The ranking methodology utilized by Greenpeace and Newsweek are radically different; the Newsweek rankings are based on a holistic view of the companies including greenhouse emissions, water consumption and supply chain management. Greenpeace study analyzes more focused benchmarks like the use of toxic chemicals.

Greenpeace's biggest knock on HP is it's continued polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and brominated flame retardant (BFR) usage despite a commitment to discontinue their utilization, while Newsweek recognizes their continued use— they give HP credit due to progressively diminished usage.

HP got especially high marks for it's Green Policy and Performance from Newsweek, issues Greenpeace did not consider. While Newsweek's ranking system is more comprehensive, there is good reason Greenpeace looks specifically at PVC and BFRs. Dioxin, an organic compound, produced as a byproduct of PVC production has been implicated in a broad range of health problems from acne to sarcoma.

Both rankings have valid rationales to justify their methodologies, HP most likely belongs somewhere in between #1 and #14. [Newsweek and Greenpeace]

Thanks Prof. Singaram for helping me work through organic chemistry.

Palm's aging operating system, Palm OS, was originally created for a relatively simple personal organizer; it was then added to and patched up to do things like power a cell phone—a task it was never intended to perform. It was a bit like using a lawn-mower engine to build a go-kart, then adding a bigger chassis and turning the go-kart into a real car, then turning that into a plane, and then trying to make the plane fly to the moon. Palm needed a fresh start.

As for the iPhone:

It's much slower; Rubinstein and his team say that's because the OS X code is not lean enough to run swiftly on a mobile device's relatively tiny processor and small memory footprint. And you can only do one thing at a time.

Apple introduced OS X for its personal computers in 2001, but pieces of the system trace their roots back to the 1980s, when they were used in the operating software of computers made by Jobs's other computer company, NeXT. Palm sees an opportunity to come out with something newer, better and—perhaps most impressive to gadget geeks—faster. A lot faster. "We're already four times faster than the iPhone, and we're still optimizing," McNamee boasts.

Palm expects people will keep 15 to 20 applications open at the same time.

A great feature, with lots of side story.
[Dan Lyons on the Palm Pre]

When Levy went to Newsweek, I wondered if his famed Apple access would follow him. With Fake Steve, reading columns like this, it's a safe guess he may not want any additional access that may come with the weight of Newsweek. He's a horseman, but I hope he keeps that outside, mainstream perspective that our whole little world of gadget review is a ridiculous one. [Peter Kafka's Brain]

While most of the additional material covered in the reviews is basically factual stuff that you've already been agonizing over for a week or more, they're all decent reads if you have the time.

• Pogue's preview-review from 1/17 New York Times

• Ed Baig's story in USA Today

• Steven Levy's piece from Newsweek's website

• Walt Mossberg's review from Wall Street Journal and allthingd.com

Of course, if you don't have the time for those, pop over to Chen's superfast big-shot review summary and then, well, get about your business. [All About MacBook Air]

USA Today: USA Today's Ed Baig summarizes with this verdict: "Given the compromises, I don't expect anyone to use Air as their only computer. But it is a yummy machine for people who spend a lot of time traveling." Going more in depth, he lauds the Air's thinness, and revels at the little things like the magnetic latch and the backlit LED display. The worst part? He got more than an hour less than Apple's rated battery life.

Baig also notes that this is the weakest Core 2 Duo in the entire Mac lineup, which means you won't be using this for video editing. He knocks points off for the sacrifices, such as the internal optical drive, the scant 80GB hard disk space, the one USB port, lack of FireWire, and the average battery life. Apple rated it at 5 hours, but he only got three hours and 40 minutes just surfing the web, using Remote Disc and writing. It only lasted two hours and 40 minutes when watching a movie. Verdict: Not for everyone (mostly travelers), and definitely not a main computer. [USA Today]

Newsweek: Steven Levy at Newsweek compares the Macbook Air's thinness to ritualistic circumcision, noting that they sliced off just enough to make it meaty, yet super thin. Thin enough for him to spend a good third of his review saying how thin it is, and how it's so great on a lap, on a Starbucks' table, on a conference table, and on an airplane seatback tray. He then decries the obvious lack of features we've been talking about since we heard about the Air: lack of user-replaceable battery, the one USB port, no optical drive, blah blah blah.

