What is Digg?Sponsored by AVG
Not All Free Anti-Virus Software Is Created Equal view!
free.avg.com - 2.4 million people a week get AVG Anti-Virus Free, for the best protection against web threats.
204 Comments
- JEdwardFuck, on 10/12/2007, -12/+340Buried as innaccurate. Only CRT displays use more energy to display brighter things. For everything else, it is completely false that a black display uses less energy than a white page. The backlight on an LCD is on for the entire LCD regardless of what is being shown. The black pixels are only black because the LCD blocks out light. Same with projectors, etc. The article is thoughtful, but invalid.
- drethedog, on 10/12/2007, -16/+137That's pretty cool if is true.....
- Gir53457, on 10/12/2007, -11/+114Block the asshats, do not follow their links.
- npsken, on 10/12/2007, -3/+95... and never goes back
- CraigJ, on 10/12/2007, -16/+105@jivinjerd - ***** spammer. blocked.
@stupidppl - you too asshat - treyd, on 10/12/2007, -4/+90jivinjerd was playing a joke on the spammer, not spamming himself.
- FlyboyP, on 10/12/2007, -6/+89This is only true if every monitor is CRT.
Inaccurate. - zweben, on 10/12/2007, -10/+63"Buried as innaccurate. Only CRT displays use more energy to display brighter things. For everything else, it is completely false that a black display uses less energy than a white page. The backlight on an LCD is on for the entire LCD regardless of what is being shown. The black pixels are only black because the LCD blocks out light. Same with projectors, etc. The article is thoughtful, but invalid."
Correct me if i'm wrong, but wouldn't an LCD use slightly *more* power to display black than to display white? To display white, the liquid crystals just have to be at their normal state. To display black, voltage needs to be applied to the pixels. The backlight is on full blast either way, so black would just add to the power draw. - shit, on 10/12/2007, -1/+51It will happen when Google starts going through its awkward teenage years.
- OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -5/+51Black Google stole my bike.
- cypher35, on 10/12/2007, -5/+501.21 GigaWatts!!!
- blahtastic, on 10/12/2007, -5/+47jivinjerd's comment was a joke...suckiest website ever? Humor anyone? Besides he's a member almost a year, so not a spammer. Unless there's another good reason for the hate... ^^^see treyd's...I got beat cause I checked jerd's profile and comments to make sure first, lol.
- Gir53457, on 10/12/2007, -5/+47Block them and speak no more of them.
- unhombreloco, on 10/12/2007, -4/+37On the plus side, everyone knows that black pages load faster.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+32http://www.07designs.com/gdark/
a solution - 1337otter, on 10/12/2007, -4/+31DUDE! if we turn all our lights off all the time and started our stoves with flint it would save electricty! awesome : )
- hpkomic, on 10/12/2007, -1/+28I don't think I could picture a non-white google, it just wouldn't feel right.
- Tourney3p0, on 10/12/2007, -0/+26They could just use the same format as Yahoo. Then no one would ever use any energy at all on Google.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -21/+46I am not an engineer or anything, but my basic knowledge of LCDs is that white is produced by an electrical signal activating the red, green, and blue pixels. Black is produced by not sending any electrical signals. Hence no electicity is needed to activate the latter.
BTW. I am not a spammer. Just a weak attempt at a joke. - mbball, on 10/12/2007, -2/+27I would say go goth google, but then I might abandon that site forever because that looks just plain atrocious.
- kcchan1, on 10/12/2007, -1/+24We can all save more than 3 gigawatts per day if everyone stops turning on the computer just to visit digg 25 hours a day...
- p5ych0, on 10/12/2007, -1/+22After looking at solid white pages for a long time, it is like you are staring into a light bulb.
If you want a darker google, check here: http://userstyles.org/style/search/dark+google
for use with the stylish extension: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2108/ - BESTenemy, on 10/12/2007, -3/+21Exactly, JDedward and drmonkey! As we go towards wider implementation of LCD and similar technologies that rely on masking the light source, we'll actually be using more energy on black. LCD masks used in most displays and projectors are transparent when no electricity is passed through them. Regardless of how small the amount of power is needed to make the mask turn opaque, it still renders the original claim of the article false.
Plus, if we're so judgemental and concerned - let's first flip the luminance on digg and then see how people like it.
Worried about electricity? How about I come up with my own cause-event chain!
People that read white text on black background are more likely to develop vision problems and require glasses, not to mention have the lights on in order to see better. Glasses use glass and plastic. We need electricity and oil byproducts in order to manufacture both. So, we're using energy, burning up valuable resources and producing CO2!
And a note on the personal side. I use LCD's, not CRT's. Quite often I browse at night and it's dark. The display gives me enough light to illuminate the room, so if I go for a coffee or take a washroom break, I don't even turn on the light. All true, of course, provided I have something bright on my screen. I might even got to google homepage for that very reason. How convenient! I'm not using any additional lights thanks to google! If their homepage was black, the chances are I'd be reaching for a switch while keeping the monitor turned on. Oh the horror! - nixonrichard, on 10/12/2007, -11/+29"1.21 GigaWatts!!!"
That should be "1.21 JiggaWatts" - drlog, on 10/12/2007, -11/+26@*****
Right on! That was exactly what I thought the second I read it :) - fjf314, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16I would say that black pages are easier on the eyes than white ones are.
