If this is really going to save energy, why isn't the treehugger.com background black?
K.
· 2 years ago
So, when is treehugger going to be going black?
lexy-lou
· 2 years ago
great!
so when is tree hugger going to switch to a black background?
claire
· 2 years ago
it may save energy, but from a user friendly stand point websites with black backgrounds and white text are very hard on the eyes. For those with eye problems blackle may not be the best fit.
Chad P.
· 2 years ago
I agree that every little bit helps, and it would be nice if Google made that an option in its user prefs. But note that Blackle's cited study found that "...display color is a significant determinant of on power for CRTs, but not for LCDs." (PDF pg 19). So not only do LCDs use 1/3rd to 1/2 the power of CRTs, users iof LCDs can view white webpages without added watts.
I think a similar study should be done regarding animated graphics on webpages (Flash ads, YouTube, etc.). I bet all that animation requires more CPU use, which requires more CPU and GPU (graphics) power consumption. So people should run ad-blocking software to save power. :-)
Picasso
· 2 years ago
Somebody didn't think too hard about this one.
Most everybody these days are using LCD screens instead of the big clunky CRT monitors. The backlight design of an LCD means that it's actually using no energy to display a white pixel, and a small voltage is applied to each of three sub-pixels to display a black pixel. Might have been a good idea ten years ago, but not anymore.
Freddy
· 2 years ago
How about a black Treehugger.com?
Tarek
· 2 years ago
Keep in mind that, as the comments on the original post say, the power savings are only realized on CRTs, which make up only 25% (and dropping) of displays worldwide.
lee
· 2 years ago
Awful lot of white space on Treehugger. Awful lot of data on any given Treehugger page.
Shanthi Manian
· 2 years ago
On a mac, you can invert the colors of your screen by pressing Cmd+Option+Control+8. One way for Mac users to save energy.
Christian
· 2 years ago
When will treehugger fade to black?
dan
· 2 years ago
significant energy savings will only be for CRT monitors which are falling out of favor in the pc market. few current-generation LCD monitors support localized dimming so they use virtually the same amount of power regardless of the color displayed. still though, it's nice to see google provide a simple change to their service that helps save energy.
Mark Ontkush
· 2 years ago
and let's not forget
there Google Black
http://google-black.blogspot.com/
Trek Black
http://www.trek3d.com/black/
Spanish Black Google
http://www.negroogle.com
and German Black Google
http://www.schwarzoogle.com
lee
· 2 years ago
According to Blackle’s homepage at publication time, 4,408.917 Watt hours have been saved
4.4 kWh? That's it? That's about 1/8 of the average daily electricity consumption of just one US household.
Carter
· 2 years ago
Cool. How soon before we get a Blackle widget?
Paolo
· 2 years ago
Only if you're using a cathode-ray display... it makes no difference on an LCD.
ericsoco
· 2 years ago
black pixels actually take more energy to display on LCD screens than white pixels do.
with no electricity passing through the polarized filters, a subpixel will allow all the backlight to shine through to the front of the screen. blacking out a subpixel requires an additional charge.
the third and fourth paragraphs in this wikipedia entry, focused on 'twisted nematic devices', the most common type of LCD display, explain this in more detail.
thanks for the effort tho...
lee
· 2 years ago
To put this in further context, the total theoretical savings from this are equivalent to about 1.5 seconds of world electricity consumption, or around 1/7 the output of a utility-scale wind turbine with a blade length of 71 meters.
Drop in the bucket, to say the least, and it's never going to happen in any case.
Sage Vann
· 2 years ago
I find it interesting that this topic has been here several times but Treehugger is still using a primarily light colored layout. Shouldn't we practice what we preach?
Michael Condouris
· 2 years ago
It should be stressed that this *only* saves energy if you're using a CRT screen. LCD screens are backlit, so you're always pumping out the same amount of light. And if you're using a CRT, you're using WAY more power than an LCD anyway.
Anonymous
· 2 years ago
This assumes everyone uses CRT monitors. LCD uses the same amount of power regardless. Just turn down the brightness on your monitor.
Robert
· 2 years ago
If you are on a Mac (OS X) you can use a powersaving (usually) shortcut key combination which displayes in reverse video.
CMD + CTRL + Option + 8
Use this combination again to go back.
Ethan Lofton
· 2 years ago
Lets not forget, this only applies to people using CRT monitors.
An LCD display should not require a different amount of energy to display different colors, the technology is completely different.
It doesn't make sense to assume every person is using a CRT, most people now use LCD displays.
Anonymous
· 2 years ago
interesting concept, but their numbers aren't valid at all.
first off, if we're talking about CRTs, theyre powered by electron cannons firing at a phosphorus sheet. the power taken is a function of the efficiency of the electron gun. different monitors consume different amounts of power.
in an LCD, on the other hand, i dont think there is a power difference at all.
while this is well-intentioned, it is inherently misleading for them to post 4k megawatts saved so far, and such claims. what we need to be doing is worrying about where our power comes from, not how much we consume.
Incidentally, if such a shift of color scheme would make any kind of significant difference, they should be pushing to have people switch their entire windows themes to the way i used to have my boxes set up. black on black, with grey or white text. then every application would consume less power at all times.
Jan Steinman
· 2 years ago
I believe that Blackle will save energy on any CRT display, but I fear that it saves none on an LCD display.
The energy consumed by a monitor is from transforming electrical energy into light energy. In a CRT, a electron beam is modulated to excite phosphors: the beam is turned on full to produce a bright pixel, and turned off to produce a black pixel, so a black screen consumes less energy.
However, an LCD display has a constantly-lit backlight. The individual pixels are like masks that simply keep light from the backlight -- which is always on -- from being transmitted to the viewer. So the amount of energy is constantly the amount consumed by the backlight.
Mark Ontkush
· 2 years ago
A few other points that have come up.
Generally, yes, CRT use is declining, but they are still in widespread use, particularly in China (50% of all monitors) and Latin America (75% of all monitors)
Also, plasma and OLED use is rising. These follow the same idea, white is expensive.
Finally, it's not just Google. If every high volume site did this I'm sure is would really add up; 1000 comparable sites and we have 75 million dollars saved in electricity. and you get double points for converted sites in China, and triple points for converting sites in Latin America.
mark
Brad
· 2 years ago
The amount of computing power used to create these black pages, and even discuss them, likely negates any supposed savings. Please TH, for the sake of readability, cut this silliness and don't darken your own site.
Anonymous
· 2 years ago
Someone above suggested we worry about what type of power we use instead of how much. I just wanted to point out that the focus should of course be first on how much power we use. End-use energy efficiency is the best way to take a big bite out of the energy problem. Any inefficiencies in transmitting source power to power we use at home are multiplied up the distribution chain. For example, if we save 1 Watt of power at home, that might translate into savings of 3 Watts of source power due to inefficiencies. Not only are we not needing to create this power (through a dirty or clean method), but we no longer have to pay for it either, so we actually save money. Cleaner and cheaper - that's why we should all be worrying about energy efficiency first!
lee
· 2 years ago
1000 comparable sites and we have 75 million dollars
There aren't 1,000 comparable sites to Google. There probably aren't 10 comparable sites to Google.
