I finally decided to look into it, and what I find is a little disappointing. Blackle is an ingenious idea… for the founders. It preys on the guilt we all feel as we use more energy and natural resources in order to do what we need to do from day to day. The premise is that by simply changing to a black background, we can each save a little bit of energy each time we use Google.
Given how many people use Google everyday, the potentially energy savings are can appear to be high. Anyone in the Adsense program can get a Google Custom Search bar, and get paid by Google everytime someone uses it. So Blackle is clearly a great way to make some quick cash with only a little effort, particularly if you can get people to use it regularly. It also preys on our inherent laziness. But is the claim even true?
Like all things, not everything is so simple. LCD monitors work by having a continuously on backlight, and energy used to block the light from coming through the LCD screen to our eyes.
Some case reports of people testing their own monitors has shown that this energy increase may be measurable. If energy conservation is really your concern, it might be time to switch. LCD prices have come down a lot. To make things more complicated, the monitor is only a small component of the total amount of energy used when you surf a website. Energy is used by every server, every router, every wire that the data traverses to get to service point and back.
So, not only are you sending data packets to the Google search engine server, but also to the Blackle server as well. Google maintains a huge infrastructure of servers placed all over the world so that the closest server will serve up the page to optimize speed. Google also has made multiple efforts to be carbon neutral, and strategically builds server facilities near environmentally friendly energy sources such as hydroelectric power. Very happy to find your references to Blackle.
It seems reasonably logical but facts are what I was looking for. The Google Custom Search is an Adsense program, where you can put a search bar on your website, and everytime somebody uses it you can get paid by Google. Sign in. Thanks for reading Scientific American. Create your free account or Sign in to continue.
See Subscription Options. Go Paperless with Digital. Get smart. Sign up for our email newsletter. Sign Up. Support science journalism. Knowledge awaits. See Subscription Options Already a subscriber? Create Account See Subscription Options. Continue reading with a Scientific American subscription. The search engine was launched by Heap media, an Australian Internet company based in Sydney after an environmental blog treehugger. In contrast, over the last few weeks there has been a barrage of contrary comments postings and suggestions.
An Australian blog, www. An average CRT uses about 20 watt of power when idle. If your monitor is off for just 15 minutes more per day, you could save 7. Share Via. Hindustan Times By Mayank Tewari.
The counter argument While blackle claims that the search engine saves power since it keeps the screen black, the Internet is flooded with a counter argument suggesting that no power saving takes place by turning the background black.
The commercial interest The search engine was launched by Heap media, an Australian Internet company based in Sydney after an environmental blog treehugger. Get our Daily News Capsule Subscribe.
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