We did a triple-take when we saw that U.S. researchers were trying to separate aggressive behavior from violence in videogames, yet that's exactly what Dr. Christopher Ferguson of Texas A&M International University and his research team claim. Hasn't Ferguson been watching the news or listening to political speeches during election runs?

As crazy as it may seem to those who wish to blame wicked behavior on violent videogames the way the townspeople in Footloose linked dancing to bad karma and all sorts of other ills, Ferguson says that depressive symptoms are a much stronger predictor of aggression.

The study focused on 302 youths ages 10-14, mostly Hispanic, and all living in a city on the border of Mexico. According to the study, 75 percent of the youths played games within the past month on PCs, consoles, or other devices, while 40 percent played violent videogames. After a year passed, 7 percent reported one or more criminally violent acts, and 19 percent reported one or more non-violent crimes.

Ferguson ultimately concluded that exposure to videogame violence, or even violence in television, failed to predict aggressive behavior 12 months later, but depressive symptoms did.

With a little help from their colleagues in The Netherlands, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) sent over two dozen BitTorrent and Usenet indexing sites packing, TorrenFreak.com reports.

Save for HD-UNiT3D, the names of the sites aren't known. According to Tim Kuik, Managing Director of anti-piracy outfit BREIN, listing the names "would amount to free PR for the sites that intend to continue their unlawful activities at another hosting provider." Just as well, because it's getting hard to keep track of all the file sharing sites the MPAA has managed to shut down, anyway.

"This year we have made over 600 of these sites inaccessible," Kuik said. "Some seek refuge in a foreign hosting provider. These 29 apparently thought that in America they could go undisturbed. That is incorrect. Through cooperation with our foreign colleagues we can make sites in other countries inaccessible."

The MPAA hasn't yet said anything on the matter, and according to TorrentFreak, that fact that it hasn't been notified by any of the affected site owners suggests that these are all small time outfits.

Every year, Spike TV hosts the Video Game Awards (VGA) show, an all-out affair with much ballyhooing. With so many awesome titles to choose from, surely this type of event would draw fan interest, right?

Wrong, and we're sorry for calling you Shirley (we had to squeeze a Leslie Nielsen reference in eventually - RIP). According to Variety's figures, Spike TV's audience diminished for the fourth straight year, this time notching a 3 percent drop in viewership from last year and only pulling in 627,000 viewers. In the words of Jerry Seinfeld, what's the deal with that?

Take your pick. Maybe the numbers are down because the show is hosted on a Saturday when even die-hard gamers have other things to do. Perhaps Neil Patrick Harris can't draw in the kind of crowd Spike TV thought he would (have we broken the record for most celebrity references in a single tech blog, yet?). Or could it be that Spike TV's the one hosing the event?

No matter what the reason, there were a few consolation prizes. Adult viewers 18-49 were up 12 percent this year, while those ages 18-34 were up 5 percent overall, and 15 percent among men.

Did you tune in to watch? Hit the jump and let us know.

We get it, you're not about to give up ______ (fill in the blank with Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or IE), which other browser makers will have to pry from your cold, dead hands. But aren't you the least bit curious what the competition is up to?

Now is as good of a time as any to give the Opera browser a whirl. The second Release Candidate for Opera 11 is just a click away, following the release of the first RC that was posted just one day ago. This followup RC mainly addresses a handful of tab stacking issues, otherwise Opera Software promises "Opera 11.0 is mature enough to be prepared for a final release."

In addition to tab stacking, the major new feature in Opera 11 is the long overdue support for extensions. Other features included baked in visual mouse gestures, better performance, search predictions from Google, and enhanced HTML5, to name just a few.