Go back to my simple example. The amount of energy that could be saved (in theory) by turning Google black (which will never happen) is the same as 1/7 the power of 1 utiliity-scale wind turbine. How about you ask thousands of people to donate a dollar and we can all buy a windmill. The income from it could fund some sort of environmental project (eg, getting rid of all or most of the ads on Treehugger). And you'd end up saving 7 times the energy of trying to force Google to go black the world over (which would surely cost them boatloads of money and market cap, as well as frying millions of human eyeballs).
matt
· 2 years ago
wow.. don't people at least skim the existing comments before posting to avoid repeating the same point? If we all did that, the energy saved from less time spent at the computer might be significant.
Minnesota Web Design
· 2 years ago
I think that would be really distracting to have an all black background, although it is a good concept.
Duncan Sample
· 2 years ago
I haven't seen Blackle (it appears to be down) but ninja.com looks like a very nice black version of Google.
Jonathan
· 2 years ago
Um - if you REALLY think this is important - change your browser text color to white and background to white and disable other site's overriding your color selection.
Now EVERY page you view is black, regardless of design. If EVERY browser on the planet mas mostly black and black actually saved energy it would be orders of magnitude more energy saving than any given page.
Go for a black desktop while you're at it.
Joe Webuser
· 2 years ago
Actually Blackle is owned by Heap Media. It has NOTHING to do with google! It is a sham.
As someone else already pointed out the energy saved by saved by a CRT monitor is very little, and that is off set by a LCD which needs more power to re-create black since a LCD display does not naturally do black colors.
Rosemary Wessel
· 2 years ago
I know I'm designing my sites with dark backgrounds from now on - and revamping the old ones to dark colors.
Hope treehugger joins on soon.
Drop in the bucket??
Drop-schmop, 31% reduction in energy use is substantial, even if the overall numbers are low.
Are there bigger fish to fry?
Hell yeah, but why not do everything we can?
jaime
· 2 years ago
Looks like many have jumped on the "Blackle Bash" bangwagon....and I agree that many of the arguments, with respect to CTR v LCD monitors etc, have been valid.
However its't it worth considering the bigger picture. Of course sites such as blackle do not result in huge savings to the environment, on the contrary, the savings are very small. However isn't that besides the point. Surely the environmental awarness created far more valuable..Take the Live8 concerts a couple of years ago as an example. These concerts were not staged to raise money and immediately fix world poverty. They were staged to create 'awareness'. Now, as a result of the concerts, political leaders have been forced by their constituents to act.
So before we jump on the "blackle bash" bandwagon I think we should all take a step back and appreciate that we are all fighting the same battle - saving our environment. Sites like blackle and tree hugger and all the others are only a drop in the ocean, but at least they are fostering important environmental awareness!
lee
· 2 years ago
Drop-schmop, 31% reduction in energy use is substantial, even if the overall numbers are low.
31% of nothing is nothing.
Are there bigger fish to fry Hell yeah, but why not do everything we can?
Because humans have a finite amount of time and energy and there's countless more important things to address, and which are actually amenable to change. If you try to do everything, you end up doing nothing.
Anonymous
· 2 years ago
Why do think binary?
if black is too hard for people to read and white consumes too much energy, let take the middle way.
Lets use the grey color!
At least it would save some energy.
Every small drop makes a sea!
51m0M3
· 2 years ago
yea, what a pity that site is obscured from today:
Forbidden
You don't have permission to access / on this server.
Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
Apache/1.3.33 Server at AppStuff Port 80
Rosemary
· 2 years ago
P.S. Does anyone know what happened to Blackle?
It went Forbidden yesterday.
:o
Daniel
· 2 years ago
4 whole kWh, huh? I poop four kWh.
Bill Henry
· 2 years ago
Right on Picasso!
If you have an LCD stick to the white screen it uses less energy.
When an LCD pixel is turned on (high power mode) it twists and blocks the light. When it is off it lets the light through.
You can still save energy by turning down the backlight especially when the ambient light is low.
If you are still using a CRT and are concerned about energy - recycle it right away. An LCD only uses a few watts while CRTs use 100 - 250W.
rbspalding
· 2 years ago
What's up with Blackle? Been using it since the post, and now it's down . . . . ?
Brianne
· 2 years ago
I was using blackle but now it's "forbidden by my server"?
Why? I'm using my local home network connection..
Sanjay Gandhi
· 2 years ago
Told you guys blackle is just the main page of http://www.searchincolor which has offered web search in many colors since like, forever....
Sanjay
kihjkjhj
· 2 years ago
this is cool/?
jsriniu
· 2 years ago
I think there might be some justification in the logic behind making google all black. But lets not divert our attention from things which can really make a change (like switching off lights when we do not need it, using less of plastics and so forth) unlike the small benefit which can come from making google site black.
The blackle site however looks like a clever attempt to gather business in the web search space, capitalizing on people's gullibility.
O_Crítico
· 2 years ago
This is very inacurate, i'll explain:
In CRT's you Might have a quite good power reduction, because in a CRT the colors are generated trough a cannon that works at an high voltage.
Now since "black" means "no bombarding phosforus" at all, it also means that i wont need energy to genrate a 100% black page. (or i would need less energy) in the other hand, a white page would require much more energy.
Now here's the twist, CRT's are disapearing, i'm one of the few who has a professional 21 inch CRT.
LCD's on the other hand work the other way arround, they are white (bright back light) the only thing that keeps them black is the big transistors array that makes the color when polarizes the liquid cristals hence de name LCD...,
So to make black you would have to instigate energy to those transistors so it would be more expensive to have a black page than a white page (by 4 or 5 watts :p)
it's not by any change that those old gameboys have a contrast dial and you were able to save energy by keeping the contrast to a minimum
Ps i'm sorry about my English
Pranav
· 2 years ago
Practice what you preach treehugger !!!!
Anonymous
· 2 years ago
Sorry to add more skepticism, but a white on black design is well understood to be harder and slower to read. I expect this means Web site users on a site using such a "low energy" design would end up needing to spend more time at the site reading the text. In another treegugger thread on black google it's noted that in one study 12 of 15 subjects took longer to read white on black text.
The math incidentally in that other thread seems very wrong. I calculate from their assumptions a potential $208,000.00 savings on 2.098 megawatt hours, not $75,000.00 on 750 megatwatt hours.
Bryan allan
· 2 years ago
Blackle is misleading. It is only effective for CRT monitors. Read their "about" page. They do not even mention that a black screen has no effect on the consumption of energy for LCD screens. You can learn this by reading the article which they reference on their "About" page.
I emailed Blackle about this over a month ago, I got a response with a pledge to amend the page, but the page remains misleading.
Furthermore, Blackle misses a teachable moment. You can save energy on an LCD by turning down the brightness. They do nothing to educate about different size monitors or LED backlit monitors. Instead, they inflate their "watt-hours saved" by assuming everyone uses a CRT monitor, which is preposterous.
Blackle does a disservice to the environmental movement by misleading folks, leading them into false beliefs, skipping chances to educate, and by inflating their own self importance.
I for one, am disgusted.
