Last week Energy Star, which is a joint program of the US Enviromental Protection Agency and the US Department of Energy to help save energy and protect the environment, released a new set of guidelines for Energy Star certification for computers that went into effect July 20. These guidelines push for energy-efficient power supplies, efficient standby modes, inclusion of power management and provision of user education about these features.

It’s worth nothing that none of Apple’s computers meet the new requirements. Not a one. At least Dell has three models that do, and most of those that already comply are from Lenovo and Gateway. In total only 125 laptops and desktop models meet the new requirements at the moment.

Not to worry though. Manufacturers have until January to comply so that they can earn the Energy Star label for their computers. It’s just a bit disturbing that other manufacturers are on the ball about this, while Apple, with its recent green posturing, was caught with with its pants down.

If you’re at all interested in the details, get a spreadsheet of the compliant and non-compliant manufacturers here.

Popcap has made Bejeweled available for free for iPhone users.

From the press release:

SEATTLE, Washington – July 30, 2007 — PopCap Games, the leading developer and publisher of casual games, today announced that it has launched a custom version of its flagship game Bejeweled® for the Safari® Web browser on Apple Inc.’s new iPhone® and is making it available at no cost to iPhone owners. Beginning today, iPhone users can log on to www.popcap.com via the iPhone’s Web browser and play the iPhone-specific version of the original match-3 puzzler Bejeweled for free. This customized version of Bejeweled leverages the Web 2.0 capabilities of Safari and the wireless capabilities of the iPhone, and has been optimized to take advantage of the iPhone’s unique display and input controls. PopCap developed the Safari-based version of Bejeweled in partnership with Polish developer Arkadiusz Mlynarczyk, one of the first programmers to take advantage of the Apple iPhone’s capabilities for video gaming purposes.

Photo from GameStooge.

Forget the laptops, this time it’s the first class action suit against the iPhone battery. It’s also one of the least thought-out, moronic, gramatically faulty legal documents I’ve seen in a long time.

Apple Inc. and AT&T has been charged by some moron gentleman named Trujillo who believes that Apple and AT&T owe iPhone users big-time for selling them a product with a horribly substandard battery that “can only be charged approximately 300 times before it will be in need of replacement, necessitating a new battery annually for owners of the iPhone.”

Aside from being morons gentlemen, Mr. Trujillo and his lawyers are also morons gentlemen who don’t read. Apple clearly states that the iPhone battery “is designed to retain up to 80% of its original capacity after 400 full charge and discharge cycles.” Like most modern batteries.

Our friends at Gizmodo have more details, plus scans of the actual document for your perusal and enjoyment.

Apple has patented a technology which would brick an iPod if someone tries to operate it on an unauthorized computer.

Apple already has software that pairs iPods with the owners’ computers, and it would be a simple matter to put in something that would totally disable the unit by disallowing it to charge forever. When attached, a security code in the iPod would be matched to a code in the computer, and if they don’t match, kaboom. Or rather, pfft.

The patent states that a “guardian circuit” could be triggered when this happens which in turn would permanently disable the charging circuit. Then it’s brick time.

Cool if a thief steals your iPod and sells it, but what about if someone just wanted to get a file off your player in disk mode? Scary tech, if you ask me. See patent app here.

A recently completed survey by the Eagle Research Group found out that 70% of Zune users surveyed are not happy with their players and intend to switch to either an iPod or to an iPhone as soon as their service contract expires.

36% said that had they known Apple was coming out with the iPhone they never would have purchased a Zune. Also of note is that 3% of the survey respondents were either employees or contractors of Microsoft.

Imagine that.