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Here’s an interesting article I found from ecoIron

Take at look at Google, who gets about 200 million queries a day. Let’s assume each query is displayed for about 10 seconds; that means Google is running for about 550,000 hours every day on some desktop. Assuming that users run Google in full screen mode, the shift to a black background [on a CRT monitor! mjo] will save a total of 15 (74-59) watts. That turns into a global savings of 8.3 Megawatt-hours per day, or about 3000 Megawatt-hours a year. Now take into account that about 25 percent of the monitors in the world are CRTs, and at 10 cents a kilowatt-hour, that’s $75,000, a goodly amount of energy and dollars for changing a few color codes.

You’ll find a lot of pages out there that claim “many studies have shown … that dark text on light background is easier to read”. I have always suspected that this is due to the historical accident that physical writing works best with dark ink on light paper-ish stuff. I wonder how many of “those studies” studied populations that grew up unbiased — i.e., grew up and learned to read without the historical accident of paper-based (dark on light) reading.

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. You’re article is thoughtful, but invalid.

Something to consider: If Google were to change the color scheme to all black, Google would loose AT LEAST 50% of its user base (dare I say 80%?). The “tech Elite” could find work arounds such as using Firefox extensions (Stylish or Greasemonkey), but the vast majority would just switch REGARDLESS of the fact that functionality remained the same.

All the money Google would be saving people (assuming the accuracy of this article) would be guzzled in the end by Google’s competition: Yahoo And Microsoft have lots of white on their search pages.

Fact is, this entire idea of Google saving energy by switching to “black” would lose GOOGLE money, and not be much better energy wise at then end. Not only will it never happened, but even if it did no good would come of it (for anyone).

Record breaking millionaire (billionaire ?) adventurer Steve Fossett has been missing for a few days now. (Its not Fosett or Fosset – Google corrected me)

Fossett, a Stanford University graduate with a master’s degree from Washington University in St. Louis, went to Chicago to work in the securities business and ultimately founded his own firm, Marathon Securities.

He went missing on Tuesday after taking off in a single-engine plane the day before to scout locations for a land-speed record .

Last year, Mr Fossett smashed the record for flying further than anyone in history.

In 2002, Fossett became the first person to fly around the world alone in a balloon. In two weeks, his balloon flew 19,428.6 miles around the Southern Hemisphere. The record came after five previous attempts — some of them spectacular and frightening failures.

It is among dozens of firsts claimed by Fossett in his life as an adventurer, which he embarked on after a successful career in securities. He set marks for speed or distance in balloons, airplanes, gliders, sailboats — even cross-country skis and an airship, according to his Web site.

Fossett has climbed some of the world’s best-known peaks, including the Matterhorn in Switzerland and Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. He also swam the English Channel in 1985, placed 47th in the Iditarod dog sled race in 1992, participated in the 24 Hours of Le Mans car race in 1996 and broke the round-the-world sailing record by six days in 2004.

In 1995, Fossett became the first person to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon, landing in Leader, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Fossett was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in July. He told a crowd gathered at the Dayton Convention Center in Ohio that he would continue flying.

“I’m hoping you didn’t give me this award because you think my career is complete, because I’m not done,” Fossett said.

Fossett said he planned to go to Argentina in November in an effort to break a glider record.

In March 2005, he became the first person to fly a plane solo around the world without refueling. He and a co-pilot also claim to have set a world glider altitude record of 50,671 feet during a flight in August 2006 over the the Andes Mountains.

He flew 26,389.3 miles in the Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer and the record-breaking journey lasted 76 hours and 45 minutes, beating the former record of 25,361 miles set by the Breitling Orbiter balloon in 1999.

Mr Fossett’s record journey in the Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer was sponsored by British entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson, who is also known for his daredevil record attempts and followed Mr Fossett in a support plane.

The 63-year-old, famed for his numerous solo flights around the globe by airplane and balloon, is understood to be unaccounted for since Monday.

Mr Fossett took off in a single engine Bellanca at 8.45am yesterday at a private airstrip at the Hilton Ranch in western Nevada but did not return as scheduled.

A friend later reported him missing, said Ian Gregor, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman in Maryland.

The Internet has given credit to University of Cape Town student Marco Gallotta, a computer science major, with discovering that by pressing the right keys while checking out Google Sky (they’re totally different keys for OS X) users are given a choice of flying an F-16 Viper, for those that like to boogie, or a Cirrus SR22 prop plane, for those that prefer the scenic route.

So get the ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL Google Pack with Google Earth right now !!!

Be careful not to fly too high though !!!

You just might end up lost in Google Space.

To start Open Google Earth 4.4 and press Ctrl+Alt+A (if you’re running OS X it’s Command+Option+A; some people have reported that Ctrl+A or Ctrl+Windows+A work when the standard Ctrl+Alt+A does not)

If you are struggling to get into flight simulator mode then follow the instructions below to manually enable flight simulator. After enabling, go Tools -> Enter Flight Simulator.

Windows:

Download FlightSim.reg, double click on it and restart Google Earth.

Linux:

echo 1 > .googleearth/Registry/google/googleearthplus/User/flightsim/isena

Here’s what Marco says :

Some time last week, Google expanded Google Earth with Google Sky. As fascinating as Google Sky is, that’s not the focus of this post. Along with the latest update comes a hidden feature of which I cannot seem to find any other information about. It’s not in the release notes and a search on Google produces no results. Seems Google have done one of their unpublicised updates they’re becoming well-known for.

Read more…

Google Earth Flight Simulator

Google has integrated a secret flight simulator into the latest version of Google Earth – allowing you to fly an F-16 jet Viper fighter plane or an SR22 propellor plane .

But do you have Google Earth 4.2 yet ???

If not, download the latest Google Earth with the Flight Simulator game (not a game, its real)

right now, right here. Just download Google Pack from this link : (choose Google Earth alone if you don’t want anything else. But all the software is good)

Flight Simulator Keyboard Controls

• To enter the flight simulator mode, press Ctrl + Alt + A (Command/Open Apple Key+ Option + A on the Mac).

• Once you have entered flight simulator mode for the first time, you can re-enter the mode by choosing Tools > Enter Flight Simulator. To leave flight simulator mode, click Exit Flight Simulator in the top right corner or press Ctrl + Alt + A (Command/Open Apple Key+ Option + A on the Mac).

The following keystrokes control navigation and other aspects of the flight simulator. You can also control the aircraft with a mouse or joystick. To disable or enable mouse controls, left click (single click on a Mac). Once mouse controls are active, the pointer shape changes to a cross on your screen.

Note – Note that until you enter flight simulator mode, the following commands do not work.

To fly, you need to read this list of keyboard shortcuts, but you can also use a mouse or a joystick. “To disable or enable mouse controls, left click (single click on a Mac). Once mouse controls are active, the pointer shape changes to a cross on your screen.”

Enjoy your flight, Flight Lieutenant !!! the Google Earth is all yours.