It essentially reads like Levy reviewed off the spec sheet, and doesn't have many tales of his first-hand experience with such topics as how snappy the sluggish processor is or how convenient (or inconvenient) using the Remote Disc is (he does note that you have to lower your Firewall to its lowest setting to allow easier configuration). Verdict: Not much of one, but what he does have agrees with Baig: it's thin and even though Apple's removed much of its innards, "the things that Apple left on were the ingredients for a quality computer." Also, he spends much of the review talking in a roundabout way about penises, so it's worth a read just for that. [Newsweek]

Wall Street Journal: Mossberg from the big J also loves the svelteness, owning up to his own Contact moment by saying that "it's impossible to convey in words just how pleasing and surprising this computer feels in the hand." Of course, he hates the non-removable battery, the 1 USB port, the fact that you can't put a bigger hard drive in there and the lack of an optical drive.

In his own tests, he says the machine was "speedy" and the keyboard and screen were a "pleasure to use". His own battery tests gave him three hours and 24 minutes with Wi-Fi on and playing music nonstop. He theorizes that you could possibly get 4 hours and 30 minutes without playing music and just working normally, bug Baig's own test disproves that. Verdict: Great if you love thinness or a full-sized screen and keyboard on a "subnotebook", but he "can't recommend it for all." [AllThingsD]

As he prepared to demo the wonder device to the announcer a foolish would-be mugger jumped Levy and the camera man, taking them to the ground. As the Fox crew cut away, it was clear that police, the Fox crew and bystanders were taking care of the assailant. The in-studio Fox team appeared to fear (or hope for) the worse - full scale fanboy riot; the announcer was shaken. But Steven Levy, ever the pro, bounced up and delivered his prepared demo with sangfroid. For those concerned, neither the journalist nor the iPhone appeared to be harmed in anyway.

Did anyone capture video of the live, foiled mugging (either the Fox broadcast or live at the NYC Apple Store)? If so, please contact Gizmodo via the tipline: tips@gizmodo.com.

Guy Swipes Reporter's Mic During iPhone Live Shot [breitbart.tv]

Levy found the controls to be pretty intuitive. Without consulting the manual, he managed to find his way around the phone well enough. The only obstacle he came up against was typing, which "requires some concentration," though Levy admits he's not much of a two-thumb typist.

Another concern, the battery life, passed Levy's test, as he said it only wound down noticeably when he watched videos or browsed the web heavily. When he didn't, the iPhone was good for the day, with a recharge overnight.

As for that glass screen–and the inevitable smudging–Levy found that the screen cleans up easily. Still, that does mean you're probably going to clean it more than you will the phone you have now. This isn't a huge issue; that's what sleeves are for!

Some stronger complaints: When using EDGE, Levy did find that there were some slow moments, comparing it to dial-up on the slowest EDGE mode setting. He also encountered trouble with e-mail from one of his accounts (presumably a POP or IMAP account), and found the absence of an IM client a disappointment–especially since Apple has its own excellent iChat. The inability to use songs as ringtones was curious as well, as you'd think something as stylish and personalized as the iPhone would have more options when it comes to customization.

Levy's verdict: the iPhone is certainly worthwhile and fun to use, though those who forgo an early purchase and see what Apple has up their sleeve for the iPhone's future iterations wouldn't have the wrong idea.

It's a superbly engineered, cleverly designed and imaginatively implemented approach to a problem that no one has cracked to date: merging a phone handset, an Internet navigator and a media player in a package where every component shines, and the features are welcoming rather than foreboding. The iPhone is the rare convergence device where things actually converge.

And while he was reviewing the phone:

"Everyone we talk to hates their phones—it's universal," Steve Jobs told me on a call to my iPhone a couple of days ago. (The control-freaky Apple CEO was just checking up to see how I was doing.)

At Last, the iPhone. [Newsweek]

Gates on the Mac ads

"I don't know why [Apple is] acting lie it's superior. I don't even get it. "If you just want to say, 'Steve Jobs invented the world, and then the rest of us came along,' that's fine.

"It will be more user-centric. If you drop by a [public] kiosk or somebody else's PC, we can bring down your home page, your files, your fonts, your favorites and those things."

Nowadays, security guys break the Mac every single day. Every single day, they come out with a total exploit, your machine can be taken over totally. I dare anybody to do that once a month on the Windows machine.

Finally, Vista Makes its Debut. Now What? [MSNBC]

Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you're viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.

Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you're viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.

Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you're viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.

Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you're viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.

Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you're viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.

Anything else all of you kind readers can think of? [Thanks, Peter]

Quiz [Newsweek]