Government Technology reports:
On July 16, Google Maps is going to make it more difficult and expensive to use its API, which could make custom maps that rely on the service less sustainable or even unfeasible for the people who made them… First, Google Maps is requiring all projects to have an official API key in order to work. If a user doesn’t have a key, the quality of the map will likely be reduced, or it could simply stop working. Second, API keys will only work if they are attached to somebody’s credit card. Google will charge that card if users exceed a certain number of API requests, which is different for different services. Google will provide users a free $200 credit toward those costs each month…
There are a couple places where the changes might have more of an impact. One is in the civic hacking space, where people often work with government data to create niche projects that aim for low costs, or are free so that as many people as possible can use them… “I think that’s what scares people a little bit, it certainly scares me, this thought of having this API out there and not knowing how many people are going to use it,” said Derek Eder, founder of the civic tech company DataMade. “I don’t want to suddenly get a bill for $1,000.”

There’s at least three Open Source alternatives, and Geoawesomeness.com lists nine more.
Slashdot reader Jiri_Komarek also points out that Google’s move was good news for its competitor, MapTiler. “Since Google announced the pricing change the number of our users increased by 200%,” said Petr Pridal, head of the MapTiler team. “We expect more people to come as they get their first bill from Google.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Google Maps API Becomes ‘More Difficult and Expensive’

“Non-compete clauses are common among professionals, justified by a variety of innocuous-sounding and apparently reasonable business reasons,” writes Slashdot reader Beeftopia. “This story shows that, surprisingly, it is a very effective wage suppression mechanism as well, used in industries where it would seem unnecessary.”

NPR reports:
For many years, fast-food franchises agreed not to recruit or hire one another’s workers within the same chain. These “no-poach agreements,” as they are known, meant a worker couldn’t get better pay or move up the ladder by going to another franchise. Bob Ferguson, Washington’s attorney general, said such agreements are clearly illegal. “These no-poach clauses, I think, are an example of a rigged system,” he said. “I think you’re a worker, you have no idea this clause exists, you haven’t signed it. And yet when you try to go to another business to improve your wages, you can’t do it, because of this condition in a contract that you never signed…”
Princeton economist Alan Krueger says such restrictions make the labor market work inefficiently, keeping wages artificially low. “I think it’s very hard to come up with a sound business justification for this practice, other than reducing competition for workers,” he says.

Arby’s, Carl’s Jr., and five other fast food chains agreed “under pressure” to stop enforcing their non-compete agreements, while eight more chains are currently being investigated by a coalition of 11 state attorney generals. Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey reports that 80% of fast food workers are currently locked into non-compete agreements, according to Food & Wine magazine.
“Though a statement from the International Franchise Association argues that these agreements are necessary to keep employees from jumping ship before the expense to train them has been recouped, opponents of these clauses suggest the industrywide benefit of suppressing wages may be the real driving factor.”

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Source: Slashdot – Finally, Non-Compete Clauses Eliminated… For Fast Food Workers

Long-time Slashdot reader reifman writes: If you’re eagerly awaiting your city’s selection for HQ2, you may want to check out GeekWire’s photo gallery of anti-Amazon graffiti images from around Seattle. Animosity towards Amazon has grown in the wake of its threats over a per head tax on employees, which the city council passed and then repealed shortly after. The tax would have increased the budget for services for our 12,000+ homeless. Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos also fought the state income tax on the wealthy in 2010.

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Source: Slashdot – Anti-Amazon Graffiti Increasing In Seattle (with Photos)

schwit1 quotes CNN: In an experiment with global implications, Australian scientists have successfully wiped out more than 80% of disease-carrying mosquitoes in trial locations across north Queensland.

The experiment, conducted by scientists from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization and James Cook University (JCU), targeted Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which spread deadly diseases such as dengue fever and Zika. In JCU laboratories, researchers bred almost 20 million mosquitoes, infecting males with bacteria that made them sterile. Then, last summer, they released over three million of them in three towns on the Cassowary Coast.
The sterile male mosquitoes didn’t bite or spread disease, but when they mated with wild females, the resulting eggs didn’t hatch, and the population crashed.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Australian Experiment Wipes Out Over 80% of Disease-Carrying Mosquitoes