 Reasons the Future Favors Swift

Submitted by snydeq
snydeq writes: InfoWorld's Paul Solt argues that It’s high time to make the switch to the more approachable, full-featured Swift for iOS and OS X app dev. 'Programming languages don’t die easily, but development shops that cling to fading paradigms do. If you're developing apps for mobile devices and you haven't investigated Swift, take note: Swift will not only supplant Objective-C when it comes to developing apps for the Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and devices to come, but it will also replace C for embedded programming on Apple platforms. Thanks to several key features, Swift has the potential to become the de-facto programming language for creating immersive, responsive, consumer-facing applications for years to come.'

Submission + - Google Shuts Down Map Maker Following Hacks (techcrunch.com)

Submitted by Errorcod3
Errorcod3 writes: After a series of spam attacks and other obscene edits, Google has temporarily taken its crowd-sourced map editing tool Map Maker offline. The online tool has, for years, allowed those in countries without detailed maps to be able to add various details and points of interest to Google Maps, like new roads or parks, for example. But in more recent months, the tool has been instead used by some to upload inappropriate content to Google Maps – like the recent prank which added an image of the Android mascot urinating on the Apple logo, for instance.

Submission + - World Health Organization wants more neutral (and blander) disease names (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: The World Health Organization (WHO) mostly works to reduce the physical toll of disease. But last week it turned to another kind of harm: the insult and stigma inflicted by diseases named for people, places, and animals. Among the existing monikers that its new guidelines “for the Naming of New Human Infectious Diseases” would discourage: Ebola, swine flu, Rift valley Fever, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and monkey pox. Instead, WHO says researchers, health officials, and journalists should use more neutral, generic terms, such as severe respiratory disease or novel neurologic syndrome.

Submission + - The Milky Way's most recent supernova that nobody saw

Submitted by StartsWithABang
StartsWithABang writes: A little over 300 years ago, a supernova — a dying, ultramassive star — exploded, giving rise to such a luminous explosion that it might have shone as bright as our entire galaxy. And nobody on Earth saw it. Located in the plane of our Milky Way galaxy, the light was obscured, but thanks to a suite of great, space-based observatories (Hubble, Spitzer, and Chandra), we’ve been able to piece together exactly what occurred. Not only that, but observations of a light-echo, or reflected light off of the nearby gas, has allowed us to see the light from this explosion centuries later, and learn exactly how it happened.

Submission + - The Best-Paying IT Security Jobs of 2015 (dice.com)

Submitted by Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes: It’s no secret that tech pros with extensive IT security backgrounds are in high demand, especially in the wake of last year’s high-profile hacks of major companies such as Sony and Home Depot. Which security-related job pays the most? According to a new analysis of Dice salary data, a lead software security engineer can expect to earn an average of $233,333 in 2015, followed by a director of security, who can expect to earn $200,000. Nor are those outliers: Chief information security officers, directors of information security, and IT security consultants can all expect to earn close to $200,000, if not more. While many subfields of IT security prove quite lucrative, there are also other jobs that earn below the average for tech pros. Security analysts will make an average of $59,880 this year, for instance, while security installation technicians—because somebody needs to install the cameras and sensors—can expect to earn $31,680. Compare that to the average tech-pro salary of $89,450 in 2014, which is only expected to rise this year. According to a 2014 report from Global Knowledge and Penton, those armed with certifications such as CRISC, CISM, and CISA can expect to earn a healthy six figures a year.

Submission + - World's Most Dangerous Driving Simulator (ieee.org)

Submitted by agent elevator
agent elevator writes: Lawrence Ulrich at IEEE Spectrum has an interview with the maker of a simulator for professional racers, the $54,000 Motion Pro II from CXC Simulations. It conveys amazingly fine sensations including: the feel of the car's tires wearing out or the car lightening as its fuel dwindles. It also has the kick to make you really feel a crash: “If you hit the wall in an Indy Car and don’t take your hands off the wheel, you’ll break your wrists... Our wheel is a one-to-one replication of that, but we don’t turn it up that high. It’s the first time we’ve been able to replicate racing forces so high that it introduces liability questions.”

Submission + - Philippines gives Uber its first legal framework to operate in Asia (thestack.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Philippines has given Uber a rare boost in its hard-fought Asian territories, by granting new legislation that provides rules within which it may legally operate. To this end the country's Department of Transportation and Communications has created a new category of ride called the Transportation Network Vehicle Service (TNVS) classification — whilst at the same time mollifying beleaguered indigenous taxi-services by creating an equivalent classification for an app-hailed taxi able to accept credit cards. As with all its other negotiations in Asia, the fruits of Uber's consultation with the Philippine government was prefaced by unorganized invasion, trade complaints, bans and general conflict.

Submission + - Hanging out with Someone who Walked on the Moon (hackaday.com)

Submitted by szczys
szczys writes: Greg Charvat recently sat in on an MIT course called "Engineering Apollo". For this set of sessions, David Scott recounted his experience as an astronaut. David was the commander of the Apollo 15 mission, flew several others, and took part in the development of much of the equipment used in the moon missions. This class is him hanging around with a bunch of engineers talking in a level of detail rarely heard.

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