Save energy when you search!!

[Ipsl]

So I have been using this search engine for a while and I havent been good at passing it along. So last year google comae up with blackle it the same engine but the screen is black cause less energy to the screen therefore saving energy.

Check it out:
http://www.blackle.com/

 

[SteveB]

Any research behind this? I don't think it'd make a difference.... on an LCD, the backlight is the big energy drain, and that's not going to be affected by the color of what is being displayed...

 

[Ipsl]

Quoted form Blackle.

"How is Blackle saving energy?
Blackle was created by Heap Media to remind us all of the need to take small steps in our everyday lives to save energy. Blackle searches are powered by Google Custom Search.
Blackle saves energy because the screen is predominantly black. "Image displayed is primarily a function of the user's color settings and desktop graphics, as well as the color and size of open application windows; a given monitor requires more power to display a white (or light) screen than a black (or dark) screen." Roberson et al, 2002
In January 2007 a blog post titled Black Google Would Save 750 Megawatt-hours a Year proposed the theory that a black version of the Google search engine would save a fair bit of energy due to the popularity of the search engine. Since then there has been skepticism about the significance of the energy savings that can be achieved and the cost in terms of readability of black web pages.
We believe that there is value in the concept because even if the energy savings are small, they all add up. Secondly we feel that seeing Blackle every time we load our web browser reminds us that we need to keep taking small steps to save energy."

 

[SteveB]

Look at Table 8 of that report to see the actual effect. The biggest energy savings would be found in CRTs. Switching to LCDs would lower power consumption and also make the white/black variation almost negligible...

Switching to LED backlit monitors holds the biggest power savings right now for anyone on a modern system.

 

[Ipsl]

Thats true hey I jsut figured every little bit helps. It may be a minimal amout when compared to one screen to another but if everyone did it than it would help. Just a thought

 

[SteveB]

I agree, it's a good thought. I'm not a fan of google (although I made a fortune off owning their stock) because of their privacy policies.

For that matter, I don't often use a search engine website directly, I have a toolbar for in my browser for that...