Blackle - Power Saving Version Of Google
Jun 5th, 2007 by MadV
Recently got a forward saying something about energy saving version of google viz, Blackle. It’s noway incorporated to Google Inc. but the folks behind this were moved by the statistics showing energy required for displaying each color.
The energy required to display the color black is the least compared to others. Hence they thought why cant all the web pages be made in black back ground. Not all but atleast one which is used by a good percentage of people. And that led to the origin of Blackle.
They say that by giving black back drop for the Google homepage, around 750 Mega Watt Hours will be saved per year. And they are trying to prove it by giving a test page by using Google custom search for the blackle homepage. Many a Mickle Makes a Muckle :-).
Well, but this is applicable to CRT monitors only. CRT monitors consumes more energy to display brighter colors. But in case of LCD monitors, the backlight is always on. To make a pixel bright the light flows freely. To display a black pixel the light flow has to be hindered using red blue and green filters, which means more power consumption.
Footnote: I personally feel that a black back ground gives more strain to eyes. Will blacking effect finally lead to more energy loss due to more effort to eyes. After all the principle of conservation of energy states that Energy can neither be created nor be destroyed. Only one form of energy can be transformed into another.
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5 Responses to “Blackle - Power Saving Version Of Google”
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In my opinion, 750MWH will be used by people’s eyes to stressfully read the text. So how does this help.
On a side note : Does this mean B&W movies save energy ?
@Jason: Yeah quite true. And that’s what the law of conservation of energy says :P. Well for the b/w movies, I guess it should save some energy :D.
You would see the # hits go down if its not a white background. Research shows that white bkgrnd plays a vital role in making a site popular
@Rajesh: Yeah. Light backgrounds are more appealing to eyes than dark ones.
I find the other version Darkoogle.com is more easier to read since they uses green text just like the old days. Green text are more easy for our eyes and reduce eye strain.