Anonymous
· 2 years ago
How about you just don't use a computer if you want to really hug a tree. The monitor power is a lot less than the actual computer uses to run. In fact, if you're reading this, you obviously don't care about the environment. You shouldn't have any plugs in your house. Have you any idea what it took to get the power to your house? You should never use a car, never go on holiday, and for god's sake never even breathe! Don't you know how much carbon dioxide you're releasing into the atmosphere?? Shame on you!
Or you could just get on with your life and make a difference by accepting wind power, hydro power, solar power and other renewable sources of energy. If you want to say "every little helps" put a solar panel or two on your roof to supply your monitor. Stop people cutting down rainforests. Stop making compromises and excuses for governments and companies that could cut the problem off at its source.
Ashley Manteit
· 2 years ago
I placed a power meter on my LCD monitor and found that the white google used 28 Watts and the google black used 29 Watts.
Ashley
Robert
· 2 years ago
Wow! Black is my favorite non-color (aside from white). But the features that the white Google has are not there, like news and image features. But overall, it is very easy on the eyes and less of a headache, too. I'm gonna stick with this one.
Rohit Wason
· 2 years ago
Interesting study...but think about the brand value Google will lose with turning "black". I personally will not like to use a site with those colors
John Smith
· 2 years ago
There is new rival in town called Greenergle.com... in my opinion is much nicer to watch and more comfotable to use than that black one... also its not just based on one priciple but 10 - the full 10 rules list can be found at:
Unfortunately they have it backwards. Most computers these days use liquid crystal display (LCD) panels. LCD backlights are always on at a constant level of white light (it's literally a florescent light bulb). The liquid crystal panel in front of the backlight turns on to block out light of different colors. Liquid crystals use more power when they are turned on. And, counter-intuitively, when an LCD panel is "turned on" using the most energy is when it is blocking out the most light to create black!
The only technologies where black would indeed save energy are on CRT displays, or OLED displays, both of which are not now in widespread use.
Ian Webster
· 2 years ago
Come on - leave the guy alone. Every little bit helps, right.
So does Darkoogle.com, but they use green text which are more visible to the eye.
heidi
· 2 years ago
it´s not black at all...!? why not ??
Angela
· 2 years ago
I personally prefer using www.Darkoogle.com since they does the same thing and uses green text to reduce eye strain. Also they allow search by country!!!! which is important to result the most relevant results
Mike
· 2 years ago
I wonder if blackle is using a dedicated server. They could have easily used more than the 135 kilowatt hours they "saved" to power the server.
This is the dumbest publicity stunt i've seen so far. As mentioned before, the "environmental cost" of running the blackle engine FAR outdoes any savings gotten from people using it, given they are using old CRTs.
David M
· 2 years ago
Perhaps it's appropriate that I find this article on Treehugger. This is my first time to this site, but from the name I'm guessing it may be the last. While I do want to do things to help the environment, and avoid needlessly damaging it, I feel the environmental movement is a bit too much "out there". It is topics like this that convince people like myself that treehuggers truly are nuts. I sometimes believe that treehuggers are really only concerned with preaching to one another, and have no ideas about how to sway those who might be considered "on the fence". Seriously folks, you're driving away thousands of potential converts with drivel such as this.
Posted while reading this on one monitor while the other glares bright white, and I don't even know what's on that other monitor at the moment.
Krista
· 2 years ago
I really liked this idea ever since I've heard of it. And I don't think its a publicity stunt at all. I think its great that people are trying to come up with ideas to help the environment any way they can and in this case saving energy when conducting searches on the internet. Even if resent studies have shown that it may only be applicable to CRT monitors which is only 25% of displays, it is still 25% rather than zero percent meaning energy can still be saved.
I personally am going to switch to a site called Greenback Search (http://www.greenbacksearch.com/). Their search engine is powered by Google so you get the same search results. And not only do they use eco-friendly colors for their site but as an added step to help the environment they use a big part of their revenue from searches done on the site to purchase carbon offsets for users. Isn't that great? It has other cool features as well so check it out.
guten tag
· 2 years ago
you forgot to answer my question. what is better? black or white screens. stop contradicting everything!!!!!
surya
· 2 years ago
Why do think binary?
if black is too hard for people to read and white consumes too much energy, let take the middle way.
Lets use the grey color
Jason
· 2 years ago
This is in response to the recent posts on blackle which got under my skin a) because it isn't really agreed on that it works and b) he's actually making money from it, but it goes into his own pockets!!!
Since it is is common knowledge that black pages in general don't do anything productive, I would suggest regrowgle.com as an alternative.
I know it's not the answer to everything, but unlike blackle etc who are making money from uneducated searchers, regrowgle.com re-invests any profit back into environmental schemes in a bid to try and offset a small part of your web use.
Ian Webster
· 2 years ago
I've just noticed that the (previously UK-only) BlackGoogle.co.uk has just released a fully functional US version on:
www.BlackGoogle.co.uk/HomePageUSA.htm
Greenle Searcher
· 2 years ago
A black background does not save energy.
It may spend more...
I prefer Greenle
http://greenle.info
Christene
· 2 years ago
Yes, there are several things going on with blackle, but people tend to forget that there is more need of user interactivity then the stupid blackle itself.
Now the age is of VIDEOS users are not going to shift from google to blackle just like that. There is a site named http://www.yaarii.com</a> that gives the option to search videos as well as as the regular web search. I think I would bookmark this site , because it gives the option to see any video in the same page without moving your ass!
Jure Lotrich
· 2 years ago
well ppl I have saw your posts here and I think you got it all wrong. No matther how much of energy you waste by having standard google site (wich is white) or blackel or greeny, and no matther what kinde of monitors and how many of them you have, you still won't help by reducing of power PRODUCED. The ammount of PRODUCED power will still be same, the only difference is u will pay less on electrical bill. So for that reason you shouldn't be missled by any point of view which is differen't than making money on your account, by taking new skins or just reading posts on various sites with enwiromental data.
Don't BE blind, it's all about ''benjamins''!
Take care, Jure Lotrich
uranalysis_is_wrong
· 2 years ago
im usng fewr letrs 2 sav n.ergy
Anonymous
· 2 years ago
lol black google... yet another "ingenious" idea from treehuggers.
if people want to risk their vision for saving some energy that people waste anyway then it's fine with me.
Robert
· 2 years ago
If blackle has the same google´s features why it doesn´t have the IMAGES option?. Do they just don´t want to make google dissapear? It doesn´t make sense at all.
Anonymous
· 2 years ago
There seems to be alot of black screen searches out there. I'm not completely convinced.
It promises to donate 50% of proceeds to worthy cause to help the planet. So if the black screen doesn't actually save energy at least money is being donated.
I think that this website should definatly switch to a black backround and I can't see black on white as easily as white on black. So I think blackle rocks. But LCD screens are not good anyway and I prefer the old CRT's!!!!
Energy Saver
· 2 years ago
There is also the Carbon Neutral Search Engine (http://www.carbonneutralsearch.co.uk) it uses Google Custom Search but offsets a minimum of 100g of CO2 per search, saving energy and the environment
HANA
· 1 year ago
at least they are trying to make a difference even if it is a small one..... what are doing..... i think they are good for trying even if it wasnt fully the best idea......
DB
· 1 year ago
Um, did anyone think to think about how much (or how little, actually), 750 MW-hrs per year actually is? (wow, it's MEGA watts, so it must be a lot).
