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Roger Federer lost his second straight match, beaten by Andy Murray 6-7 (6), 6-3, 6-4 in the first round of the Dubai Tennis Championships.

The Rockies have reportedly signed Brad Hawpe to a three-year deal.

Dr. Cheryl Olson of the Massachusetts General Hospital hopes to give parents a real world understanding of the violent video game studies seen so highly sensationalized in the media.

Olson’s book, Grand Theft Childhood, is intended for the “parents, teachers, and policy makers” as a way to understand the real pros and cons of violent video games and cut through the “myths and hysteria” so often portrayed in the media. From Gamecouch’s interview:

Until now, the most-publicized studies came from a small group of experimental psychologists, studying college students playing nonviolent or violent games for 15 minutes. It’s debatable whether those studies are relevant to real children, playing self-selected games for their own reasons (not for cash or extra credit!), in social settings, over many years. But media reports and political rhetoric often ignore that distinction.

Olson gathered many things from the research we gamers consider common knowledge: children know games aren’t reality, games are great for expelling anger (not creating it), and that both boys and girls play these games.

While many of us gamers know about these things, a book like this a great thing to give to the parents of a gamer. I’d also recommend Steven Johnson’s excellent Everything Bad is Good for You for more understand of the effects of video games and modern popular culture.

Grand Theft Childhood is scheduled to be released on April 15, 2008.

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Datel has recently unveiled their hotly anticipated Freeloader for the Wii, allowing you to run games on your Wii from any world region.

Nintendo hasn’t released an official comment on the device yet, but one can imagine they will not be too pleased about it, especially as they blocked the GameCube version of the Freeloader from running on the Wii. Datel has the ability to prod and poke the big N enough to make them focus on blocking their software, something Nintendo hasn’t even done with DS flash cartridges yet.

Those lucky enough to be living in Japan and North America haven’t had to face the huge delay Nintendo-published games generally have before they reach their shores, but Europe has suffered from this greatly. For example, Metroid Prime 3 was released in August 2007 in North America, but didn’t arrive in Europe until two months later. This substantial delay was enough to convince some fans to import US Wii’s so they could play further Nintendo-published Wii games at the same time as the rest of the world.

So who’s to blame for the Freeloader? Is it Nintendo for not allowing the system to be open to different regions like the PS3 or DS? (The 360’s region coding is decided on a game-per-game basis, controlled by publishers.) Or is Datel simply cashing in on a subset of gamers who wish to play the same things as people in other parts of the world at the same time? Well the truth is a blend between the two.

Nintendo is giving their consumers mixed messages. They allowed the DS to be region free, and haven’t tried to clamp down on importing (like Sony and the infamous Lik-Sang lawsuit), but must’ve seen this as a big issue for the Wii to clamp down on it so tenaciously.

Datel is charging £9.99 for the Freeloader disk, which is not much for what it is, but given the low-cost materials involved and development time, it would be fair to say that they are turning a nice profit from the device.

Personally, I am waiting to see the Freeloader disc thoroughly tested by early adopters before pouncing on it, but this kind of technology is invaluable to gamers, especially when Europeans are forced to wait a long while for an anticipated game to come out. Smash Bros. Brawl is rumored to be released in Autumn in Europe, but will see US shores just next week. Datel couldn’t have timed the release of the Freeloader any sweeter, as people in Europe will just import the US version now and circumvent the long wait, and I have no shame in admitting I will be one of them.

The New York Jets have agreed to a six-year, $42 million deal with DE/LB Calvin Pace.

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Philadelphia Phillies first base coach Davey Lopes has been diagnosed with prostate cancer.