Not everyone who strives for a sustainable lifestyle is willing to join a farming commune or live in a grass hut, but deciding which tech toys and tools are greenest is no simple task. To help us reconcile our electronics addiction, mammoth Amazon.com is joining competitor Buy.com in providing EPEAT ratings with their products.

EPEAT (Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool) is a program provided by the non governmental Green Electronics Council. It currently covers, “desktop and laptop computers, thin clients, workstations and computer monitors” and has been used as a guideline for federal IT purchases since 2007. Just last week EPEAT standards were increased to include new Energy Star 5.0 requirements.

Amazon has previously listed Energy Star ratings, but power consumption is only one facet of EPEAT’s 51 point, three tiered Gold, Silver, and Bronze system, which also takes into consideration factors like toxic material content, recyclability, projected lifespan, and overall manufacturer environmental policy.

While it’s great to hear that Amazon’s carrying over 800 of the current 1229 EPEAT registered products, they could do a much better job of making that info accessible. At the time of announcement that touted ‘Green’ tab only appeared in the left bar of a handful of pages, and never where you might expect it (see if you can find it). Still, it’s a step in the right direction, one that other online retailers are likely to follow, and benefit of the doubt says it’ll find higher profile implementation soon.

I know. Its old news now, even for staunch Sony fans, but that’s one of the things that make it so disturbing when it happens; people just take it for granted now. And let me tell you it’s NOT old news when it happens to you. I’d even thought I was being smart  by checking sku’s to make sure I was buying the newer 65nm Falcon chip and not the hotter running 90nm Zephyr and careful by keeping my box stored on a wire rack for better ventilation, but apparently none of that made a damn bit of difference.  Worse, I didn’t even get the cachet of a flashy three light RRoD; at least that’s a fate you can brag about. Instead I was one of those forgotten victims afflicted with a lousy one light E74 scaler chip error. That’s like getting Tuberculosis when all the really cool kids have Swine Flu.

It’s just that I really do use my console for so much. I stream videos and photos from my laptop. I watch Netflix on it. I watch DVD’s (I know, that’s probably bad for it. Shut up! I don’t Care. It was made to play DVD’s it’s gonna play DVD’s). My fiancé and I even play together on it all the time. Yes, you heard me. My girl and I game together, a lot, and she’s even good. We buy a lot games specifically because they have local co-op (a feature which seems to be increasingly ignored by designers in favor of online co-op, but I digress). So, it’s even been a relationship aid. Half of my media options disappear without my 360. I mean, it truly is my media center. An admittedly limited media center, but in my book it’s a great value, and reasonable solution until I build my ideal system.

The good news is the E74 error has become enough of a problem that as of April it’s covered under Microsoft’s extended three year warranty, even retroactively. Shipping is still free, although you have to use your own box and packing now -no more quaint cardboard coffin, just a shipping label. They extend your one year standard for another three months too, just in case they screwed anything up during repairs. Plus to cover your online outage -and they don’t advertise this- you’re repaired console ships with a card for one month of Xbox LIVE gold, which I’m pretty sure is standard, although it may only be because I wrote and bitched. Since the repair, with shipping, only took just over 2 weeks I’m actually coming out on top there.

The only serious annoyance? The return delivery has be signed for or picked up, which is kind of a pain in the ass, but really it’s only an inconvenience. At least I’m getting it back tomorrow, which is good, because Rachel and I are jonesin for some Left 4 Dead, especially the Crash Course DLC that came out the week before things went south. And in an odd way a 360 failure even has a bonus; it’s really going to up my Geek Cred.

I have to admit, I’d dismissed all of those high end unofficial failure estimates as hype, old fashioned schadenfreude, or negative spin promoted by competitors. But now that I’ve become a victim almost four years since release, on a unit that’s less than 2 years old, I can’t help but give more credence to those worst case scenarios.

Is there that much of a market left that after the 360 and PS3 though? Will leftover casual Wii gamers really care about console streaming? Nintendo’s never been afraid to go their own way before, so I’m not sure I can see them bothering to end run the 360′s agreement the way Sony did, at least not with this generation. [gamesindustry.biz via TheFeed]

UPDATE: Yup, my guess was pretty spot on -Maybe no netflix on Wii til 2010.

No plan is in place, and right now regulators are only seeking input, but it’s clear that the FCC  is actively seeking ways to fend off what the agency considers to be a “looming  [broadband] spectrum gap.” That includes the the possibility of taking back a portion of the area currently set aside for digital TV, a plan supported by a study by the Consumer Electronics Association.

Broadcasters are naturally opposed and want to keep the signals for themselves. Meemaw and Pop-Pop probably won’t been happy either, nor will  politicians who just spent $2.15 billion helping them switch over to digital TV broadcasts.

The FCC’s in a tough spot; I can understand consumer craving for more and faster wireless coverage, but broadcasters make a pretty good argument when they point out  how valuable and reliable local broadcasting can be during a zombie apocalypse natural disaster. [WSJ]

We’re talking about a 327 foot huge-freaking-rocket after all, the third tallest ever built, dwarfed only by the massive Saturn V and Russian N-1. And given that the entire program may wind up being canceled, we might not get many more opportunities to see NASA light this particular candle. Plus, while there’s absolutely NO scenario where catastrophic failure would be a good thing, it’s still a test, so there’s always an outside chance it could wind up as a spectacularly hellish fireball.

