[iREZ]

a friend of mine from these forums messaged me with this and i was thoroughly confused, can this be true?

About Blackle - Energy Saving Search

[Dakarʒ]

It makes sense to me, but I've always wondered, if you really could get more battery life out of your iPod by making the background black instead of white, wouldn't Apple have realized it and done it by now?

[Goldfinger]

Bullshit. Your backlight stays on.

[iREZ]

thats what i was thinking, but if you read the site it says something bout lcd's using more energy for white than black :/

[GSixZero]

Maybe if you were using a CRT, certainly not if you've got LCD.

[Goldfinger]

Originally Posted by iREZ 

thats what i was thinking, but if you read the site it says something bout lcd's using more energy for white than black :/

Maybe because it needs to turn all three pixels (R, G & B) to make a white pixel ? But I highly doubt that it matters even the slightest bit.

[mduell]

With the new LED backlit that an partially turn off/down the backlight in dark parts of the screen, maybe.

But it's really too marginal to think about.

[Chuckit]

Relevant link: ecoIron - All these whirring boxes.: Five Myths and Mysteries About Black Web Surfing

[loki74]

Reading the LCD page on Wikipedia implies that black pixels, in fact, require more energy than white ones:

Each pixel of an LCD typically consists of a layer of molecules aligned between two transparent electrodes, and two polarizing filters, the axes of transmission of which are (in most of the cases) perpendicular to each other. With no liquid crystal between the polarizing filters, light passing through the first filter would be blocked by the second (crossed) polarizer.

...

Before applying an electric field, the orientation of the liquid crystal molecules is determined by the alignment at the surfaces. In a twisted nematic device (still the most common liquid crystal device), the surface alignment directions at the two electrodes are perpendicular to each other, and so the molecules arrange themselves in a helical structure, or twist. Because the liquid crystal material is birefringent, light passing through one polarizing filter is rotated by the liquid crystal helix as it passes through the liquid crystal layer, allowing it to pass through the second polarized filter. Half of the incident light is absorbed by the first polarizing filter, but otherwise the entire assembly is transparent.

When a voltage is applied across the electrodes, a torque acts to align the liquid crystal molecules parallel to the electric field, distorting the helical structure (this is resisted by elastic forces since the molecules are constrained at the surfaces). This reduces the rotation of the polarization of the incident light, and the device appears gray. If the applied voltage is large enough, the liquid crystal molecules in the center of the layer are almost completely untwisted and the polarization of the incident light is not rotated as it passes through the liquid crystal layer. This light will then be mainly polarized perpendicular to the second filter, and thus be blocked and the pixel will appear black. By controlling the voltage applied across the liquid crystal layer in each pixel, light can be allowed to pass through in varying amounts thus constituting different levels of gray.

And because the backlight power consumption remains constant with respect to pixel color and brightness, I think its safe to say Godfather's initial response was entirely correct: "Bullshit."

[Sherman Homan]

I like the part about the 4 watt savings on monitors over 24". That is an insignificant part of the computing world.

[peeb]

4 watts is significant when you count the number of crts still in operation, especially since it's a simple software fix that costs nothing.

[Chuckit]

Do you use the white-on-black inverted screen setting?

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by peeb 

4 watts is significant when you count the number of crts still in operation, especially since it's a simple software fix that costs nothing.

How many of those existing CRTs are over 24"? I NEVER had a CRT bigger than 17". The theoretical power savings on smaller screens would be related to the area of the screen, not a single measurement, but a 24" screen is slightly larger than twice the area of a 17" monitor's screen. That would mean, with the aggregate mean for all existing CRTs somewhere in the 16"± range, even less than half the posted 4W savings per CRT would be realized-probably in the area of about 1.5W. There would be a far greater savings if people just turned off stuff when they weren't using it-like those instant on TVs that are just used as monitors (like mine), all the battery chargers that don't have batteries in them, DESKTOP COMPUTER SPEAKERS!!!!!! (Their transformers not only eat up millions of watts every month, a lot of them get hot enough to (in my opinion) be major global warming issues.

Let's review now the huge reasons why Mac users "never turn off" their Macs, and how much more energy they use while sleeping than while off. Oh yeah! It's because instant resume is more important than a measly 1.5W or so...

I don't mean to be snide here, but seriously, this is more smoke and mirrors than useful solution. And there are fewer and fewer CRTs online every day, and lower and lower-power requiring LCDs coming out at the same rate... If this were a serious proposal, it's about 5-8 years, and millions of LCD displays too late.

[Kevin]

This thread is all about keeping the black pixel down.

[Sherman Homan]

4 watts is significant when you count the number of crts still in operation, especially since it's a simple software fix that costs nothing.

The number of CRTs larger than 24" is just about zero. Besides, I think that the real issue is not at the individual pixel or crystal level. The power required to fire a phosphor or twist a polarization filter is trivial compared to the device's potential ability to be able to do that job. The power transformers, conditioners and equipment required to make the device work are what eat up the electricity. Similar to the ineffeciency of a laptop power supply left plugged in.

[PaperNotes]

Only an OLED screen with driver support for turning off portions of the screen or pixels that appear true black can save energy.

Blackle is a stupid site that takes advantage of stupid and gullible tree huggers. It wants to generate Adsense for Search revenue off of hippies by telling them to search there instead of on "white Google". In other words, the liar who owns the site is trying to profit out of environmental awareness.

You can sabotage the genius by complaining to Google that the site presents a lie and is bad PR for Google.

[osiris]

Originally Posted by Kevin 

This thread is all about keeping the black pixel down.

They're all rascists.


OT, my cell phone battery lasts heckuva lot longer if I turn the backlight down AND use a dark nondescript bg.
The animated bg's are the worst on the battery.

[Cadaver]

I call bullsh*t. Backlight stays on.

[Kevin]

Oh come on... give a black pixel a chance man. He's had the number one pixel in the nation for 3 years man.

[shabbasuraj]

yes it does not maybe........... save energy