Quick back of the envelope, it's about 500 barrels of crude. (Average US per capita consumption per year is about 69 barrels, for reference).
In contrast, I saved about 10 barrels (55000 MJ) last year by installing programmable thermostats in the house. Put another way, if 50 more people did that, we'd have Blackle beat hands down (and 50 happy people would have about another kilobuck in their wallet next year). Somehow I think that kind of advocacy is alot more likely to succeed than getting 200 million people per day to redirect their search engines (75% of whom will be doing it pointlessly on LCDs, which is a pretty good counter to "every drop counts").
Put yet another way, even taking Blackle's estimate at face value, I single-handedly beat their entire effort's performance to date in 3 months.
It ain't rocket science :-)
Suzi
· 1 year ago
HYPOCRITES. Shouldn't tree hugger use a darker background then. All very well supporting an energy saving page if u dont do it urself. : )
Reece
· 1 year ago
gee I'm curious about this LCD debarkle.
I always thought that an lcd monitor had 3 LEDs per "pixel" each which could display red green or blue, you know...RGB monitor? anyways if you had a blue background then only the majority of each pixel's BLUE LED would be active and perhaps a few GREEN ones and RED ones to make it an appealing colour configured in a specific pixel pattern unseeable to the naked eye.
So white light was according to my physics background all 3 LEDs the red,green and blue one all active at the one time? and black of course none of them illuminated causeing no output of light.
I have been hearing about this back-panel energy consumption apparently being independant of what is being displayed, I hope someone can clarify it, but how likely is illuminating all 3 LEDs per pixel to make white going to consume less energy than none of them being illuminated? :P
anyway a little clarification from the expert wikipedia researcher if you can.
Anonymous
· 1 year ago
For every query you make to blackle, the guys behind it get money from google for using their "customized" search engine.. They must be rich now and laugh their guts out on how easily people can be manipulated using their emotions
casey
· 1 year ago
I prefer to use BLACKOOGLE, the same idea but with more functionalities like image and video searches.
http://www.blackoogle.us - US
http://www.blackoogle.co.uk - UK
bye
;)
Garrett S.
· 1 year ago
Did everyone forget what they learned in school? Black absorbs energy, doesnt matter whether it's light, heat, chemical, or electrical, white reflects it. White gives off more radiation, but since it gives off more radiation it consumes less energy. It takes energy to create white though, but black absorbs more energy to stay black than it does to creat white light. Having a white screen is like your monitor turning into an opaque mirror, all captured light from a room gets concentrated on the screen and bounces off of it along with the radiation that excapes given off by the backlighting, when your screen is black, less radiation excapes from the backlighting because the color pixles block it but the pixel layer in the screen absorbs the radiation when the pixles are all on and exert it as heat instead of light.
You could think of it like this, what happens when theres a bunch of pollution trapped in the atmosphear which makes it smoggy and hazy? It darkens it and the radiation from the suns light is absorbed by the smoggy layer and turned into heat from light. Thats what is creating global warming,
I bet if tests were run on wire coating conductivity they would find a black coating on wires would conduct a little less than a white coating (even though coatings are mostly non conductive they still lose energy along the way). Thats besides the point though.
ailish elzy
· 1 year ago
Treehugger should switch to an all black screen too!!
pinkneonlights
· 1 year ago
ummm....kinda strange why isent treehugger.com not black
Jason
· 1 year ago
I've seen a few pages around which claim to help the environment in many ways, the main being - using a black screen energy consumption is reduced and therefore your "foot print" is reduced.
Personally I feel the savings are minimal and we need to take an additional more proactive approach. using http://www.regrowgle.com as a search portal does this. Any profits generated through searches on this site are actually reinvested into "green" projects such as forest regeneration. So in basic terms you are making positive changes to our world as you search. And the best this is - it costs you as a user - NOTHING!!
If for nothing else, at least give it a try and get your friends to have a go as well. There's nothing to loose, and a whole lot to gain.
Tom
· 1 year ago
Googles now gone black :O
Michelle
· 1 year ago
I think that this is all a great idea. It saves engergy with a simple color change. I think google should deffenatly stay like this and maybe even other websites could do this too.
Athough i do agree that the white against black may be hard on some people's eyes, but the white backround is hard on the enviorment.
Anonymus
· 1 year ago
I think this should definatly be done just maybe with a different color other than white.
Adam Smith
· 1 year ago
We are all going to be using more and more power in the future, and to believe otherwise contradicts everything we know and have experienced. Efficiency is a good thing, but we WILL use much more power. Anyone care to bet on this? Secondly, as someone who has studied climate change for a number of years, I'll tell you that it's 100% political and has no basis in fact. None. Zero. What really scares me how ignorant the public is about science. I find cannot explain anything the least bit scientific to anyone without getting the blank face of ignorance. It's no wonder we believe in such nonsense and not in the commonsense idea of producing more energy. If we keep heading towards this conservation route, gas is going to be $8 per gallon, and you'll HAVE to keep your lights turned off.
Anonymous
· 1 year ago
well, its been done
Noneek
· 1 year ago
They do realise that a new google made website was made(using 59 watt) along with the original Google(using 7 watt) which is still being used. So they are actually wasting 133 watts now. Thats more than 1,300 mega-watt hours a year wasted. Way to go Blackle.........It's still cool looking though :)
Michael
· 1 year ago
I saw the Google homepage change on Saturday - at first I thought it was a virus or something on my computer. the link to the explanation of why Google had gone wierd was kind hard to read - think they should've done some testing on it for the visually impaired as there was very little contrast between the text and the background.
sandhya
· 1 year ago
if its going to save energy, why cant you make its background color black..
Pier
· 1 year ago
I've recently tested my LCD monitor to determine whether Blackle does infact save on energy. The results I got from my experiment did really surprise me as I've learnt that a black webpage is really an over lay of several individual colour layers thus requiring more energy.
In plain figures Blackle used 28Watts and Google used 27Watts. It's not that big of a difference but you can't make a claim if it's not true!
Vladislav Jankovych
· 1 year ago
I am working in Pearl Restaurant and we are using Blackle UK on every computers. It suit with our furniture design ;) and our associates are happy with it.
Anonymous
· 1 year ago
what they should simply do is reduce the amount of energy used by servers around the world maybe use the heat gievn off to heat council houses around the uk or something... would save alot
Rolando
· 1 year ago
I think its a great idea but i use ecosmartsearch.com instead because its got a web,image,shopping search and more and the most amazing thing is it was made by a 13 year old boy!!!
and its cooler than blackle.
Alice
· 1 year ago
Guys, all green initiatives are great. The more the better. Praise blackle for it is trying. I bet if 50% of people were trying like them, the world would be 100% carbon neutral today.