The only way the Ares can’t deliver is with a scrub. Although, given the forecast that’s a possibility too.

Liftoff  is scheduled at 8am with a four hour launch window. Live coverage begins at 5 am ET on NASA TV. The backup launch date is Wednesday with the same times. [NASA, SPACE.com]

Update Ayup, rained out, and Nasa’s just torn up about it, emoticons and all. Via twitter, “Ares I-X has scrubbed for today due to bad weather. : – ( More details soon about next attempt.” They’ll give it another shot tomorrow 8am, with a 40% chance of “no-go.”[CSMonitor]

They can see in 12 primary colors, four times as many as humans, and can also detect different kinds of light polarization — the direction of oscillation in light waves.

Now a team at the University of Bristol have shown how the shrimps do it, using remarkable light-sensitive cells that rotate the plane of polarization in light as it travels through the eye.

Manmade devices do a similar thing in DVD and CD players but they only work well for one color, while the shrimp’s eye operates almost perfectly across the whole visible spectrum from near ultra-violet to infra-red.

They don’t let us in on exactly HOW this synthetic crustacean eye would help increase capacity, but I’m pretty sure it would mean that a single optic could read multiple color (i.e. multiple wavelength) lasers, and/or drives wouldn’t have to change speed to read different layers of multi-layer discs the way they currently do. That could also mean big news for holographic storage, which uses multiple lasers to read data in three dimensions, possibly bringing down those astronomical costs, but that’s just me speculating.[Reuters]

UPDATE: Apparently this has as much if not more to do with the  potential for superior data compression and increased bandwidth. [Wired via Gizmodo]

The Pirate Bay founders’  increasingly convoluted legal troubles continued Thursday when they were hit with a ruling from a Dutch civil court ordering them to remove links to all Dutch owned properties from the site within 3 months, or face $9 million in fines.

Problem is, the three founders, Peter Sunde, Frederik Neij, and Gottfrid Svartholmmen, say they can’t comply because they no longer control the TPB, which was sold to Riversella Ltd back in 2006. The court’s hearing none of it though, claiming that Neij is secretly the CEO of Riversella. Huh?

Somewhere I can hear ninjas laughing at all of this. I still don’t see them because, you know, they’re ninjas, but I hear them.[BBC, BuisinessWeek]

I swear I don’t have anything against Apple. I’ve used Macs plenty of times in labs or at friends’. Okay, I’ll admit that I do find the the PC vs Mac ads insufferable. They started out funny and clever (I genuinely love the UK versions with Mitchell and Webb instead of Hodgman and Long ), but now they’re just unbearably smug. STILL, my choice in computers has always been about pragmatism, not ideology. Which is to say, I can’t afford a Mac!

But I don’t care what your brand affiliation is, this teardown of the newest 27″  iMac is pretty damn sweet.

I’d put the wallpaper up on my Dell Flat Panel, but then people would think I have Mac envy. Maybe I do. [iFixit via Gizmodo, Image via iFixit]

Those oh so elusive Driod specs were revealed when the (I say plenty sexy) handset unexpectedly appeared on, and disappeared just as unceremoniously from, Motorola’s site.  Was it a coy tease, or an admin screwup? Either way we get the most solid look at the goods yet. And just like every other unintentional exposure on the internet, the screen captures are here to stay.

Of course, some details were assumed or already known (we already saw the, thank god, 3.5mm headphone jack, and the damn thing says 5 megapixels right on it sooo), but it’s nice to get confirmation. The big reveals? The 550MHz processor, a 16GB microSD that comes pre-installed -with support up to 32GB, battery life of 385 mins usage with 270 hours of standby, plus a ton of compatibility specifics and fleshed out features. Pending any further leaks, this’ll likely be as close as we get before the Verizon event next week, so drink up.

Boy Genius Report has been breaking this all the way down the line, so go check out the screen caps for yourself.

I’m REALLY liking this one so far. Not that I’ll be able to afford Verizon’s data plan.[BGR]

Update: BGR has a full preview of the pre-release model. For those of us who’ve refused to drink the iAid, this is promising to be a genuine contender. Lust is a deadly sin right? ‘Kay, just checking.

Before parties involved even had a chance to turn off the lights, Arizona Senator and sore presidential loser John McCain entered the fray with the announcement of his ironically titled Internet Freedom Act of 2009, a bill declaring that the FCC “shall not propose, promulgate, or issue any regulations regarding the Internet or IP-enabled services.”

ANY regulations.

McCain’s accompanying statement said the bill is intended to “allow for continued innovation that will in turn create more high-paying jobs for the millions of Americans who are out of work or seeking new employment.”

We get it. As a Republican you want less federal intervention across the board. But this comes in a climate that’s only now crawling out from a recession caused by the implosion of an industry that failed to police itself. But do you really expect us to buy that wholesale prohibition of regulation is in our best interest? Never mind your ties to the telecom industry and their  lobbyists, is this really the best time to champion deregulation?

Not that it matters; with neutrality sides drawn squarely down party lines it’s pretty unlikely that the bill would get past a Democratic majority. But still, it just seems like an unnecessary complication to an already murky issue.

Congratulations! AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner, Verizon, the quagmire just got stirred up for you. Annnnd maybe that was the plan all along.[PCMAG]