On Saturday, March 29, web surfers everywhere who used Google will have seen a black screen. Not to be confused with the “blue screen of death” that some PC users have experienced, the Google black screen is however a sign of life.

Black is the new green, one may say as the Google black screen is part of the Earth Hour initiative aimed at having people worldwide turn off their lights to help cut down on emissions and make the planet a little greener.

From 8 pm to 9 pm on March 29, 2008 people were supposed to have turned off their lights in order to save an hour of power. Now, the black screen itself is an area of confusion since there was once a rumor floating about on the Internet that a black computer screen would actually save more energy than a white one.

Not so, say search giant Google as a disclaimer on their homepage stated that having a white screen or black screen makes no difference when it comes to power consumption. The point of the black screen is to call attention to this initiative for lights that lay beyond the computer screen.

Today, however, all is back to normal. The lights are back on and the screen is once again a nice pearly white.

Filed under: Google