Didn’t think so.

Although cell phone abuse is not classified as a medical condition, doctors admit it’s a widespread problem. “The overwhelming majority of cell phone users — if not all of them — let the phone interfere with their life,” says Dr. Lisa Merlo, professor of psychology at the University of Florida. “Of course, the severity of interference varies greatly among users, but interestingly, many of these individuals did not notice such interference when they were using a ‘regular’ cell phone.”

In other words, when they weren’t using a so-called smartphone. But the number of “regular” cell phones is waning fast. According to Amy Storey, director of public affairs for CTIA, the number of data-capable phones has doubled since 2005 to account for more than 88 percent of all mobiles today, meaning that abuse is more prevalent than ever. Houston, do we have a problem?

As Dr. Merlo says, it depends on the user. “If an individual cannot turn off their smartphone — or better yet, leave it at home — for at least a few hours at a time, they may want to reconsider their behavior.” That can be a tough pill to swallow, especially for those with demanding bosses, clients or investors. But before you blow off the idea, try to envision the productivity, social and sanity benefits it could yield.

Balancing alerts, face time and downtime

Undoubtedly, mobile phones can enhance user productivity. Without moderation, however, those same devices can significantly hinder output, as consumer research (and anyone who’s owned a smartphone for more than a day) will acknowledge. The most common productivity killers: obtrusive alerts at all hours of the day, cross-contamination of professional and personal correspondence, and multimedia diversions such as Facebook and YouTube.

When cell phones intrude on outside life, it can result in the alienation of established relationships, says Merlo. Granted, cell phones are powerful tools for cultivating new relationships, but when a phone supersedes the presence of good company, the net effect of networking is lost. “When you take a call, answer an email, or otherwise turn your full attention away from someone in person, this can severely damage their impression of you,” she says. “It sends the message that you find them less important than whatever is occurring on your phone.”

OK, OK. It makes sense to prioritize cell phone use accordingly, be that at work or when interacting with friends and family. But surely there’s no harm in foregoing personal time to get the job done? Some sacrifices must be made to meet an immediate deadline, right? Of course. But when you neglect personal downtime for an extended period of time, you’ll inevitably burn out, affecting both your health and desire in the process. It happens to the best of them, as Timothy Ferris documented in his provocative book on “the new rich.”

Fixing a problem takes discipline

Since there’s no scientific evidence classifying cell phone abuse as an addiction, the good news is you can overcome problematic use without costly rehab or medication. But first you’ll need to determine whether or not you’re engaging in behavior that needs fixing. “The ‘turn it off’ test is the easiest indicator,” of cell phone abuse says Merlo, referring to the aforementioned inability to walk away from your phone without feeling anxiety. Another obvious sign is if friends and family exceedingly complain, she says, or if you’re having trouble sleeping, or waking in the middle of the night to check messages on your phone.

So is there a safe, general or optimal amount of time users should not exceed in a 24-hour period? “A good rule of thumb is to stay off the phone during meals, family time, and in social/work gatherings where your active participation is expected,” Merlo concludes. “Leisure activities involving live people should exceed leisure activities involving phone interaction.” Chris Ziegler, an admitted cell abuser and mobile editor for Endgaget, on the other hand, is quick to note that cell phones are increasingly becoming an extension of who we are, so any time limits would be unfair. “Keep in mind that young people are just as likely to use smartphones as an integral tool for connecting socially,” he says, “which means they could be on the phone all day for work and on the phone all night for play.”

And what about mobile providers? Should they play a role in limiting abuse by, say, notifying consumers of the obsessive nature of smartphones? Merlo says no. “Again, we don’t have adequate data to suggest that that phones themselves are addictive, so I think such a recommendation would be considered premature at this point. However, it may be useful to include warnings against texting while driving and other dangerous behavior.” Noting that AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Apple and Research in Motion all profit from overuse, it’s understandable that they all declined comment for this story. You’re on your own for now.

If you decide you do have a problem, the best way to avoid future abuse is to plan ahead. For example, decide beforehand when and how you will use your phone, including periodic power downs. Turn off alerts for low-priority phone messages. And set limits on how often you tweet, so as not to disturb more important things in life — like true friendship, hard deadlines and (you guessed it) safe driving.

Image credits: Crackberry.com, Zazzle.com

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Talk about a “new vertical.”

Nintendo, the most ambitious of the bunch, actually got its start making playing cards in 1889, before becoming a dominate force in video games 100 years later with the help of a rotund plumber named Mario. Now the company wants to whip that chubby Italian into shape, with the help of fitness Trojan horses like the release of last year’s Wii Balance Board.

“Fitness-oriented video games have been a huge success for our business,” says Tony Key, head of marketing for Ubisoft. “Given the current momentum of the fitness game category, which is the fastest-growing video game segment on the market, we believe that exergaming will continue to grow.”

