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EA loosens criticized activation policy on Spore
22 September, 2008

Faced with growing criticism about the way its newly released game Spore (SPORE-RELOADED) is activated on computers, gaming publishing giant Electronic Arts did a little retooling of its own. EA has increased the number of computers that can be loaded with the game to five from three, despite earlier precautions with its digital rights management (DRM) policy intended to reduce piracy of its copyrighted software. Spore, released two weeks ago featuring unlikely creatures that can be tailored to the user’s liking, has altered other DRM limitations embedded in the software, the company announced.

Frank Gibeau, EA Games Label president, said in a statement:

We’ve received complaints from a lot of customers who we recognize and respect. And while it’s easy to discount the noise from those who only want to post or transfer thousands of copies of the game on the Internet, I believe we need to adapt our policy to accommodate our legitimate consumers.

EA announced it will not only increase the number of computers that users can load one copy of Spore onto, but will also offer ways in which users can receive additional activations of the gaming software if warranted.

The game publisher also plans to fast-track its development efforts on creating a system that will allow consumers to de-authorize machines and transfer authorizations to new computers. EA said it believed at the time it created Spore that its DRM policy would not present any problems. The company noted that 75 percent of its customers tended to use only one computer for running their games and that less than 1 percent of its users relied on three or more computers. It also added that it told consumers that they could receive more than three activations if warranted by calling into the company’s customer service.

Source: Cnet

Posted by bourne 03:14 | interest | Comment(0) | Permalink
Comcast adds 250 GB monthly cap
30 August, 2008

Comcast, the US largest broadband provider, is rolling out restrictions on its service usage, and subscribers whose use of the internet exceeds 250 GB of data a month will first get a warning call, and then on the second instance, their service will be suspended for a year…its current usage policy was amended online today, and this policy will start October 1, the company announced today. The more interesting part is that Comcast will NOT be provding any tools to monitor bandwidth usage, but has told users to search online for bandwidth monitoring tool, reports News.com. The FAQs about excess usage are here.

Here’s how it justifies it: “250 GB/month is an extremely large amount of data, much more than a typical residential customer uses on a monthly basis. Currently, the median monthly data usage by our residential customers is approximately 2 - 3 GB. To put 250 GB of monthly usage in perspective, a customer would have to do any one of the following: — Send 50 million e-mails (at 0.05 KB/e-mail)– Download 62,500 songs (at 4 MB/song)– Download 125 standard-definition movies (at 2 GB/movie)– Upload 25,000 hi-resolution digital photos (at 10 MB/photo).” Of course HD streaming will also speed up that limit. This move from Comcast comes after its brush with FCC, where the regulator lambasted the company for blocking and slowing down P2P traffic on its service. Comcast insists this latest move has nothing to do with the FCC ruling against it.

Source: Washington post

Posted by bourne 02:22 | interest | Comment(0) | Permalink
Subculture of Suspension Cell Lines
30 August, 2008

In general terms cultures derived from blood (e.g. lymphocytes) grow in suspension. Cells may grow as single cells or in clumps (e.g. EBV transformed lymphoblastoid cell lines). For these types of lines subculture by dilution is relatively easy. But for lines that grow in clumps it may be necessary to bring the cells into a single cell suspension by centrifugation and resuspension by pipetting in a smaller volume before counting.

Schematic diagram of "Subculture of Suspension Cell Lines"

Materials

  • Media– pre-warmed to 37oC (refer to the ECACC Cell Line Data Sheet for the correct medium)
  • 70% Ethanol in water

Equipment

  • Personal protective equipment (sterile gloves, laboratory coat, safety visor)
  • Waterbath set to 37oC
  • Microbiological safety cabinet at appropriate containment level
  • Elisa plates
  • Centrifuge
  • CO2 incubator
  • Inverted phase contrast microscope
  • Haemocytometer
  • Pre-labeled flasks & Cell Culture Plates(6 Well Plate, 24 Well Plate, 96 Well Plate)

Procedure

  1. View cultures using an inverted phase contrast microscope. Cells growing in exponential growth phase should be bright, round and refractile. Hybridomas may be very sticky and require a gentle knock to the flask to detach the cells. EBV transformed cells can grow in very large clumps that are very difficult to count and the center of the large clumps may be non-viable.
  2. Do not centrifuge to subculture unless the pH of the medium is acidic (phenol red = yellow) which indicates the cells have overgrown and may not recover. If this is so, centrifuge at 150g for 5 minutes, re-seed at a slightly higher cell density and add 10- 20% of conditioned medium (supernatant) to the fresh media.
  3. Take a small sample of the cells from the cell suspension (100-200uL - Protocol 6 - Cell Quantification). Calculate cells/ml and re-seed the desired number of cells into freshly prepared flasks without centrifugation just by diluting the cells. The data sheet will give the recommended seeding densities.
  4. Repeat this every 2-3 days.

Key Points

  1. If the cell line is a hybridoma or other cell line that produces a substance (e.g. recombinant protein or growth factor) of interest retain the spent media for analysis.

Source: Sigma-Aldrich

Posted by bourne 02:21 | interest | Comment(3) | Permalink
Web search and emails most popular activities
20 August, 2008

Good news for Google, Yahoo, MSN, and maybe even Cuil – search engine use is on the rise, according to a report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. While it may seem like everyone has Googled themselves, Twittered some inane tidbit about their day, or shared a little too much via Facebook status updates, some people apparently only use the Internet to send useless forwards and check the weather. The ranks of the Internet illiterate are dwindling, however. The number of people who regularly use online search engines is up 69 percent from January 2002, the report said. E-mail use increased about 15 percent in the same time period, but e-mail has always been the most popular app on the Internet, wrote report author Deborah Fallows.

Among daily Internet activities, 60 percent use e-mail, 49 percent use online search, 39 percent check news, 30 percent check weather, 29 percent research a hobby, 28 percent surf the Web for fun, and 13 percent use social networking sites. This is the second time Pew has seen a jump in search engine use – the first being a 10 percent increase in late 2005 when there was a lot of media buzz around search engines, including the Google IPO. What accounts for the jump this time around? Fallows suggested that at this point, Internet users can find a high-performing, site-specific search engine on any Web site “that is worth its salt.” Increased access to broadband and the quality of search returns has also contributed to the rise in use, she wrote.

Source: PC Magazine

Posted by bourne 08:44 | interest | Comment(1) | Permalink
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