The heavy Amazon.com protest of Spore’s DRM appears to have caught the attention of executives at EA. IGN reports that DRM for the upcoming C&C: Red Alert 3 will be scaled back.

Unlike previous Command and Conquer games, the CD will not be required in the drive to play. The online authentication will be done just once (rather than periodic phone calls home), and up to five installations will be allowed, as opposed to three for Spore.

While I still think five installations is too few (I’ve probably re-installed Command and Conquer: Generals 20 times over the years for various reasons), EA says they will have staff standing by to grant more installations as necessary on a case by case basis. So, while this still isn’t optimal, at least we are getting a compromise. Hopefully, if the piracy rate for the game is low, perhaps EA will get comfortable enough to ship with even less DRM in the future.”

It looks like 3M is trying to bring back the good old-fashioned vacation slideshow.

The company is reportedly close to rolling out a miniature, portable digital video projector, the likes of which could be used to project digital photos, PowerPoint presentations, or cat-on-a-treadmill videos wherever you see fit.

The lucky ducks over at Popular Science got an early look at the MPro110 and report that after plugging it into a DVD player, they were able to project a movie up to 11 inches wide on various pieces of furniture, walls, and co-workers’ body parts. The picture fared much better (and bigger) in a dark room.

Apparently 3M had planned to officially announce the projector in a few weeks, but an overly enthusiastic German division of the company let the cat out of the bag a little early with a press release.

Now, my German is not so gut, but according to PopSci, the MPro will cost $359. And a video on the 3M site indicates it will have the ability to hook up to a laptop, digital camera, iPod, and other mobile devices (a little Mario Kart racing action, perhaps?). At that price and with that kind of hookup capability, the MPro would be a viable option for taking business presentations on the road