Nintendo says the technology fitness craze began three years ago, with the release of Wii. “The active gaming movement has really taken off ever since the Wii Remote got people up off the couch and moving around,” says Amber McCollum, director of trend marketing at Nintendo. “Of course, the amount of activity depends on the game, but the choice is no longer between being active or playing video games, because now players can do both.”

Disguising fitness as entertainment. Clever. So just how big does Nintendo expect “exergaming” to be in five years? McCollum was unwilling to commit to a figure saying, “The entire category is still in its infancy.” But she did say, “It seems like consumers still have a strong appetite for fitness games, and people (namely developers) are excited by the potential.”

But you don’t have to look far to see the traction. As of June, Wii Fit has sold 22 million units worldwide in less than two years since its release — at $90 per pop, mind you. That’s more than Halo, Grand Theft Auto, and even Nintendo’s own Mario, at almost twice the price per copy. Other publishers like Ubisoft are benefiting as well. Last week, Electronic Arts announced that it had sold an impressive 1.8 million copies of EA Sports Active in just three months, one of its fastest-selling games in recent years.

But exergames are just one part of the equation. Four months before the release of Wii, and halfway across the globe in Oregon, Nike launched Nike +, a pebble-sized piece of plastic that is inserted or attached to the laces of running shoes, to log the distance, pace, time, and calories burned. “After observing the number of runners listening to music, it was a natural fit to bring this type of product to the marketplace,” a Nike representative tells me. “With almost 2 million users worldwide (and growing), we’ve already seen strong demand in the market.”

To further expand its foray into fitness, the company overhauled the Nike+ web site to behave more like Facebook this summer, and it’s released a bevy of Nike+ line extensions, including apps for both Facebook and iPhone, an updated SportsBand, and new data-tracking products for the gym.

Apple obviously takes a more indirect approach with its involvement of fitness, approving iPhone fitness applications and partnering with Nike in the production of Nike+ to work with iPods. Cupertino hasn’t said how well the fitness category has performed. And it’s unclear what the revenue split is between Nike and Apple. But it’s obvious that both multinationals are believers in the segment.

And more products are on the way. Nintendo is launching the sequel to Wii Fit later this year, followed by the curious-looking Wii Vitality Sensor in 2010. It looks like a finger monitor and senses a user’s pulse and other signals being transmitted by the body. (Crazy, I know). Ubisoft, EA, and other software makers are coupling their current and future products with hardware as well, in an effort to make exercise less monotonous and easier to keep tabs on.

But while technology fitness is booming, not everyone wants to exercise, shedding doubt on how big the new vertical can grow. To underscore this point, only one of my 2,000-plus Gmail contacts have created a Nike+ account, whereas over a thousand of my contacts are on Facebook.

What’s more, fitness purists argue there are no shortcuts when it comes to shedding pounds, even with the help of technology. “I never use or endorse these kinds of programs,” says Frankie Rongo, an admitted “old school” fitness trainer and author from Seattle. “Fitness is about eating correctly, lifting correctly, doing cardio correctly — and most importantly, applying those to a never-ending lifestyle.”

Photo courtesy of Nintendo.

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Gloob.tv, a phonetic portmanteau of glued and tube, is adding an editorial layer on top of the web’s billion-plus available videos; the idea being that editors know best when it comes to selecting the most desired user-submitted videos.

Published by Future US out of San Francisco, Gloob currently employs 26 editors or “spotters,” as they are called, to organize “the unwieldy world of online streaming video.” Spotters work on a rev-share basis being compensated for the traffic generated to their respective video selections.

And therein lies the difference in how Calacanis would do it; actually paying people to do the nitty-gritty as opposed to the insipid use of rev-share to drive traffic to a site that doesn’t have any revenue to begin with.

And Gloob is far from being a first-mover. Actually, it’s not even a second-mover. According to our count, Gloob is more like a seventh-mover in a crowded space of sites promising to know how to find the coolest web videos better than you and your friends. According to Compete.com, The Daily Reel is the largest humanized YouTube with an estimated 35k monthly visitors, followed by WeShow with 25k, and Network2 with 10k.

And despite their being one third the size of WeShow’s total number of contributors, Future still thinks they’ve got a shot:

“We see this as the next step in streaming video – separating the wheat from the chaff using real people, so there’s no need to go all over the web to find the best material,” said the company’s Drew Kerr in a pitch to NewTeeVee. “We’re betting this will be a revenue generator.”

Gloob could assuming users feel there is a deficiency in the current state of online video and/or don’t like the other editorialized aggregators out there. The company will be able to test that hypothesis starting Monday, when it formally launches.

