18 replies to this topic

[omkar1991]

I was browsing the internet when I just happend to stumble across this site, Blackle. It is a search engine just like Google, and is powered by Google Search.
Now what caught my attention was that this site aims to save power, by minimizing the power consumed by your computer screen. To achieve that, they have kept the pages predominantly black, so that monito brightness is minimum, and also because black requires the least amount of power to be displayed.
They claim to have saved 2,828,832.388 Watt hours. Have a look.
http://www.blackle.com/

[jasserEnv]

I remember seeing this a few years ago. It is far more relevant in terms of the CRT screens than the LCD monitors but until the vast majority of people have converted over, such approaches will still have considerable merit.

All this aside, one of the bigger savings that we would see is if all the computer servers running out there were using high efficiency hardware. Since these machines are running all the time, they arguable use far more energy to run and to be cooled than most people use who shut off their computers when they are not in use.

[Tom Servo]

Hmm... something I have never thought about before, saving power while using the Internet. Interesting.

[omkar1991]

jasserEnv, on 05 December 2011 - 11:09 AM, said:

I remember seeing this a few years ago. It is far more relevant in terms of the CRT screens than the LCD monitors but until the vast majority of people have converted over, such approaches will still have considerable merit.

All this aside, one of the bigger savings that we would see is if all the computer servers running out there were using high efficiency hardware. Since these machines are running all the time, they arguable use far more energy to run and to be cooled than most people use who shut off their computers when they are not in use.

True that. I bet that the server owners would want them to consume as less energy as possible, because of the sheer cost of keeping them running.

[Wallie0912]

That's something I never considered before.  When I turn down the brightness on my laptop monitor, I save battery.  So would I save electricity by turning down the brightness on my desktop's monitor?

[omkar1991]

Wallie0912, on 05 December 2011 - 11:34 PM, said:

That's something I never considered before.  When I turn down the brightness on my laptop monitor, I save battery.  So would I save electricity by turning down the brightness on my desktop's monitor?

Yes, more brightness means more power consumed.

[thordylan]

I will now use Blackle from this day forward. I never thought that the brighter your monitor is, the more power is used. I now have an idea why my Sony Ericsson phone Elm automatically adjusts its screen.

[Pushhyarag2000]

Wow, that's quite interesting going by the information shared here and on Blackle About page itself. I normally dislike black background for my site but this makes me think if I have to modify my preferences, if that helps significant power savings claimed. It is generally difficult for some people to read content comfortably though, on black screens. Good idea!

[omkar1991]

It is actually a very logical fact, that the darker your background or wallpaper on your screen is (phones/PCs), the less power it is going to consume to display it, rather than having a background which is white, or bright in general. It actually makes a difference for my phone.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

Makes me wonder why Google doesn't offer it in with their search bars. Two options-black or white.
More people might use it if they knew it.
Google certainly has the capacity to offer both, side by side.

[MakingCents]

wow, that's a crazy thing to find but I love it.  I love the fact that I"m saving power, but even more than that I really enjoy the black background.  So much easier on my eyes.

[omkar1991]

Shortpoet-GTD, on 06 December 2011 - 03:45 AM, said:

Makes me wonder why Google doesn't offer it in with their search bars. Two options-black or white.
More people might use it if they knew it.
Google certainly has the capacity to offer both, side by side.

If you are signed in as a user, you have the option of setting up the background image for the Google home page. But again, if you make a search, the default Google white background appears, so it all boils down to the same. Much more effective would be simply lowering the brightness of the screen. And it would be awesome if Google would offer the option of having switchable themes with different colors.

PS - Moderators/admins, was there a double post of the same topic? Because I got two notifications for this, and both were having different replies. Didn't understand what happened.

[magickat]

I remember looking at this when it was launched but had forgotten about it - thank you reminding me! It does make sense if you think about it - some laptops have a powersaving mode for when you use the battery and it always makes the screen less bright.

[omkar1991]

magickat, on 06 December 2011 - 10:57 PM, said:

I remember looking at this when it was launched but had forgotten about it - thank you reminding me! It does make sense if you think about it - some laptops have a powersaving mode for when you use the battery and it always makes the screen less bright.

All laptops running on Windows 7 have 3 default battery modes - "Power Saver", "Balanced", and "High Performance". Their names pretty much describe what they are used for. Predefined settings related to the screen, hard drives, CPU usage, wireless adapter usage etc are optimized according to the battery modes which is selected.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

omkar1991, on 06 December 2011 - 09:29 PM, said:

PS - Moderators/admins, was there a double post of the same topic? Because I got two notifications for this, and both were having different replies. Didn't understand what happened.

You posted the thread twice, perhaps in error, so the administrator closed/locked one as a double post.

[zararina]

It was right that we could adjust the brightness of our monitors to be able to save power or energy. And I think it could be less straining for the eyes too to lower striking lightness of a monitor. That site is new to me and it was nice to know that there is a search site like that. That we could use to save power while browsing the internet.

[kat74]

Every minute of the day someone somewhere is looking for ways of saving power. That is a very good idea and a workable one. Sometimes my screen is so bright at night I can even put off the lights and work like that.

[omkar1991]

Shortpoet-GTD, on 07 December 2011 - 03:42 AM, said:

You posted the thread twice, perhaps in error, so the administrator closed/locked one as a double post.

Yes, I remember I had to click on "post" twice, because the first time I did it, I got the message "server did not respond in time". Sorry for the double post.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

omkar1991, on 07 December 2011 - 07:12 AM, said:

Yes, I remember I had to click on "post" twice, because the first time I did it, I got the message "server did not respond in time". Sorry for the double post.

No worries.