Will Blackle Energy Saving Search or Black Google save energy? If you make the background color of your monitor screen black, does it help to save energy? I was recently introduced to Blackle, a site using the Google custom search with a black background which claims to save energy. But Google does not seem to agree.
The Blackle screen displays over 6 million Watt hours saved right now! Blackle encourages you to set it as your home page, so you save energy every time you load your Internet browser!
Lets see how the black background and white text Blackle search results look like. Well they have image thumbnails to draw attention to search results. An those used to working on dark backgrounds will definitely find it more appealing and with lesser eye strain.
How does Blackle Search work?
“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.”
It originated from the idea if Black Google would save 750 Megawatt-hours a year and now they have a Wiki-esque post that covers the full story on Black Google and a lot of new similar “colored” Google services which have appeared.
Google takes energy saving business very seriously and in fact the Google black screen was news when they decided to make the Google page black. Now Google has responded on their official Google blog on the energy saving issue – We applaud the spirit of the idea, but our own analysis as well as that of others shows that making the Google homepage black will not reduce energy consumption. To the contrary, on flat-panel monitors (already estimated to be 75% of the market), displaying black may actually increase energy usage. Detailed results from a new study confirm this.
Now you decide. Hey! there is a Blackle India too!