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“We are starting to see the pendulum swing slowly in [Blu-ray’s] direction,” says Chris Roden, analyst with Parks Associates. “Recent retail developments, support from major Hollywood studios, and inclusion of the format in the PlayStation 3 puts the Blu-ray format in the lead.”

Just today, Target announced it will exclusively sell Blu-ray players in lieu of HD DVD ones, at least through the holiday season. In June, Blockbuster said 85 percent of its stores would exclusively offer Blu-ray rentals as they significantly outpace HD DVD rentals the retailer said. HD DVD will still be offered at the other 15 percent of Blockbuster stores and by way of the company’s website.

In Hollywood, five out of the six major film studios along with several independents are supporting Blu-ray. The lone studio not backing the format is Universal, which exclusively supports HD DVD. With the exception of Sony and Disney, many studios release HD movies on both Blu-ray and HD DVD.

But even though deals are being made among the big boys, consumers don’t seem to care. According to one report, less than 10 percent of U.S. consumers are familiar with either HD DVD or Blu-ray. Some Blockbuster stores are even putting up signs saying “don’t rent this movie unless you know you have a Blu-ray compatible DVD player.” People don’t buy things when they are confused.

But what if consumers don’t know what they’re buying? That’s largely the strategy behind the inclusion of Blu-ray into the PS3, and Microsoft offering an HD DVD add-on for its Xbox 360. In an effort to expedite purchases, Sony dropped the PS3’s price to $499 earlier this month. In turn, Microsoft dropped the price of its HD DVD drive on Thursday to $179, also including five free movies with proof of purchase. You do what you can for a shot at the estimated 175 million console gamers.

Despite Blu-ray’s recent in-roads, however, web video, digital distribution and general consumer apathy will likely prolong the Blu-ray vs HD DVD battle. It’s obvious things are a little more complicated than the good ‘ole Betamax vs. VHS days.

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Betting big, indeed. Bloomberg reports that the company increased ad spend by 95% to lure away Netfilx subscribers. So is the investment online paying off? It looks like it might be.

Despite continued losses, the company’s quarterly revenue rose slightly by 5% to $1.47 billion over the previous year. Blockbuster added an impressive 800,000 subscribers to its mail-order service in the quarter — nearly double that of Netflix’s most recent posting — bringing the total number of Total Access subscribers to 3 million. By comparison, Netflix currently has 6.8 million subscribers achieved over a 9-year period since first launching. The second-moving Blockbuster is clearly growing at a faster rate, perhaps largely due to its brand awareness.

One interesting aspect of all this is the relationship between loss-leading retail stores and Blockbuster’s online service. Perhaps the biggest advantage of Total Access is the ability to quickly return/check-out new movies spontaneously at local stores using your online membership. As an added bonus, Blockbuster gives away free monthly in-store movie and game rentals, something Netflix can’t compete with (Disclosure: I’m a Blockbuster online member).

Still, the larger Netflix expects Q1 revenues to beat estimates, though it reduced future revenues citing increased competition from Blockbuster, which will also compete with Netflix in the still-nascent download market. Everyone loves a good fight.

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The press release promises the device “will enable gamers to enjoy their [PS3] like never before.” Will it? We won’t know for sure until its release this summer for an undisclosed price. But one thing’s for sure; we have seen something like this before. It was Sony’s marginally successful EyeToy for PS2, the Eye’s predecessor.

While the new video chat attachment eliminates the need for a headset, what happens to speech-recognition performance when playing games alongside a loud home audio system? And even though PlayStation Eye has double the video fidelity of Xbox’s Live Vision cam at 640×480 resolution (60 frames/second), it’s hardly enough to match Sony’s 1080p graphics.

“Beyond audio/video chat and the ability to save videos to your PS3 hard drive, PlayStation Eye opens up a whole new world of entertainment options and adds a new dimensions to games across multiple genres,” continued Sony in the same presser. While the last point remains to be seen, do PS3 owners really want to edit and store videos and photos using the bundled software, something they can already effectively do on a desktop?

Every little value-add option is nice, don’t get us wrong. But this device seems underwhelming for a console that needs something a little buzzier to grab both current and prospective owners.

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The new firmware update allows 360 users to download and watch video content in full 1080p and High Profile H.264 support, the same advanced setting used in HD-DVD and Blu-ray discs. By comparison, Apple TV only supports 720p and the mainstream consumer H.264 profile, slightly inferior to High Profile. While the PS3 also supports 1080p, it does so at the Main H.264 Profile level as well when not playing Blu-ray movies.

So will the more favorable figures increase Microsoft’s chances in securing the digitally distributed living room? Perhaps slightly, especially when considering extreme video enthusiasts. But again, being sold as a game machine doesn’t help the 360′s specialized digital video cause, at least not on a wide-scale level.

Still, Microsoft was quick to point out in a statement made yesterday that its Xbox Live service was “the largest social network on television.”

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