How do the heavy weights of the Internet and telecom stack up in terms of how green their technology, energy consumption and political advocacy are? On Tuesday night Greenpeace released its latest Cool IT leaderboard report, which ranks the world’s largest IT giants, and shows who’s making progress and who’s falling behind.

Greenpeace gave Google the top overall score (53 out of 100), while Cisco (49 out of 100), Ericsson (48 out of 100) and Fujitsu (48 out of 100) followed shortly behind. On the flipside of the top companies, were the stragglers, which included Oracle (10 out of 100) at the very bottom, and TCS (11 out of 100) and Telefonica (11 out of 100) at the second and third to last spots.

Greenpeace gives the most weight in its scores to companies for using their own technology to reduce the world’s green house emissions. For example, a networking company like Cisco develops smart grid technology which can save energy and reduce emissions. The second largest part of the Greenpeace score is made up by how well the company advocates publicly and politically for reducing emissions. Lastly, Greenpeace gives companies points for monitoring and managing their own company emissions footprint.

Google rose in the rankings from six overall in 2010 to number one this week. Last year Google invested close to a billion dollars into clean energy projects. Cisco lost its top spot in 2010 to Google this year.

IBM, which was 3rd in 2010, dropped to 9th overall this week. Greenpeace says that IBM fell across all three categories and obtained four penalty points in political advocacy for being a member of a trade association that is trying to block the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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Most of the tech world now considers it a given that Google will be selling its own unlocked phone, called the Nexus One, to customers directly early in 2010. A few stragglers are still debating the finer points of the difference between Google working with handset manufacturers and carriers on a good Android experience v. them dictating the hardware specs and selling it directly to users. While they work that out for themselves we’re off to the next story – the Google Chrome OS Netbook (although we think Google has a few surprises left around the Nexus One, too).

Google has said from the beginning that they plan on working with select manufacturers to ensure a good Chrome OS experience for users when devices first hit the market next year. From an early FAQ: “The Google Chrome OS team is currently working with a number of technology companies to design and build devices that deliver an extraordinary end user experience. Among others, these companies include Acer, Adobe, ASUS, Freescale, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, and Toshiba.”

Most people assume that “working with” around Chrome OS means the same thing as “working with” around Android – lots of meetings to make sure the devices and software work together as well as possible. But sometimes those pesky hardware guys just don’t do things quite right. And when you’re competing against Apple, everything most definitely needs to be quite right.

That may explain why Google has, according to multiple sources, been talking to at least one hardware manufacturer about building a netbook for Google directly. As in Google gave the company a RFP with quite detailed technical specifications and has begun discussions on building it.

As the first high-def decade draws to a close, nearly every TV show on the national networks is now broadcast in high-def–with the exception of a few notable stragglers.

Keno is a game of chance that has a rich and illustrious history. The keno game that we are currently familiar with has undergone remarkable changes since its original inception. Gambling historians have traced its roots as far back as 200 B.C. to a Chinese form called ‘The game of the White Dove.’ It is well-documented that a form of keno was played in a bingo-like format on the eastern seaboard right around the time of the massive Chinese immigration during the gold rush. Have you tried online keno? Playing at an online casino the is a lot nicer experience than going to the casino these days where free online keno is usually no more than a click away.

In its contemporary form, keno is something like bingo in that both keno games are based on numbers. Just as with online keno, an individual keno card comes with 80 numbers and the player can pick as many as he or she wants. This is done by circling or otherwise marking them with a pencil or pen. Once the player has picked the numbers, he / she must bring the card back to the clerk at the keno booth. The clerk will then issue a receipt after recording the player’s numbers. It’s up to the player to redeem any winning ticket before the next round begins, so stragglers need to stay alert. Slightly different though when playing at an online casino given that you are playing on your computer.

When the maximum number of keno games (matching the number of tickets) is finished, the player can redeem any winnings and avoid the peril of a void ticket. Another option is the ‘stray and play’ ticket, which usually documents 30 or more keno games. Unlike standard keno tickets, the “stray and play” doesn’t have to be redeemed immediately and is often good for up to a year after purchase. Note, all this is for offline keno. The online keno game is a bit different.

Find out more at Keno Slot Machines or Keno Odds.

iPhone 3.0 apps are still dropping fast and furious, left and right, cats and dogs, etc, but there’s some reprieve for non-3.0 stragglers this week, too. Morning music? Personal broadcasting? Smug food habits? It’s all here.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Locavore 2.0: An hefty update to an already decent app, Locavore 2.0 mixes social networking with its local, seasonal food-finding abilities. Since everything’s got some kind of “social networking” feature nowadays, here’s what that means: Facebook Connect provides Facebook integration, so you can brag about your totally rad local potatoes to your whole friends list, and the “I Ate Local” screen shows what people are eating in your 150-mile proximity. Four dollars.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Mass Effect Galaxy: This as much a promotional tool for Mass Effect 2 as it is a game. As both, it does OK: the top-down, tilt-controlled gameplay is passable, and there’s a little bit of fresh story (and a new character!) for fans of the franchise. EA says beating this game will unlock some kind of content in ME2, but doesn’t care to tell us what. For fans, basically. Three bucks.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.AlarmTunes: I’ve been quietly fuming about the lack of a proper music-based iPhone alarm clock for two years now now, so ugh, finally, 3.0 lets us have one—at least, by way of a third party. It’s not an ideal solution, since you’ve got to leave the app open all night, but it works, and it’s about time. A dollar.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.WorldVoice Radio: This app tries—with some success—to emulate the experience of operating a ham radio. In more modern terms, it’s a streamlined, centralized podcasting service that lets you broadcast content and listen to others’ streams. The podcast-service-as-a-shortwave-radio conceit is kinda cute, I guess, but the recording system is oriented toward shorter messages (longer messages have to be imported from the Voice Memo app) and I don’t get the sense there’s a huge “scene” that buys into the whole pseudo-ham community thing. Three dollars, with (very) reduced-feature free version. [via TUAW]

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.AT&T Mobile Remote Access: AT&T has always been pretty good about letting their users control their U-verse IPTV DVRs over the internet (it’s been possible over a mobile web interface since 2007), and their iPhone app is an unsurprising addition to their lineup of management tools. Program search, scheduling, and deletion are all there, as are some helpfully specific search parameters. Free.

This Week’s App News on Giz:

•HP Invents Time Machine, Converts iPhone into Classic Calculator

•Say Goodbye To the Hottest Girls iPhone App

•iPhone 3GS’s Upgraded Hardware Means Console Emulators No Longer Suck

•First Apple-Approved iPhone Porn App

•iPhone Remote App Now Supports Apple TV Controlling With Gestures

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•AT&T Wants You to Pay $10 a Month for Their iPhone GPS Navigator

•iPhone AIM and Beejive IM Apps With Push Notifications Are Live

•Navigon GPS Navi iPhone App: Europe-Only Maps, $95 “Special Introduction Price”

This list is in no way definitive. If you’ve spotted a great app that hit the store this week, give us a heads up or, better yet, your firsthand impressions in the comments. And for even more apps: see our previous weekly roundups here, and check out our Favorite iPhone Apps Directory and our original iPhone App Review Marathon. Have a good weekend everybody.