It only took two weeks since the massive backlash against EA for the DRM and account limits it included with Spore for EA to recognize that maybe it needed to respond. This morning, EA agreed to up the install limit from 3 times to 5, claiming they may also make exceptions in some cases, and also released a patch allowing for multiple user names. While it's nice that the company finally responded, this is still a pretty weak response and doesn't address the core issues.

Also, it's odd that it took the company this long to respond. EA claims that the controversy caught them "off guard." If so, then they clearly haven't paid much attention. We were among many sites that talked about the DRM problem back in May, which got tons of angry comments. Other sites that discussed the DRM got similar angry comments as well, so the only way this should have caught EA off guard was if they weren't paying any attention whatsoever to what various gamers were saying.

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'Trust and safety' board closed until further notice

Exclusive Hackers brazenly posted sensitive information including home addresses and phone numbers for 1,200 eBay users to an official online forum dedicated to fraud prevention on the auction site.

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

After you've done the delicate Windows Validation dance, but before you actually get the latest automatic update, there's a background component running in Windows called BITS (Background Intelligent Transfer Service), tasked with acquiring the key updates that keep your system protected. So you can imagine how security analysts are very interested by Elia Florio's (of Symantec) new paper, outlining security compromises bypassing firewalls via BITS -- but there's a catch. BITS itself isn't compromised, per se, it's just a content acquisition service for Windows. In other words, your machine already has to be compromised for BITS to bypass your firewall; this kind of hack just helps whichever Trojan / worm / virus you've become infected with acquire more software components to aid in its intrusion. So the next time your mom or dad sends you bits-hack-RUN-ME.exe, think twice.

[Thanks, Philip]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

What's that you say? A faint glimmer of hope on the horizon for Vonage? Surely you jest! But that unlikely-as-it-seems scenario appears to be just the case, with Vonage following up recent Q1 financial results of shrinking losses ($72.3 million, as opposed to $85.2 million last year) and growing sales ($195.9 million, up 64 percent) with news of a heretofore-thought-impossible technology solution to its patent woes. "We will begin rolling these workarounds out shortly, hopefully in the next few weeks, and we believe they will work," says CEO Jeffrey Citron. Analysts point out that Vonage isn't making any promises, and the company is far from out of the woods, but we're guessing Vonage wouldn't be bragging about something like this in the midst of appealing the Verizon patent suit if there wasn't some truth to it. The update will apparently be low-cost, just involving software downloads.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

As with Firefox, you can add new features and extend OpenOffice.org's functionality by installing extensions. Here some of the most useful ones to try.

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

While it's certainly debatable whether beer is to thank for the explosion in the consumer electronics industry, it looks like we'll be thanking the beverage without hesitation for making our world a little greener. Oddly enough, "scientists and Australian beer maker Foster's are teaming up to generate clean energy from brewery waste water by using sugar-consuming bacteria," and better yet, the University of Queensland will host a microbial fuel cell at a Foster's Group brewery near Brisbane. Essentially, the cell will consume brewery wastes such as sugar, starch, and alcohol, while producing clean electricity by harnessing the energy released from the organic materials coming in. The device is expected to produce two-kilowatts of power, and while hopes are to bring the technology to other breweries and wineries around the country, this iteration should crank up sometime in September.

[Via Physorg, thanks Michael T.]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!