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“Here’s something that isn’t an urban legend — Snopes, the popular urban legends reference site, has been pushing adware, for at least 6 months, to users via ads displayed on its Web site. No one seems to have called them on it until recently.”

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Following a recent court loss, hugely popular file storage service Rapidshare might soon be faced with a tough choice: stop users from uploading/downloading copyrighted music from its servers, or get shut down.

German’s equivalent of the RIAA, GEMA, has won a copyright infringement case against Rapidshare, as the judge ruled that Rapdishare can be held accountable for the actions of its users. It’s the story as old as the internet: if you’re merely providing a hosting service, should you also monitor every file hosted on your servers and prevent any copyrighted files to be uploaded/downloaded? Lately, the answer has been yes: at the very least, if the music/movie industry points to a file and ask you to remove it, you have to comply.

However, although GEMA was quick to declare victory on this one (press release in German), claiming that RapidShare now must take preventive action and check all the files on its servers for copyright infringement, it’s not quite clear what the court has decided yet. We’ve seen pressure to put similar requirements on ISPs, and the general consensus among experts is that this would be either impossible or highly impractical; RapidShare, with the huge amount of material it hosts (they claim 4.5 petabytes of storage), would be no different.

The folks at TorrentFreak spoke to Christian Solmecke, a lawyer at the Cologne Chambers of Lawyers Wilde & Beuger, who thinks that RapidShare’s demise is far from inevitable. “RapidShare will appeal against the decision of the Landgericht (District Court) of Düsseldorf. If they do so, we will have to wait and see what the Oberlandesgericht (Higher District Court) of Düsseldorf (as the Court of Appeal) says,” he says.

RapidShare is fully operational at the time of this writing.

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Hollywood laid much of the blame for illegal movie downloading on college students. Now, it says its math was wrong.

In a 2005 study it commissioned, the Motion Picture Association of America claimed that 44 percent of the industry’s domestic losses came from illegal downloading of movies by college students, who often have access to high-bandwidth networks on campus.

The MPAA has used the study to pressure colleges to take tougher steps to prevent illegal file-sharing and to back legislation currently before the House of Representatives that would force them to do so.

But now the MPAA, which represents the U.S. motion picture industry, has told education groups a “human error” in that survey caused it to get the number wrong. It now blames college students for about 15 percent of revenue loss.

The MPAA says that’s still significant, and justifies a major effort by colleges and universities to crack down on illegal file-sharing. But Mark Luker, vice president of campus IT group Educause, says it doesn’t account for the fact that more than 80 percent of college students live off campus and aren’t necessarily using college networks. He says 3 percent is a more reasonable estimate for the percentage of revenue that might be at stake on campus networks.

“The 44 percent figure was used to show that if college campuses could somehow solve this problem on this campus, then it would make a tremendous difference in the business of the motion picture industry,” Luker said. The new figures prove “any solution on campus will have only a small impact on the industry itself.”

The original report, by research firm LEK, claims the U.S. motion picture industry lost $6.1 billion to piracy worldwide, with most of the losses overseas. It identified the typical movie pirate as a male aged 16-24. MPAA said in a statement that no errors had been found in the study besides the percentage of revenue losses that could be attributed to college students, but that it would hire a third party to validate the numbers.

“We take this error very seriously and have taken strong and immediate action to both investigate the root cause of this problem as well as substantiate the accuracy of the latest report,” the group said in a statement.

Terry Hartle, vice president of the American Council on Education, which represents higher education in Washington, said the mistakes showed the entertainment industry has unfairly targeted college campuses.

“Illegal peer-to-peer file-sharing is a society-wide problem. Some of it occurs at college s and universities but it is a small portion of the total,” he said, adding colleges will continue to take the problem seriously, but more regulation isn’t necessary.

