Google presents Blackle - save enegry. *

[Skip Intro]

Got this email today.

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If Google had a black screen, taking in account the huge number of page views, according to calculations, 750 mega watts/hour per year would be saved.

In response Google created a black version of its search engine, called Blackle, with the exact same functions as the white version, but obviously with lower energy consumption.

Help spread the word... use www.blackle.com
<http://www.blackle.com/>
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*I don't know if this is really created by Google or just an effort to get you to use a different search engine (assuming you use google). Google.com is registered to Google, Inc. Blackle.com is registered to Mokibo.

I (what else?) Googled Blackle which led me to Wikipedia's Blackle page, which is being "considered for deletion." There I found this description:

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Blackle is a custom version of the Google search engine <1> developed by Heap Media Australia.<2>, who claim that certain types of computer monitors save substantial energy when displaying black as a background color.
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Blackle's "about us" page states:

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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.
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If there is any proof to the claim, should we all not only use Blackle, but also set our display settings to display all web pages in black as well?

[billyoc]

1. unreadable. n/t

[dkofos]

2. Looks good to me.

[blogslut]

3. Neat

So far, no popups or autodownloads. Of course, I'm on Kubuntu using Konqueror so that might be the reason. Still works nice. Even tells me how much energy I saved. Thanks. :)

[silverweb]

4. Cool!

I'll give it a try....

[skids]

5. They didn't color it quite right...

...the last section of the query results is too low contrast a grey against the black to be very readable if there is any glare at all.

I would like a black google, not to save energy but because I like light on dark print, but this ain't workable for me.

[blogslut]

6. It's a bit difficult

I wish they would use a bolder, blockier font for the results. But I can handle it. Teh Google used to be my home page so setting it to Blackle makes me think (hope) I'm doing something good.

[wiggle-room]

7. The contrast should be better. But what if you just changed your display settings on your puter

displaying all webpages in black with whatever color font you want?

That should be an ever bigger savings - plus you control the font color.

Assuming the concept is valid.

[blogslut]

8. I think you can

I think so. I know you can turn off images, change fonts and stuff like that. I also know that the standard default background color for webpages used to be gray. Not sure if that's true anymore. Meaning, if one did not include the background color tag in the HTML code, the background would display the default color: gray. That is, if one were using a browser that followed W3C standards.

I would think on this yet-to-be-proved theory, that the color gray would use less electricity than white, but not as little as black. But I am rambling again...;)

[skids]

9. Well in my case, there's no savings...

...as I switched to using a laptop a long while back to save power, so I have an LCD (I actually downgraded a few tens of megahertz of CPU in the process, and never regretted it really.) Which is why I really don't care too much about the energy savings angle personally.

Unfortunately as far as changing OS or browser default color schemes it just doesn't work out -- too many sites set those colors explicitly, so you end up with a mashup of the colors they left at default, and the ones the site sets.

[Akoto]

10. I like it!

Not quite getting why some people are having such difficulty reading it, unless it's a display issue. I have no problem at all, and I'm one step above legally blind if my eye doctor speaks the truth. ;)