Although, I suggest you use gugl.me. Its colours are so much easy for your eyes. I have difficulty focusing on blackle's search screen, but the nice shine and contrasting colours of gugl.me are just what I was looking for.
geminihunter
· 1 year ago
There are around 25 different versions of “black google” online. The best one I’ve found is www.cleanblack.com. Cleanblack is the only version that allows you to change the text colors of the google search results. Try it yourself by going to www.cleanblack.com/theme/</p>
imaginationg web
· 1 year ago
There are around 17 different versions of “black google” online. The best one I’ve found is www.cleanblack.com. Cleanblack is the only version that allows you to change the text colors of the google search results. Try it yourself by going to www.cleanblack.com/theme/</p>
magestik
· 1 year ago
The best site out there for this is called Vimle. The white version is at vimle.com and is best for people who prefer white, or use a newer LCD monitor. The black version is at b.vimle.com and is best for people who prefer black, or use an older CRT monitor to save energy. Vimle is as small as possible, conserving time/space/bandwidth and energy.
Patrick Shoemaker
· 11 months ago
It looks like most of the posters here have figured out that a predominantly black background will have diminishing returns as more CRT monitors are replaced with LCDs. One might think that even this very small reduction in power use by the dwindling population of CRT monitors makes Blackle useful.
However, I haven't seen any comments about the back-end power usage of the servers that run Blackle. If one were to calculate the power usage of each server needed to support a given number of Blackle users, and compare it to the potential power savings based on the current distribution of CRT/LCD users of Blackle's services, I would expect Blackle to generate a net INCREASE in overall energy usage. Anyone care to take on the challenge?
Roofing Guy
· 11 months ago
I suspect this is just a way for Blackle to make a buck.
If you search on Blackle, then click on the ads, Blackle gets a cut out of the deal.
Elijah
· 9 months ago
Actually, Google responded to the claim and new studies have shown that an all black screen on an LCD display may actually increase energy consumption, so Blackle is self-defeating, and they're just in it for the hype
All Comments
If this is really going to save energy, why isn't the treehugger.com background black?
So, when is treehugger going to be going black?
great!
so when is tree hugger going to switch to a black background?
it may save energy, but from a user friendly stand point websites with black backgrounds and white text are very hard on the eyes. For those with eye problems blackle may not be the best fit.
I agree that every little bit helps, and it would be nice if Google made that an option in its user prefs. But note that Blackle's cited study found that "...display color is a significant determinant of on power for CRTs, but not for LCDs." (PDF pg 19). So not only do LCDs use 1/3rd to 1/2 the power of CRTs, users iof LCDs can view white webpages without added watts.
I think a similar study should be done regarding animated graphics on webpages (Flash ads, YouTube, etc.). I bet all that animation requires more CPU use, which requires more CPU and GPU (graphics) power consumption. So people should run ad-blocking software to save power. :-)
Somebody didn't think too hard about this one.
Most everybody these days are using LCD screens instead of the big clunky CRT monitors. The backlight design of an LCD means that it's actually using no energy to display a white pixel, and a small voltage is applied to each of three sub-pixels to display a black pixel. Might have been a good idea ten years ago, but not anymore.
How about a black Treehugger.com?
Keep in mind that, as the comments on the original post say, the power savings are only realized on CRTs, which make up only 25% (and dropping) of displays worldwide.
Awful lot of white space on Treehugger. Awful lot of data on any given Treehugger page.
On a mac, you can invert the colors of your screen by pressing Cmd+Option+Control+8. One way for Mac users to save energy.
When will treehugger fade to black?
significant energy savings will only be for CRT monitors which are falling out of favor in the pc market. few current-generation LCD monitors support localized dimming so they use virtually the same amount of power regardless of the color displayed. still though, it's nice to see google provide a simple change to their service that helps save energy.
and let's not forget
there Google Black
http://google-black.blogspot.com/
Trek Black
http://www.trek3d.com/black/
Spanish Black Google
http://www.negroogle.com
and German Black Google
http://www.schwarzoogle.com
According to Blackle’s homepage at publication time, 4,408.917 Watt hours have been saved
4.4 kWh? That's it? That's about 1/8 of the average daily electricity consumption of just one US household.
Cool. How soon before we get a Blackle widget?
Only if you're using a cathode-ray display... it makes no difference on an LCD.
black pixels actually take more energy to display on LCD screens than white pixels do.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_crystal_display
with no electricity passing through the polarized filters, a subpixel will allow all the backlight to shine through to the front of the screen. blacking out a subpixel requires an additional charge.
the third and fourth paragraphs in this wikipedia entry, focused on 'twisted nematic devices', the most common type of LCD display, explain this in more detail.
thanks for the effort tho...
To put this in further context, the total theoretical savings from this are equivalent to about 1.5 seconds of world electricity consumption, or around 1/7 the output of a utility-scale wind turbine with a blade length of 71 meters.
Drop in the bucket, to say the least, and it's never going to happen in any case.
I find it interesting that this topic has been here several times but Treehugger is still using a primarily light colored layout. Shouldn't we practice what we preach?
It should be stressed that this *only* saves energy if you're using a CRT screen. LCD screens are backlit, so you're always pumping out the same amount of light. And if you're using a CRT, you're using WAY more power than an LCD anyway.
This assumes everyone uses CRT monitors. LCD uses the same amount of power regardless. Just turn down the brightness on your monitor.
If you are on a Mac (OS X) you can use a powersaving (usually) shortcut key combination which displayes in reverse video.
CMD + CTRL + Option + 8
Use this combination again to go back.
Lets not forget, this only applies to people using CRT monitors.
An LCD display should not require a different amount of energy to display different colors, the technology is completely different.
It doesn't make sense to assume every person is using a CRT, most people now use LCD displays.
interesting concept, but their numbers aren't valid at all.
first off, if we're talking about CRTs, theyre powered by electron cannons firing at a phosphorus sheet. the power taken is a function of the efficiency of the electron gun. different monitors consume different amounts of power.
in an LCD, on the other hand, i dont think there is a power difference at all.
while this is well-intentioned, it is inherently misleading for them to post 4k megawatts saved so far, and such claims. what we need to be doing is worrying about where our power comes from, not how much we consume.
Incidentally, if such a shift of color scheme would make any kind of significant difference, they should be pushing to have people switch their entire windows themes to the way i used to have my boxes set up. black on black, with grey or white text. then every application would consume less power at all times.
I believe that Blackle will save energy on any CRT display, but I fear that it saves none on an LCD display.
The energy consumed by a monitor is from transforming electrical energy into light energy. In a CRT, a electron beam is modulated to excite phosphors: the beam is turned on full to produce a bright pixel, and turned off to produce a black pixel, so a black screen consumes less energy.
However, an LCD display has a constantly-lit backlight. The individual pixels are like masks that simply keep light from the backlight -- which is always on -- from being transmitted to the viewer. So the amount of energy is constantly the amount consumed by the backlight.
A few other points that have come up.
Generally, yes, CRT use is declining, but they are still in widespread use, particularly in China (50% of all monitors) and Latin America (75% of all monitors)
Also, plasma and OLED use is rising. These follow the same idea, white is expensive.
Finally, it's not just Google. If every high volume site did this I'm sure is would really add up; 1000 comparable sites and we have 75 million dollars saved in electricity. and you get double points for converted sites in China, and triple points for converting sites in Latin America.
mark
The amount of computing power used to create these black pages, and even discuss them, likely negates any supposed savings. Please TH, for the sake of readability, cut this silliness and don't darken your own site.