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Changelog 3.6.5 -> 3.7.0 | (2008-01-23)

* Updated Media Player Classic to version 6.4.9.1 rev. 34
* Updated ffdshow to revision 1805
* Updated x264 VFW codec to revision 721bm
* Updated madFLAC to version 1.7
* Updated FLV splitter to version 1.0.0.4
* Added MONOGRAM AMR splitter (version 0.9.0.1)
* Removed RadLight Musepack filter
* Added MONOGRAM Musepack splitter (version 0.3.1.2)
* Added MONOGRAM Musepack decoder (version 0.9.1.2)
* Changed default MP3 audio audio decoder from Fraunhofer to ffdshow
* Changed default MP1/MP2 audio decoder to ffdshow
* Minor changes

Download K-Lite Mega Codec Pack 3.7.0

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K-Lite Codec Pack 3.7.0 Full
K-Lite Codec Pack 3.7.0 Basic

Anyone who thought video games were a waste of time have probably been surprised about Nintendo’s latest and greatest, the Wii. It gets people active by using their arms and motions to simulate sports such as tennis, baseball, even bowling. But it doesn’t stop there! A new useful application is emerging: surgical training.

Resident surgeons were found to perform better on simulated operations after playing a bit of Wii than those who opted out of the fun. How much better? They scored nearly 50 percent higher on tool control and performance.

Of course, not all games are going to improve coordination. Games that require subtle movements and precision are obviously better than those that require you to swing a bat. But this approach could be a very valuable medical training tool for countries which can’t afford higher-end solutions. They are developing special software for the console, which costs only $250, that could hone surgical skills even more. Imagine bringing home your own copy of “Surgery 101″ in the future!

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Blizzard Entertainment announced today that its juggernaut MMO, World of Warcraft, has reached 10 million subscribers. The announcement is a note to would-be competitors – listen up Age of Conan, Pirates of the Burning Sea, and Warhammer Online* – the 800 lbs. gorilla keeps getting bigger.

Not only does that subscriber number far surpass the proportions fathomed by MMO-makers pre-WoW, but Blizzard also clarified what the company means by “subscriber.” Specificity further underlines the credibility of the 10 million figure. (The number doesn’t include unused pre-paid cards, for instance.) Blizzard also noted that the game’s first expansion, The Burning Crusade, was the best-selling PC game of 2007, holding the record for fastest-selling PC game of all time. Nearly 2.4 million copies flew off store shelves in its first 24 hours it was available.

Writing this, it strikes me how much WoW seemed like a side project when it was originally announced. Compared to the massive popularity of Warcraft, Diablo, and Starcraft, it seemed, well, marginal. Of course, now the blockbuster title far overshadows any of those franchises. For the time being, in any case.

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Updated, 6:45 p.m. | The actor Heath Ledger was found dead this afternoon in an apartment in Manhattan, according to the New York City police. Signs pointed to a suicide or an accidental overdose, police sources said. Mr. Ledger was 28.

At 3:31 p.m., according to the police, a masseuse arrived at the fourth-floor apartment of the building, at 421 Broome Street, between Crosby and Lafayette Streets in SoHo, for an appointment with Mr. Ledger. The masseuse was let in to the home by a housekeeper, who then knocked on the door of the bedroom Mr. Ledger was in. When no one answered, the housekeeper and the masseuse opened the bedroom and found Mr. Ledger naked and unconscious on a bed, with sleeping pills — both prescription medication and nonprescription — on a night table. They moved his body to the floor and attempted to revive him, but he did not respond. They immediately called the authorities.

The police said they did not suspect foul play. Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the office of the city’s chief medical examiner, Dr. Charles S. Hirsch, said that employees of the office were at the apartment and that an autopsy would be conducted on Wednesday. Around 6:30 p.m., city workers rolled Mr. Ledger’s body, in a black body bag on a stretcher, out of the building.

Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s deputy commissioner for public information, initially said that the apartment was owned by the actress Mary-Kate Olsen, but later reversed himself and said that was not the case.

A representative of Ms. Olsen said that the apartment did not belong to the actress. “It is not her apartment,” the representative, Annette Wolf, a publicist for Ms. Olsen, said in a phone interview. “She does not own the apartment. She has never owned the apartment. She and her sister have an apartment in New York City but they are not in this building.”

Heathcliff Andrew Ledger was born April 4, 1979 to Sally Ledger, a French teacher, and Kim Ledger, an engineer. Named after the main characters of Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights.” He and his older sister, Katherine, grew up in Perth, Australia; his parents were divorced when he was about 10. As a student, he joined a local theater company and appeared in a production of “Peter Pan,” which led to his being cast in children’s television programs.

Mr. Ledger’s first Hollywood film was the teenage romantic comedy “10 Things I Hate About You” (1999). He later appeared in romantic-hero roles in films like “A Knight’s Tale” (2001) and “Casanova” (2005).

