Today sees the pre-launch of CRAM 2.0. Over the next two months, users can test the new version before its full launch on 1 June 2013.

This pre-launch comprises the publication of a release candidate for CRAM 2.0, our sequence data compression format, its supporting software toolkit and the CRAM reference registry. CRAM is a framework technology comprising file format and toolkit in which we combine highly efficient and tunable reference-based compression of sequence data with a data format that is directly available for computational use.

CRAM 2.0 contains numerous improvements over CRAM 1.0 made possible by active community participation. Minor modifications to the format are possible during the two month review period that now begins.

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