Someone above suggested we worry about what type of power we use instead of how much. I just wanted to point out that the focus should of course be first on how much power we use. End-use energy efficiency is the best way to take a big bite out of the energy problem. Any inefficiencies in transmitting source power to power we use at home are multiplied up the distribution chain. For example, if we save 1 Watt of power at home, that might translate into savings of 3 Watts of source power due to inefficiencies. Not only are we not needing to create this power (through a dirty or clean method), but we no longer have to pay for it either, so we actually save money. Cleaner and cheaper - that's why we should all be worrying about energy efficiency first!
1000 comparable sites and we have 75 million dollars
There aren't 1,000 comparable sites to Google. There probably aren't 10 comparable sites to Google.
Go back to my simple example. The amount of energy that could be saved (in theory) by turning Google black (which will never happen) is the same as 1/7 the power of 1 utiliity-scale wind turbine. How about you ask thousands of people to donate a dollar and we can all buy a windmill. The income from it could fund some sort of environmental project (eg, getting rid of all or most of the ads on Treehugger). And you'd end up saving 7 times the energy of trying to force Google to go black the world over (which would surely cost them boatloads of money and market cap, as well as frying millions of human eyeballs).
wow.. don't people at least skim the existing comments before posting to avoid repeating the same point? If we all did that, the energy saved from less time spent at the computer might be significant.
I think that would be really distracting to have an all black background, although it is a good concept.
I haven't seen Blackle (it appears to be down) but ninja.com looks like a very nice black version of Google.
Um - if you REALLY think this is important - change your browser text color to white and background to white and disable other site's overriding your color selection.
Now EVERY page you view is black, regardless of design. If EVERY browser on the planet mas mostly black and black actually saved energy it would be orders of magnitude more energy saving than any given page.
Go for a black desktop while you're at it.
Actually Blackle is owned by Heap Media. It has NOTHING to do with google! It is a sham.
As someone else already pointed out the energy saved by saved by a CRT monitor is very little, and that is off set by a LCD which needs more power to re-create black since a LCD display does not naturally do black colors.
I know I'm designing my sites with dark backgrounds from now on - and revamping the old ones to dark colors.
Hope treehugger joins on soon.
Drop in the bucket??
Drop-schmop, 31% reduction in energy use is substantial, even if the overall numbers are low.
Are there bigger fish to fry?
Hell yeah, but why not do everything we can?
Looks like many have jumped on the "Blackle Bash" bangwagon....and I agree that many of the arguments, with respect to CTR v LCD monitors etc, have been valid.
However its't it worth considering the bigger picture. Of course sites such as blackle do not result in huge savings to the environment, on the contrary, the savings are very small. However isn't that besides the point. Surely the environmental awarness created far more valuable..Take the Live8 concerts a couple of years ago as an example. These concerts were not staged to raise money and immediately fix world poverty. They were staged to create 'awareness'. Now, as a result of the concerts, political leaders have been forced by their constituents to act.
So before we jump on the "blackle bash" bandwagon I think we should all take a step back and appreciate that we are all fighting the same battle - saving our environment. Sites like blackle and tree hugger and all the others are only a drop in the ocean, but at least they are fostering important environmental awareness!
Drop-schmop, 31% reduction in energy use is substantial, even if the overall numbers are low.
31% of nothing is nothing.
Are there bigger fish to fry Hell yeah, but why not do everything we can?
Because humans have a finite amount of time and energy and there's countless more important things to address, and which are actually amenable to change. If you try to do everything, you end up doing nothing.
Why do think binary?
if black is too hard for people to read and white consumes too much energy, let take the middle way.
Lets use the grey color!
At least it would save some energy.
Every small drop makes a sea!
yea, what a pity that site is obscured from today:
Forbidden
You don't have permission to access / on this server.
Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
Apache/1.3.33 Server at AppStuff Port 80
P.S. Does anyone know what happened to Blackle?
It went Forbidden yesterday.
:o
4 whole kWh, huh? I poop four kWh.
Right on Picasso!
If you have an LCD stick to the white screen it uses less energy.
When an LCD pixel is turned on (high power mode) it twists and blocks the light. When it is off it lets the light through.
You can still save energy by turning down the backlight especially when the ambient light is low.
If you are still using a CRT and are concerned about energy - recycle it right away. An LCD only uses a few watts while CRTs use 100 - 250W.
What's up with Blackle? Been using it since the post, and now it's down . . . . ?
I was using blackle but now it's "forbidden by my server"?
Why? I'm using my local home network connection..
Told you guys blackle is just the main page of http://www.searchincolor which has offered web search in many colors since like, forever....
Sanjay
this is cool/?
I think there might be some justification in the logic behind making google all black. But lets not divert our attention from things which can really make a change (like switching off lights when we do not need it, using less of plastics and so forth) unlike the small benefit which can come from making google site black.
The blackle site however looks like a clever attempt to gather business in the web search space, capitalizing on people's gullibility.
This is very inacurate, i'll explain:
In CRT's you Might have a quite good power reduction, because in a CRT the colors are generated trough a cannon that works at an high voltage.
Now since "black" means "no bombarding phosforus" at all, it also means that i wont need energy to genrate a 100% black page. (or i would need less energy) in the other hand, a white page would require much more energy.
Now here's the twist, CRT's are disapearing, i'm one of the few who has a professional 21 inch CRT.
LCD's on the other hand work the other way arround, they are white (bright back light) the only thing that keeps them black is the big transistors array that makes the color when polarizes the liquid cristals hence de name LCD...,
So to make black you would have to instigate energy to those transistors so it would be more expensive to have a black page than a white page (by 4 or 5 watts :p)
it's not by any change that those old gameboys have a contrast dial and you were able to save energy by keeping the contrast to a minimum
Ps i'm sorry about my English
Practice what you preach treehugger !!!!
Sorry to add more skepticism, but a white on black design is well understood to be harder and slower to read. I expect this means Web site users on a site using such a "low energy" design would end up needing to spend more time at the site reading the text. In another treegugger thread on black google it's noted that in one study 12 of 15 subjects took longer to read white on black text.
The math incidentally in that other thread seems very wrong. I calculate from their assumptions a potential $208,000.00 savings on 2.098 megawatt hours, not $75,000.00 on 750 megatwatt hours.
Blackle is misleading. It is only effective for CRT monitors. Read their "about" page. They do not even mention that a black screen has no effect on the consumption of energy for LCD screens. You can learn this by reading the article which they reference on their "About" page.
I emailed Blackle about this over a month ago, I got a response with a pledge to amend the page, but the page remains misleading.
Furthermore, Blackle misses a teachable moment. You can save energy on an LCD by turning down the brightness. They do nothing to educate about different size monitors or LED backlit monitors. Instead, they inflate their "watt-hours saved" by assuming everyone uses a CRT monitor, which is preposterous.
Blackle does a disservice to the environmental movement by misleading folks, leading them into false beliefs, skipping chances to educate, and by inflating their own self importance.
I for one, am disgusted.
How about you just don't use a computer if you want to really hug a tree. The monitor power is a lot less than the actual computer uses to run. In fact, if you're reading this, you obviously don't care about the environment. You shouldn't have any plugs in your house. Have you any idea what it took to get the power to your house? You should never use a car, never go on holiday, and for god's sake never even breathe! Don't you know how much carbon dioxide you're releasing into the atmosphere?? Shame on you!