But the role for which Mr. Ledger was probably best known by American audiences was in “Brokeback Mountain” (2005). The film, based on a short story by Annie Proulx about two cowboys who fall in love, won critical acclaim. Reviewing the film in The New York Times, the critic Stephen Holden wrote, “Mr. Ledger magically and mysteriously disappears beneath the skin of his lean, sinewy character. It is a great screen performance, as good as the best of Marlon Brando and Sean Penn.” Mr. Ledger was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor in January 2006.

Mr. Ledger met the actress Michelle Williams while filming ‘’Brokeback Mountain.” The two actors fell into a romance and moved to Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, where their comings and goings were widely noted by the celebrity press. They had a daughter, Matilda Rose, who was born on Oct. 28, 2005. The couple separated last year.

In an interview in London for an article published in November, Mr. Ledger told The New York Times, ‘’I feel like I’m wasting time if I repeat myself.” He said in the interview that he was not proud of his latest role, in Todd Haynes’s “I’m Not There,” in which Mr. Ledger was one of a half-dozen actors depicting the musician Bob Dylan. ‘’I feel the same way about everything I do. The day I say, ‘It’s good’ is the day I should start doing something else,” he said in the interview.

Mr. Ledger had been cast as The Joker in the latest Batman installment, “The Dark Knight,” set to be released this summer.

As news of Mr. Ledger’s death made its way across the Internet, the Police Department issued a fairly terse summary of the death: “ON TUESDAY, 01/22/08, AT APPROXIMATELY 1530 HOURS, IN THE CONFINES OF THE 5 PRECINCT, POLICE RESPONDED TO 421 BROOME STREET AND FOUND A M/W/28 UNCONSCIOUS. THE VICTIM WAS PRONOUNCED DOA AT THE SCENE. M.E.’S OFFICE TO DETERMINE THE CAUSE OF DEATH. INVESTIGATION CONTINUES.”

Calls by The Times to Mara Buxbaum, a publicist for Mr. Ledger, and Steve Alexander, the actor’s agent, were not immediately returned this afternoon.

The building at 421 Broome Street was sold for $4.8 million in 1999 by Ho Hwa Properties Inc. to Red Tulip, L.L.C. Calls to a phone number listed for Junia Hissa Neiva, a Brazilian painter who is listed as an owner of Red Tulip and of the building, went to an answering machine that was full and could not accept new messages.

Julie McIntosh, a hair stylist in a SoHo salon a few doors down from the apartment building said this afternoon that she saw Mr. Ledger once or twice a week and had twice seen him going on walks with his young daughter. “I think it’s really sad,” Ms. McIntosh said. “He’s a really nice guy. He seemed happy.” A month ago, she said, she chatted with Mr. Ledger in front of the salon and asked him, “When are you going to come in and let me wash your hair?” Ms. McIntosh said she believed Mr. Ledger had been living in the area for several months. “He always said hello,” she said.

Outside Ms. Williams’s house in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, this evening, residents expressed shock at Mr. Ledger’s death. Elliott Puckett, an artist who lives in neighborhood, said, “That’s terrible. I used to see them with their dry cleaning and their baby. It’s really sad.”

Emily Ekman, a student who lives in Boerum Hill, said, “I knew Michelle. I’m blown away. I hope she’s O.K. She must be really upset.”

Elise Harris, who lived across the street from Ms. Williams and Mr. Ledger, said, “I’d met them. They were very nice, with their daughter. I think shock is the reaction. I didn’t even know he was on drugs, but that’s the kind of thing you don’t know unless you are in that circle. He was a nice guy, attractive, very friendly.”

A block away, at the Brooklyn Inn, the manager, Jason Furlani, said, “Obviously we’re shocked that it happened. We knew that he was in the neighborhood. I saw him around with his wife and daughter in the neighborhood, just normal folks. It’s a tragedy.”

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EMSI, who is the creator of the great free malware detection and cleaning program (also part of our recommended programs section), a-squared FREE, posts their Malware Annual Report for 2007.

