Will Google Change From White to Black?

Will Google Change From White to Black?

Energy conservation clearly has most people talking at the moment, especially with gas prices climbing every day. But have you ever considered how much energy your computer screen uses day to day? Surely computers are one of the business world's highest necessities, so what would you be willing to do to cut down on your daily computer energy usage? Researchers at the University of California Berkeley, originally introduced the theory in 2002, that a predominately black computer screen uses less energy than a predominately white screen. The UC Berkeley Energy Analysis Department wrote an extensive white paper explaining their argument. (That's right, it is a white paper, so much for that energy conservation.) This same idea of a black versus a white screen has more recently been brought to our attention by a new take on Google called Blackle.
Blackle is a search page powered by Google, and instead of having a white background like Google, it uses a black background with a grayish colored font. blackle.jpg While it is slightly more difficult to read the grayish font, Blackle claims that "a black version of the Google search engine would save a fair bit of energy due to the search engine's popularity." Basically, they claim that a white web page uses about 74 watts to display, while it only takes 59 watts to display an all black page. Check out the blog entry titled Black Google Would Save 750 Megawatt-hours a Year, to learn more about its take on a black background versus a white Google background. What is interesting to me, is how this may influence the world of web design in the future. Will energy aware client's demand a more energy friendly predominately black page? Or will readability and the love of colorful, visually stimulating design win out? My guess is that just like energy efficient cars, it will take many years before function wins out over good design.

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