Or you could just get on with your life and make a difference by accepting wind power, hydro power, solar power and other renewable sources of energy. If you want to say "every little helps" put a solar panel or two on your roof to supply your monitor. Stop people cutting down rainforests. Stop making compromises and excuses for governments and companies that could cut the problem off at its source.
I placed a power meter on my LCD monitor and found that the white google used 28 Watts and the google black used 29 Watts.
Ashley
Wow! Black is my favorite non-color (aside from white). But the features that the white Google has are not there, like news and image features. But overall, it is very easy on the eyes and less of a headache, too. I'm gonna stick with this one.
Interesting study...but think about the brand value Google will lose with turning "black". I personally will not like to use a site with those colors
There is new rival in town called Greenergle.com... in my opinion is much nicer to watch and more comfotable to use than that black one... also its not just based on one priciple but 10 - the full 10 rules list can be found at:
http://www.greenergle.com/Saving_energy_with_10_easy_ways.html
I just wish every one will obay all 10...
Unfortunately they have it backwards. Most computers these days use liquid crystal display (LCD) panels. LCD backlights are always on at a constant level of white light (it's literally a florescent light bulb). The liquid crystal panel in front of the backlight turns on to block out light of different colors. Liquid crystals use more power when they are turned on. And, counter-intuitively, when an LCD panel is "turned on" using the most energy is when it is blocking out the most light to create black!
The only technologies where black would indeed save energy are on CRT displays, or OLED displays, both of which are not now in widespread use.
Come on - leave the guy alone. Every little bit helps, right.
See also www.blackgoogle.co.uk which does something remarkably similar.
So does Darkoogle.com, but they use green text which are more visible to the eye.
it´s not black at all...!? why not ??
I personally prefer using www.Darkoogle.com since they does the same thing and uses green text to reduce eye strain. Also they allow search by country!!!! which is important to result the most relevant results
I wonder if blackle is using a dedicated server. They could have easily used more than the 135 kilowatt hours they "saved" to power the server.
one more at http://power-google.blogspot.com
This is the dumbest publicity stunt i've seen so far. As mentioned before, the "environmental cost" of running the blackle engine FAR outdoes any savings gotten from people using it, given they are using old CRTs.
Perhaps it's appropriate that I find this article on Treehugger. This is my first time to this site, but from the name I'm guessing it may be the last. While I do want to do things to help the environment, and avoid needlessly damaging it, I feel the environmental movement is a bit too much "out there". It is topics like this that convince people like myself that treehuggers truly are nuts. I sometimes believe that treehuggers are really only concerned with preaching to one another, and have no ideas about how to sway those who might be considered "on the fence". Seriously folks, you're driving away thousands of potential converts with drivel such as this.
Posted while reading this on one monitor while the other glares bright white, and I don't even know what's on that other monitor at the moment.
I really liked this idea ever since I've heard of it. And I don't think its a publicity stunt at all. I think its great that people are trying to come up with ideas to help the environment any way they can and in this case saving energy when conducting searches on the internet. Even if resent studies have shown that it may only be applicable to CRT monitors which is only 25% of displays, it is still 25% rather than zero percent meaning energy can still be saved.
I personally am going to switch to a site called Greenback Search (http://www.greenbacksearch.com/). Their search engine is powered by Google so you get the same search results. And not only do they use eco-friendly colors for their site but as an added step to help the environment they use a big part of their revenue from searches done on the site to purchase carbon offsets for users. Isn't that great? It has other cool features as well so check it out.
you forgot to answer my question. what is better? black or white screens. stop contradicting everything!!!!!
Why do think binary?
if black is too hard for people to read and white consumes too much energy, let take the middle way.
Lets use the grey color
This is in response to the recent posts on blackle which got under my skin a) because it isn't really agreed on that it works and b) he's actually making money from it, but it goes into his own pockets!!!
Since it is is common knowledge that black pages in general don't do anything productive, I would suggest regrowgle.com as an alternative.
I know it's not the answer to everything, but unlike blackle etc who are making money from uneducated searchers, regrowgle.com re-invests any profit back into environmental schemes in a bid to try and offset a small part of your web use.
I've just noticed that the (previously UK-only) BlackGoogle.co.uk has just released a fully functional US version on:
www.BlackGoogle.co.uk/HomePageUSA.htm
A black background does not save energy.
It may spend more...
I prefer Greenle
http://greenle.info
Yes, there are several things going on with blackle, but people tend to
forget that there is more need of user interactivity then the stupid blackle
itself.
Now the age is of VIDEOS users are not
going to shift from google to blackle just like that. There is a site named
http://www.yaarii.com</a>
that gives the option to search videos as well as
as the regular web search. I think I would bookmark this site , because it gives
the option to see any video in the same page without moving your ass!
well ppl I have saw your posts here and I think you got it all wrong. No matther how much of energy you waste by having standard google site (wich is white) or blackel or greeny, and no matther what kinde of monitors and how many of them you have, you still won't help by reducing of power PRODUCED. The ammount of PRODUCED power will still be same, the only difference is u will pay less on electrical bill. So for that reason you shouldn't be missled by any point of view which is differen't than making money on your account, by taking new skins or just reading posts on various sites with enwiromental data.
Don't BE blind, it's all about ''benjamins''!
Take care, Jure Lotrich
im usng fewr letrs 2 sav n.ergy
lol black google... yet another "ingenious" idea from treehuggers.
if people want to risk their vision for saving some energy that people waste anyway then it's fine with me.
If blackle has the same google´s features why it doesn´t have the IMAGES option?. Do they just don´t want to make google dissapear? It doesn´t make sense at all.
There seems to be alot of black screen searches out there. I'm not completely convinced.
But the best i've found would probably be trekka
It promises to donate 50% of proceeds to worthy cause to help the planet. So if the black screen doesn't actually save energy at least money is being donated.
and they offer a free 5GB email account.
Free trekka.org email
I think that this website should definatly switch to a black backround and I can't see black on white as easily as white on black. So I think blackle rocks. But LCD screens are not good anyway and I prefer the old CRT's!!!!
There is also the Carbon Neutral Search Engine (http://www.carbonneutralsearch.co.uk) it uses Google Custom Search but offsets a minimum of 100g of CO2 per search, saving energy and the environment
at least they are trying to make a difference even if it is a small one..... what are doing..... i think they are good for trying even if it wasnt fully the best idea......
Um, did anyone think to think about how much (or how little, actually), 750 MW-hrs per year actually is? (wow, it's MEGA watts, so it must be a lot).
Quick back of the envelope, it's about 500 barrels of crude. (Average US per capita consumption per year is about 69 barrels, for reference).
In contrast, I saved about 10 barrels (55000 MJ) last year by installing programmable thermostats in the house. Put another way, if 50 more people did that, we'd have Blackle beat hands down (and 50 happy people would have about another kilobuck in their wallet next year). Somehow I think that kind of advocacy is alot more likely to succeed than getting 200 million people per day to redirect their search engines (75% of whom will be doing it pointlessly on LCDs, which is a pretty good counter to "every drop counts").
