According to Mr Steve Jobs, they went down the full environmental checklist. At .5 inches thin, 1.5 pounds — 9.7 inch IPS display – hopefully that won’t require a ton of packaging. Apple is usually good about keeping their packaging and boxes a reasonable size – usually just the size of the product you’re buying. The the green spin? Arsenic-free, BFR-free, Mercury-free, PVC-free, and highly recyclable. And a claimed 10 hours of battery life.

So…nothing too new as far as making the Tablet greener and more efficient than any of the products they’ve released in the last year.

PRICE UPDATE: Full pricing: The 16GB, Wi-Fi-only version costs $500, while the 32GB is $600 and 64GB is $700. Pricing increases by $130 to add 3G. The Wi-Fi-only models ship in 60 days, while 3G models will ship in 90.

This year’s Greenpeace “Guide to Greener Electronics” was just released. The lowest scores are higher than last year, but the highest scores are lower. Nokia is still at the top of the list.

Below is the list with each company’s score from 1 – 10 with the brief explanation of the score provided by Greenpeace.

7.3 Nokia — Remains in first place with good scores on toxics use reduction, but lost points on energy.
6.9 Sony Ericsson — Moves up with top marks on toxics elimination but weak on recycling.
5.3 Toshiba — Good score on toxics elimination.
5.3 Philips — Loses points for failing to lobby for phase out of hazardous substance in legislation.
5.1 Apple — Continues to improve, scoring best on eliminating toxic chemicals and e-waste criteria.
5.1 LG Electronics — LG score improves, but is still penalized for postponing date for toxics phase out.
5.1 Sony — Maintains overall score with better energy total, but needs stronger chemicals legislation.
5.1 Motorola — Slightly reduced score, due to lack of lobbying for stronger chemicals legislation.
5.1 Samsung — Big drop due to penalty point for failing to meet commitment to phase out hazardous substances.
4.9 Panasonic — Score unchanged, strongest on energy but poor on e-waste and recycling.
4.7 HP — Improved position thanks to clear support for global emissions reductions, but needs to lobby for improved chemical legislation.
4.5 Acer — Score unchanged but Acer is lobbying for stronger chemicals legislation.
4.5 Sharp — Loses points due to poor information on toxics elimination and fails to support stronger chemicals legislation.
3.9 Dell — Reduced score on energy criteria and penalty point for delaying toxics phase out till 2011.
3.5 Fujitsu — Improved score due to support for global carbon emission reductions and cutting its own emissions.
2.5 Lenovo — Score unchanged, with penalty point for indefinite delay on toxics phase out.
2.4 Microsoft — Reduced score, fails to support strong chemicals legislation.
1.4 Nintendo — Nintendo remains in last place with the same score.

The full report by Greenpeace has a lot more detail about the rankings and each company’s individual performance. Check it out here.

BlackBerry is blaming a flawed application for its latest round of email and Internet outages.
Things started going bad on Tuesday night, when customers in North American and South America were unable to send or receive messages. Phone calls and text messages were not affected.

Research In Motion, the Canadian company that makes BlackBerrys, said Wednesday morning that a “preliminary analysis” showed that the outages were caused by a flaw in recently released versions of the BlackBerry Messenger application.

Anyone who downloaded the new BlackBerry Messenger application since Dec. 14 should download a replacement (version 5.0.0.57), according to Research In Motion.

Panasonic has launched a new household LED lightbulb in Japan that apparently lasts 40 times longer than incandescent bulbs.

The new LED bulbs are in the EverLed line, and they’ll be siold in Japan starting October 21, with monthly production at 50,000 units. No changes to lighting equipment used for incandescents are required.

If used an average of five and a half hours per day, the new bulbs can last up to 19 years, according to Panasonic. That’s 40 times longer than incandescent bulbs. The bulbs use 1/8 the power of regular bulbs.

Energy Star has announced that the new 4.0 and 5.0 specifications for televisions have been set. They’ll go into effect May 2010 and 2012 respectively, and the impact will save users anywhere from 40% to 65% in electricity consumption.

There are about 275 million TVs currently in use in the U.S., consuming over 50 billion kWh of energy each year — or 4 percent of all households’ electricity use. This is enough electricity to power all the homes in the state of New York for an entire year.

Green and yellow-minded scientists from Ohio University are developing a new technology that uses a nickel-based electrode, to create large amounts of hydrogen from urine. That hydrogen could be burned or used in fuel cells. “One cow can provide enough energy to supply hot water for 19 houses,” said Gerardine Botte, a professor at Ohio University developing the technology. “Soldiers in the field could carry their own fuel.”

A fuel cell, urine-powered vehicle could theoretically travel 90 miles per gallon. A refrigerator-sized unit could produce one kilowatt of energy for about $5,000.