- paulwesterberg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12Many posts have stated that this would not save energy on lcd displays and this is true for most existing lcd displays, but newer lcds that use dynamic back lighting for enhanced contrast and better display of darker color schemes could also benefit. LCDs like the newly announced Samsung 275T & 245T use less electricity when displaying dark web pages.
Btw, LCDs use an energy efficient fluorescent back light, how much energy would be saved if all CRTs were replaced with LCDs? - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10People spend way more than 10 seconds on google.. + searching + looking through results pages + adding all those damn ++++ lol..
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Hang on.
LCD screens (which are pretty much the standard for new PCs and the last 3 years of older ones use the SAME amount of backlight power to run the cold cathode tubes regardless of whether the contents being displayed are light OR dark in color!!
In fact theoretically an LCD pixel needs power to switch the liquid crystals into the orientation where light is blocked rather than their passive state where light is allowed through (no power in this state)!
So, this article may have been true 5 years ago, but these days its completely inaccurate and wrong!
However, I use greasemonkey for a black google simply because its SO much easier to look at that a horrible glaring white expanse with a few lines of hideously washed out text. - lemenhir, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13
BLACK POWER!
You dudes are just way too young. Uhuru!
Dugg down in 3...2...1... - EXreaction, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12Ya, we want theme options on digg!
- kamtsa, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Inaccurate. LCD monitors consume in general the same amount of power regardless of the displayed image. Basically they have a back light that is on all the time and each pixel is a light switch the passes or do not passes that light.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8A black Google? What? It worked in blazing saddles!
- DigitalN, on 10/12/2007, -6/+14or just hit control + option + command and hit 8.
and to the people saying only on a CRT, why is it on my Macbook I get 30-45 minute more battery when I use this when doing a word document? - mercurysquad, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7And even if people use it, there really won't be that much white space left....
- crysys, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10"I hate you Larry! I wish you weren't my real Dad!" *stomp stomp stomp*
- Dumbledore, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9I guess so, but the main point is that energy will be saved if google goes black.
- RoroCo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Bravo Tourney... Well played. Very well played.
- bullrassler, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Buried as inaccurate on several fronts:
- lcd power is brightness independent.
- author doesn't know difference between a megawatt (power) and megawatt-hour(energy) OK, the article says mwh but the title doesn't...
- Black (and gray) text on white is much more readable than white (gray) text on black due to the iris of the eye closing in a brighter environment. This is more of a problem for older eyes and people who have had laser eye reshaping and the like, and it is a genuine problem.
If text is not as readable, people will take longer to read it, and that is _really_ counterproductive and wasteful. Pretty is fine, but pretty should not get in the way of functional unless you are talking about art. - schwnj, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6So I tried it:
I have an Acer 24" AL2423 monitor and a KillAWatt P3 Energy meter. I plugged the monitor directly into the meter.
I opened two tabs in firefox: the original google page, and one of the "Dark google" variants that a bunch of people have linked to (same as original, but black background). I maximized the browser window. and brought up the original google page:
65 Watts
I watched it for a minute and it didn't change. I then switched to dark google:
64 Watts
Again, this was a stable reading. Switching back and forth between dark and light reliably changed between 64 and 65 watts. - tim04, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8or we could just not use our computers and go back to paper. Seriously, if Google and all of its searches were black, it would look like ***** and no one would use it, just like Digg or any other site that's white. So no, $300,000 is not a "a goodly amount of energy and dollars for changing a few color codes" as it's the difference between a multi-billion dollar company and a 12-year-old's Myspace profile.
- Metatron197, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7at least until it goes down again.... then i wont know what 2+2 is
- KibibyteBrain, on 10/12/2007, -6/+11I usually set my browser and terminal windows up so the background color scheme is black anyway...easier on the eyes. Why do we light up our screens like that anyway, is it really that cool that computer documents look like they are on an old school sheet of paper?
- zweben, on 10/12/2007, -6/+11@karch
"No. The subpixels that make up a single LCD pixel are red, blue, or green because of plastic filters. But whether the subpixels are turned on or off depends on the state of the crystal molecules behind it, which only require electricity when its changed (blocking->unblocked or unblocked->blocking)."
That's not true at all. Liquid crystal reverts to its default state when voltage stops being applied to it. If what you said were true, we would have reflective low power LCDs that keep their image after the display is powered off. We don't, because that's not how the technology works. - shit, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6>> "It could have like, a dripping slime background. Like on Duke Nukem..."
And instead of "I'm Feeling Lucky" it could be "Shake it, Baby". - picardo, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8Who is the black private dick that's a sexmachine with all the geeks?
SHAFT?
No! Black Google.
Can you digg it? ;-) - Metatron197, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Yeah...we should just save energy by cutting the power to the white house
- Rikushix, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Who wakes up in the morning and thinks "I wonder how much energy Google would stand to save per year if the colours on their website were inverted..."?
Well whoever that may be, I commend them for pondering the odd. - zephc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+43 Jiggawatts? Great Scott!
- antdude, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Back in the old days with DOS, etc. we had black background screens. Remember Apple's old OS (e.g., ProDOS, LOGO)? :)
-
Show 51 - 100 of 207 discussions
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is