Black Google (Environmental)

[MiloVice]

[I'm far from enthusiastic about acquiring bothersome habits (etc, etc) in order to preserve the environment, but...]

http://www.blackle.com/
http://www.darkoogle.com/

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[Quoted from: http://www.blackle.com/about/]
Blackle was created by Heap Media to remind us all of the need to take small steps in our everyday lives to save energy. Blackle searches are powered by Google Custom Search.

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".

Have a look at our energy saving tips page for ideas on steps you can take to save energy or you can follow Blackle on Twitter and we will keep you updated with simple energy saving tips.

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 one of the many great blogs dedicated to environmental awareness.
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You can also use iGoogle themes to remove the "white screen". (and still keep your iGoogle settings)
Deserves some more awareness (pressure on google to make the basic screen black.)

[Maxim Ustinin]

A white colour is a happy colour, Google won't remove something that makes people happy naturally/psychologicaly.

[PseudoPactum]

I thought that black colors were only better with CRT moniters, so while it makes a big impact in some countries, the overall benefit would be minimal (Google wants to stay all nice and easy-to-read anyway, isn't there a social engineering principal that is usually applied to web design regarding light features and them being more friendly and familiar?) and decreasing as more and more people use LCD moniters.

Anyway, just some thoughts. I didn't do any immediate research so I can't be sure about the claims that I made. It might do some good, however, and should be looked into.

[Lakatos]

This is the reason why I only work in a command prompt :P

[Dan]

I'll set it as my homepage, sounds like a good idea. Even if it only works on CRT monitors, at least it will remind me to do more to limit my energy use.

[vic]

Even if it's not very helpful for environmental purposes, I'd rather use the black background. Staring at a white computer screen all-day is essentially the same to me as looking at a light bulb...

[Ami]

Cool, but the letters should be in yellow, better for the eyes (too bad there's no .be)