“The waste products from say a chicken farm could be used to produce the energy needed to run the farm,” said John Stickney, a chemist and professor at the University of Georgia. “It is not a solution for all our cars,” he said, “but it is the kind of process which will find many applications and will make for a greener world.”

Greenpeace International has released its annual “Guide to Greener Electronics” where it ranks leading electronics companies on their policies towards toxic chemicals, recycling and climate change. Here’s the highlights (and lowlights) of that list with each company’s score from 1 – 10 (10 being the best) with the short explanation of the score provided by Greenpeace.:

7.45 Nokia – Scores top marks for leading competitors on toxic phase out.
7.1 Samsung – Holds second position for commitment to reduce absolute emissions.
6.5 Sony Ericsson – Up two places with better product energy efficiency reporting.
5.7 LG Electronics – Up two places but needs to eliminate hazardous chemicals from all products.
5.5 Toshiba – Moves up two places with an extra point for promising to cut GHGs.
5.5 Motorola – Scores higher and climbs two places because of use of renewable energy
5.3 Philips – Falls from 4th to 7th position and needs to put its commitment to responsible recycling policies into practice.
5.3 Sharp – Rises from 9th to joint 7th place with its energy efficient products.
4.9 Acer – Put out 16 new models of a monitor that are almost free of hazardous chemicals and climbed two places from 11 to 9 but still needs to sort out the power cord.
4.9 Panasonic – Advance from 12th to 10th place for energy efficiency and PVC-free product range, but still bad on e-waste.
4.7 Apple – Drops one position to 11th with no change in scores but gets kudos for their green MacBook.
4.5 Sony – Plunges from 5th to 12th place for inadequate commitments on eliminating hazardous chemicals, e-waste policy and cutting GHGs.
3.9 Dell – Stays at 13th place because of backtracking on toxic phase out.
3.5 HP – Is at 14th position and has no products on the market free of toxic substances.
2.5 Microsoft – Loses a point for a poor recycling policy but stays in 15th position.
2.5 Lenovo – Down two places with no set timeline for toxic phase out on all products.
2.4 Fujitsu – Debuts second from last with no products that are free of hazardous chemicals.
1 Nintendo – Stays put in last position with a glimmer of hope with partially PVC-free consoles.

Microsoft Corp., has launched Hohm, a web-based service that lets consumers monitor their home energy consumption and rates in real-time and get related energy information. The real time monitoring service is currently available with a small handful of energy partners who use smart meters, including Sacramento’s Municipal Utility District, City Light Seattle, Puget Sound Energy, and Xcel Energy.

Google is also developing a competing product, Google PowerMeter, that essentially shows “consumers their personal electricity consumption right on a home computer.” Google’s PowerMeter also relies on smart meters from partners. Google’s current partners include San Diego Gas & Electrc , TXU Energy, Toronto Hydro , among other partners.

Always at the forefront of emerging technologies (I’m a firm believer that the first established moon base will be established by these search engine legends) Google has taken a step towards helping consumers track their electricity use with some sophisticated new (and free) software tools.

Dan Reicher, Director for Climate Change and Energy Initiatives Google, is currently working with a number of major utilities companies in the United States, Europe and Asia to make this software available as soon as possible to the public. As part of its ongoing efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Google says it will use this new software for a program that will show home energy consumption in real time on a user’s computer or a telephone. Google’s research shows that access to home energy information typically saves between 5 percent and 15 percent on monthly electricity bills.

“It will get rolled out very soon to regular energy consumers,” Reicher said, “When I began getting information about my own home, I discovered that I had a 35-year electric motor running for my heating system. That was using huge amount of electricity. I did not realize that’s the change I need to make in my home, and the beauty of the tool we are developing is that is going to be an open source.”

Approximately 10 percent of all power used in an average home goes to TVs and black boxes. It was with this number in mind that the California Energy Commission decided that something must be done and proposed a new set of standards for TV power consumption. The new standards would insist that by 2011 TV sets use 33 percent less power than they do now and by 2013 would use 49 percent less.

This doesn’t seem to be drastically different from the direction of the electronics industry anyways, so it shouldn’t rock any large corporate boats. These kinds of regulations have been anticipated for a while now.

California has imposed some of the strictest energy efficiency standards in the U.S. on household appliances since Art Rosenfeld championed the regulations in the 70s. Thanks to the Rosenfeld Effect, Californian energy consumption has failed to rise while the rest of American states have seen it go up by an average of 40 percent.

Californians’ power bills will go down by about $18 to $30 per year thanks to the new regulations.

While the new regulations sound quite harsh there are already TVs which would fit into the restrictions. Also, the Energy Commission has stated publicly that the rumors that they would ban plasma TVs is false. Good news for companies like Panasonic who have said that it wants to reduce the power consumption of its plasma TVs by two-thirds by 2010 or 2011.