In the last year, Emsi Software registered more new types of Malware than ever before. The famous Moore’s Law, which predicts a doubling of PC performance every 24 months, also seems to apply to the Malware sector. However, in this case the number of new dangers doubles in less than 12 months

Data and facts – Every PC infected 8 times

The signature inventory of pests recognized by a-squared Free and a-squared Anti-Malware had somewhat more than 500,000 entries at the beginning of last year. At the beginning of 2008 this has already reached a record of 1.1 million Malware signatures. Very few Anti-Spyware and Anti-Trojan products can keep up with us at this level. The number of reported infected PCs also rose accordingly, from 180,000 in 2006 to over 250,000 in 2007. Whereas 1.4 million Malware infections were reported by a-squared users in 2006, this rose to an unbelievable figure of 1.9 million last year. The shocking fact is: on average, every PC was infected with 8 different types of Malware!

Malware tendencies – Big money

Although most of the reported Malware came from the Spyware and Adware area, 2007 clearly showed a continuation of the trend towards professional Trojans. Malware is no longer being built for self promotion purposes, or for fun, but rather with the primary aim of earning large amounts of money. Most of the newly discovered Worms, Bots and Trojans no longer contain destructive routines. They are purely designed for the purpose of hijacking computers to allow them to be remote controlled. The computing power obtained in this way is generally known on the black market as so-called Botnets. Spammers use this computing power to anonymously send millions of Spam emails. Other shadowy organizations use the storage capacity to store and distribute illegal data such as child pornography or similar. As the victim, you usually do not notice that your computer is being used as a trading place for this type of data. The only clear indications are usually only an Internet connection that becomes continuously slower and less computer performance for your own applications.

A preview of 2008 – Behavioral analysis will become more important

It can be expected that new variants of pest programs will appear more and more quickly. It is becoming increasingly clear that the technical approach of using purely signature-based recognition is reaching a feasibility limit, it will no longer be feasible to analyze the sheer volume of Malware. Emsi Software recognized this trend many years ago and has therefore specialized in behavior based Malware blocking. Behavior Blockers will become increasingly important in the future because permanent monitoring of all actions performed by software is the only effective way of recognizing new Malware. Emsi Software will increasingly expand this segment in the a-squared Anti-Malware and Mamutu products this year.

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Owen MacLeod, born in Gaul over 2000 years ago, was the son of a tribal chieftain whose village was crushed by the Roman Empire. MacLeod was sent in chains to the gladiatorial arena in Pompeii where he faced what he imagined to be a short life of battle. However, it was in the Coliseum where he was killed, only to miraculously recover and begin a new life as an Immortal. Fighting through centuries against other Immortals in legendary battles ending in death by beheading, MacLeod now faces a mysterious and almost all-powerful Immortal who is hunting him down in New York City. With his mentor, Methos, guiding him, MacLeod learns that the only way to destroy this ultimate nemesis, is to search out the three fragments of a mysterious stone that when pieced together, yields unlimited power to the Immortal who possesses it.

“Eidos is excited to present the classic Highlander franchise for the next generation of video gamers,” said Robert A. Lindsey, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Eidos Inc. “Gamers will get the chance to explore the powers and abilities that only being an Immortal has to offer. Highlander boasts an incredible level of graphical quality and gameplay capabilities such as an advanced sword fighting combat system and destructible environments.”

“For the first time, Highlander comes to fans in a new medium that allows players to dive into the Immortal universe,” said Peter Davis of Davis-Panzer Productions. “The interactive experience permits players to gain a completely different perspective of the mythos, and experience the powers and advantages of immortality through the eyes of a MacLeod.”

Highlander enables gamers to exploit the powers of immortality and manipulate situations that death would normally prevent. MacLeod can use his body as a conduit for electricity or fire, impale himself with enemy weapons to disarm them, and survive long falls from buildings to escape enemy attacks. Additionally, the life force of an Immortal is so strong, that his body naturally heals wounds at an advanced speed and prevents him from aging.

With an advanced combat system, gamers will master a variety of Highlander swords including the Claymore, Katana, and Twin Gladius. Players fight against powerful enemies in intense melee combat, utilizing skills and techniques acquired throughout the centuries.

Combining exciting swordplay with the Quickening powers of an Immortal, MacLeod unleashes fast and devastating attacks on mortal hunters and other Immortals. When MacLeod beheads an Immortal, he experiences the Quickening and absorbs all of that Immortal’s knowledge and strength. With each Quickening, players will upgrade their Quickening Technique and acquire new powers.

Highlander uses the Unreal Engine 3 licensed from Epic Games, Inc. and goes to battle later this year for Xbox 360, PLAYSTATION 3 system, and Games for Windows.

Highlander: The Game Website