Dear Friends,
This is a very interesting idea...that a black background on your home page takes less energy to display on a computer. Check out http://www.blackle.com - the black background version of Google. After reading the info below, I'd like to know how many of you would be willing to re-design your home page to use a black background. And please tell me if you think there are any printing or readability issues with this change.
Thanks!
Steve
http://www.blackle.com/about/
How is Blackle saving energy? 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. How can you help? We encourage you to set Blackle as your home page. This way every time you load your Internet browser you will save a little bit of energy. Remember every bit counts! You will also be reminded about the need to save energy each time you see the Blackle page load. Help us spread the word about Blackle by telling your friends and family to set it as their home page. If you have a blog then give us a mention. Or put the following text in your email signature: "Blackle.com - Saving energy one search at a time". There are a lot of great web sites about saving energy and being more environmentally friendly. They are full of great tips covering the little things that we can all do to make a difference today. Try Blackling "energy saving tips" or visit treehugger.com a great blog dedicated to environmental awareness.
Blackle: Black Background Home Page for Google Saves Energy
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Thanks to Keith and Alex for checking this out further. Sorry I didn't do that myself. I guess it sounds better in theory than it turns out to be in practice.
Best regards,
Steve
Keith,
Apart from that, it doesn't look all that visually appealing!
Regards,
Glen Millar
Catchment Education Officer
Planning and Environment Unit
Caboolture Shire Council
PO Box 159, Caboolture, QLD 4510
Tel: 07 5420 0279,
Fax: 07 5420 0193
Mobile: 0438 206 638
Email: [email protected]
In the past few days I saw a posting regarding Blackle on the message board of Presidio, the MBA program I recently graduated from. I posted the responses that someone on this list had posted, saying they'd actually gotten a higher energy reading from Blackle. and someone pointed me to this very thorough explanation from Pablo Paster of Triple Pundit. http://www.triplepundit.com/pages/askpablo- black-google-002563.php
Who knew?
Paul Smith
2007 MBA, Sustainable Management
Presidio School of Management
510.420.0878
psmith{at}presidiomba.org
Is this an urban myth, maybe someone promoting it from an energy company?!! Just put a meter on the monitor and the consumption went from 25.8W on Google home page to 26.2W on Blackle, 0.5 W increase. Also tried it on other black pages and it's the same, consumption increases. Anyone else checked this out with a meter? There will be an explanation from someone who understands colour generation in computer monitors better than me, but it appears that the above statement is not correct.
Keith Loveridge
Energy and Water Officer
City of Whitehorse
Ph: 9262 6363
Fax: 9262 6589