EA sends out four games for Macs

Delivering on its promise to bring more games to the Apple computer platform, Electronic Arts today shipped four new Mac titles.

Two of the titles, Need For Speed Carbon and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, will be available to consumers tomorrow. The other two, Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars and Battlefield 2142, will be held until their August 28 release date.

All four titles were released on the PC within the last year.

EA announced in June that it would begin bringing more titles to the Mac. However, the four titles announced today encountered delays beyond what EA originally expected.

EA also pledged to release Madden NFL 08 simultaneously on the PC and Mac. The Mac version is nowhere to be found. The same promise was made about Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08, which is slated to come out later this month.

Initially, the new games will be exclusive to the Apple Store and Apple.com, while EA and Apple try to attain additional retail partners.

Paramount, Dreamworks go HD DVD

The HD DVD camp today received an exclusivity commitment from two major movie studios – a welcome commitment the group needs in its battle against Blu-ray.

According to the announcement, Paramount and Dreamworks will publish home videos in HD DVD only, including titles from Paramount Pictures, Dreamworks Pictures, Dreamworks Animation Paramount Vantage, Nickelodeon Movies and MTV Films. The program will begin with the release of Blades of Glory on August 28, followed by Transformers and Shrek the Third.

Today’s announcement does not include films directed by Steven Spielberg as his films are not exclusive to either format.

The HD DVD group said that its format has "emerged as the most affordable way for consumers to watch their movies in high definition" and "offers consumers the chance to personalize the movie-watching experience, to interact with their movies and even to connect with a community of other fans."

Treatment for Internet addiction suggested

Is your computer mouse your first thought when you get up in the morning? Are you obsessed with email, MySpace or YouTube? A psychiatrist said that such behavior should be put on the same level with other extreme addictive disorders and be treated as such.

According to Dr. Pinhas Dannon, a psychiatrist from Tel Aviv University’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine, says that Internet addiction should be taken seriously and grouped together with gambling, sex addiction, and kleptomania. In a new report, he describes Internet addiction as a "pathological condition that can lead to anxiety and severe depression."

Internet addiction is currently classified by mental health professionals as an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), a mild to severe mental health condition that results in an urge to engage in ritualistic thoughts and behavior, such as excessive hand-washing or, in the case of the Internet, Web surfing. This, however, needs to change, Dannon claims. “Internet addiction is not manifesting itself as an ‘urge.’ It’s more than that. It’s a deep ‘craving.’ And if we don’t make the change in the way we classify Internet addiction, we won’t be able to treat it in the proper way,” he said.

According to the psychiatrist, especially teenagers and empty nesters are at risk to suffer from Internet addiction disorder. Diagnosis of form this condition may be difficult, he said, but stated that it will reveal itself through loss of sleep, anxiety when not online, isolation from family and peer groups, loss of work, and periods of deep depression.

Dannon believes that Internet addiction can be treated effectively, if it is viewed as any other extreme addiction. This treatment, he suggests would include medication such as Serotonin blockers and Naltrexone, which are typically used in cases of kleptomania and pathological gambling.

According to Dr. Dannon, Internet addiction is an "inevitable" product of modernization: “They are just like anyone else who is addicted to coffee, exercise, or talking on their cellular phone. As the times change, so do our addictions,” he said.