The EPA wants to add ultra-thin clients and mobile thin clients as it seeks to tighten the Energy Star specification for computers. Energy Star market penetration reached 74 percent for notebooks and 27 percent for desktops, the agency said, quoting 2009 unit shipment data. So it wants to “develop more stringent energy-efficiency requirements for existing products,” it said in a “discussion document” for version 6.0 of the computer specification. The EPA will host a meeting in Washington March 10 to discuss proposals in the document, it said.

Emboldened by what it calls its success in getting Best Buy to launch a nationwide e-waste takeback program, the San Francisco green group As You Sow is expanding its campaign to other retailers, it said. It filed a annual shareholders’ meeting proxy proposal with Target Stores, “which currently takes back small electronics, but not large devices like computers, and has not committed to bar improper export of collected products,” it said.

A European Parliament member’s plans for releasing TV spectrum for mobile broadband services exceed the European Commission’s, said Public Affairs Head Nicola Frank of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), in an interview Monday. With the 800 MHz band expected to be freed for wireless uses by digital switchover by 2013 across Europe, Gunnar Hokmark of Sweden and the European People’s Party and others are already looking for a “second digital dividend” from the 700 MHz band, Frank said. That could spell “the end of terrestrial television” in some countries, she said. She was responding to a draft report by Hokmark on the EC proposal for a five-year spectrum policy roadmap, discussed Monday in the Industry, Research and Energy Committee.

Ten years after the launch of the Rhapsody digital music service, the music industry is scrambling to keep up with changing technology and to find a successor to the packaged media revenue model at a time when consumers have more access to music than ever, much of it free. “The subscription is a confusing message,” conceded Brian McGarvey, vice president of Business Development at Rhapsody, speaking on a panel on The Next Wave of Connected Devices at Digital Music Forum East in Manhattan last week. “Device makers make it hard and discoverability has been tough,” he said.

The EPA is looking at ways to recognize display makers that report and take steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in manufacturing and the supply chain, stakeholders on an Energy Star specification-revision call last week were told. “The goal of the Energy Star program is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and traditionally it has been during the use phase,” Christopher Kent, Energy Star product manager, said on the call seeking stakeholder comments on revisions to the Energy Star display specification. But the agency now wants to explore “opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from either manufacturing or, for some product categories, recycling of the product,” he said.

Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) didn’t say Friday why had it decided to cut the price of its standard PSP handheld system with a Universal Media Disc drive now by $40, to $129.99. Tim Bender, SCEA senior vice president, sales, said the new price “enables us to broaden the PSP platform to a larger group of consumers who are looking for best-in-class handheld entertainment.” The company didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about the timing of the price move, which was to take effect Sunday.

NAB and the Association for Maximum Service Television asked the FCC to reject industry petitions seeking changes to the commission’s white-spaces rules filed in January. The Wi-Fi Alliance, meanwhile, opposed NCTA and Cellular South petitions for reconsideration that would tighten the rules.

Dissident shareholder Ramius is continuing a proxy battle for control of Zoran despite Zoran’s $679 million sale agreement with CSR. Ramius promised that its proposed slate of directors will “work within the merger contract,” according to SEC documents.

"CDs are dead,” Ted Cohen, managing partner at TAG Strategic, said Thursday at the Digital Music Forum East in Manhattan. “There’s no reason to own music anymore, when there are so many ways to access it” free and through online subscriptions, he said.

SAN FRANCISCO -- An Electronic Arts campaign against phishing to steal game “entitlements” has produced takedowns of 70 websites and 2,000 eBay auctions since December, a company lawyer said. Fake EA sites, violating copyrights, are used to con visitors out of virtual property they've bought, and then it’s sold on eBay, said Kerry Hopkins, EA senior intellectual-property director, at a forum on social media and IP. Whole teams that gamers have bought in connection with the company’s FIFA franchise have been hijacked, she said. The crimes take advantage of an industry trend toward microtransactions and entitlement sales using virtual “coins” and auctions, Hopkins said.