Put yet another way, even taking Blackle's estimate at face value, I single-handedly beat their entire effort's performance to date in 3 months.
It ain't rocket science :-)
HYPOCRITES. Shouldn't tree hugger use a darker background then. All very well supporting an energy saving page if u dont do it urself. : )
gee I'm curious about this LCD debarkle.
I always thought that an lcd monitor had 3 LEDs per "pixel" each which could display red green or blue, you know...RGB monitor? anyways if you had a blue background then only the majority of each pixel's BLUE LED would be active and perhaps a few GREEN ones and RED ones to make it an appealing colour configured in a specific pixel pattern unseeable to the naked eye.
So white light was according to my physics background all 3 LEDs the red,green and blue one all active at the one time? and black of course none of them illuminated causeing no output of light.
I have been hearing about this back-panel energy consumption apparently being independant of what is being displayed, I hope someone can clarify it, but how likely is illuminating all 3 LEDs per pixel to make white going to consume less energy than none of them being illuminated? :P
anyway a little clarification from the expert wikipedia researcher if you can.
For every query you make to blackle, the guys behind it get money from google for using their "customized" search engine.. They must be rich now and laugh their guts out on how easily people can be manipulated using their emotions
I prefer to use BLACKOOGLE, the same idea but with more functionalities like image and video searches.
http://www.blackoogle.us - US
http://www.blackoogle.co.uk - UK
bye
;)
Did everyone forget what they learned in school? Black absorbs energy, doesnt matter whether it's light, heat, chemical, or electrical, white reflects it. White gives off more radiation, but since it gives off more radiation it consumes less energy. It takes energy to create white though, but black absorbs more energy to stay black than it does to creat white light. Having a white screen is like your monitor turning into an opaque mirror, all captured light from a room gets concentrated on the screen and bounces off of it along with the radiation that excapes given off by the backlighting, when your screen is black, less radiation excapes from the backlighting because the color pixles block it but the pixel layer in the screen absorbs the radiation when the pixles are all on and exert it as heat instead of light.
You could think of it like this, what happens when theres a bunch of pollution trapped in the atmosphear which makes it smoggy and hazy? It darkens it and the radiation from the suns light is absorbed by the smoggy layer and turned into heat from light. Thats what is creating global warming,
I bet if tests were run on wire coating conductivity they would find a black coating on wires would conduct a little less than a white coating (even though coatings are mostly non conductive they still lose energy along the way). Thats besides the point though.
Treehugger should switch to an all black screen too!!
ummm....kinda strange why isent treehugger.com not black
I've seen a few pages around which claim to help the environment in many ways, the main being - using a black screen energy consumption is reduced and therefore your "foot print" is reduced.
Personally I feel the savings are minimal and we need to take an additional more proactive approach. using http://www.regrowgle.com as a search portal does this. Any profits generated through searches on this site are actually reinvested into "green" projects such as forest regeneration. So in basic terms you are making positive changes to our world as you search. And the best this is - it costs you as a user - NOTHING!!
If for nothing else, at least give it a try and get your friends to have a go as well. There's nothing to loose, and a whole lot to gain.
Googles now gone black :O
I think that this is all a great idea. It saves engergy with a simple color change. I think google should deffenatly stay like this and maybe even other websites could do this too.
Athough i do agree that the white against black may be hard on some people's eyes, but the white backround is hard on the enviorment.
I think this should definatly be done just maybe with a different color other than white.
We are all going to be using more and more power in the future, and to believe otherwise contradicts everything we know and have experienced. Efficiency is a good thing, but we WILL use much more power. Anyone care to bet on this? Secondly, as someone who has studied climate change for a number of years, I'll tell you that it's 100% political and has no basis in fact. None. Zero. What really scares me how ignorant the public is about science. I find cannot explain anything the least bit scientific to anyone without getting the blank face of ignorance. It's no wonder we believe in such nonsense and not in the commonsense idea of producing more energy. If we keep heading towards this conservation route, gas is going to be $8 per gallon, and you'll HAVE to keep your lights turned off.
well, its been done
They do realise that a new google made website was made(using 59 watt) along with the original Google(using 7 watt) which is still being used. So they are actually wasting 133 watts now. Thats more than 1,300 mega-watt hours a year wasted. Way to go Blackle.........It's still cool looking though :)
I saw the Google homepage change on Saturday - at first I thought it was a virus or something on my computer. the link to the explanation of why Google had gone wierd was kind hard to read - think they should've done some testing on it for the visually impaired as there was very little contrast between the text and the background.
if its going to save energy, why cant you make its background color black..
I've recently tested my LCD monitor to determine whether Blackle does infact save on energy. The results I got from my experiment did really surprise me as I've learnt that a black webpage is really an over lay of several individual colour layers thus requiring more energy.
In plain figures Blackle used 28Watts and Google used 27Watts. It's not that big of a difference but you can't make a claim if it's not true!
I am working in Pearl Restaurant and we are using Blackle UK on every computers. It suit with our furniture design ;) and our associates are happy with it.
what they should simply do is reduce the amount of energy used by servers around the world maybe use the heat gievn off to heat council houses around the uk or something... would save alot
I think its a great idea but i use ecosmartsearch.com instead because its got a web,image,shopping search and more and the most amazing thing is it was made by a 13 year old boy!!!
and its cooler than blackle.
Guys, all green initiatives are great. The more the better. Praise blackle for it is trying. I bet if 50% of people were trying like them, the world would be 100% carbon neutral today.
Although, I suggest you use gugl.me. Its colours are so much easy for your eyes. I have difficulty focusing on blackle's search screen, but the nice shine and contrasting colours of gugl.me are just what I was looking for.
There are around 25 different versions of “black google” online. The best one I’ve found is www.cleanblack.com. Cleanblack is the only version that allows you to change the text colors of the google search results. Try it yourself by going to www.cleanblack.com/theme/</p>
There are around 17 different versions of “black google” online. The best one I’ve found is www.cleanblack.com. Cleanblack is the only version that allows you to change the text colors of the google search results. Try it yourself by going to www.cleanblack.com/theme/</p>
The best site out there for this is called Vimle. The white version is at vimle.com and is best for people who prefer white, or use a newer LCD monitor. The black version is at b.vimle.com and is best for people who prefer black, or use an older CRT monitor to save energy. Vimle is as small as possible, conserving time/space/bandwidth and energy.
It looks like most of the posters here have figured out that a predominantly black background will have diminishing returns as more CRT monitors are replaced with LCDs. One might think that even this very small reduction in power use by the dwindling population of CRT monitors makes Blackle useful.
However, I haven't seen any comments about the back-end power usage of the servers that run Blackle. If one were to calculate the power usage of each server needed to support a given number of Blackle users, and compare it to the potential power savings based on the current distribution of CRT/LCD users of Blackle's services, I would expect Blackle to generate a net INCREASE in overall energy usage. Anyone care to take on the challenge?
I suspect this is just a way for Blackle to make a buck.
If you search on Blackle, then click on the ads, Blackle gets a cut out of the deal.
Actually, Google responded to the claim and new studies have shown that an all black screen on an LCD display may actually increase energy consumption, so Blackle is self-defeating, and they're just in it for the hype
I prefer http://bSaves.com because it looks nicer