Google Black Version

CA Mani (Credit Analyst) (2809 Points)

13 November 2009  

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.

I 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 I
need to keep taking small steps to save energy.

And search engine is www.blackle.com