Google's efficiency is apparently top-notch, but why does food enter into the equation?
Power efficiency is one of the big industry buzzwords right now; with the looming economic woes on top of rising emission worries, companies do all they can to not only reduce their own consumption but also make you painstakingly aware of the lengths they've gone to.
Google is the latest company on this path, and they've responded to a false article in a newspaper from last year about the energy consumption per Google search.
As you'd probably know, Google handles hundreds of thousands of searches in the space of time it takes most of us to read a book, and with any computing task it also means that power is going to be gobbled down for each one.
Thanks to a post on the Google Blog, they've come up with a measure of comparison - the energy needed to make a glass of OJ from growth, squeezing and transport roughly equates to 1050 searches.
What it doesn't mention is the details, simply mentioning that a cheeseburger equates to 15000 searches, without saying whether it was cooked in an efficient way or even how many were done at once.
Still it's interesting to see that they have still managed to reduce their usage, though what this will actually do in the long run is up in the air.
Post below if you think it's all a pointless endeavour to reduce energy, if you think Google's numbers are dodgy, or if you enjoy the deliciously greasy taste of a bacon-powered google search.
Issue: 133 | February, 2012