Microsoft's New App Helps Colourblind People Distinguish Colours

Colour blindness is something we’ve all heard off, and to a large extent tried to wrap our heads around. This is more than just a “Is my Red your Red?” situation. Colour blindness is when people are not able to fully see the colours Red, Blue and Green. What we mean when we say “fully” is that they mix up all colours which have some red or green as part of the whole colour. For example, a red/green colour blind person will confuse a blue and a purple because they can’t ‘see’ the red element of the colour purple. It is reported that 1 in 12 men and 1 in a 100 women globally suffer from this deficiency. But what if this lifelong condition could be cured with the use of technology?
Bringing back colour to the eyes of the colourblind is a one-of-its kind innovation by an engineer from Microsoft, Tom Overton. The app goes by the name Colour Binoculars, and helps the people with the deficiency to see and distinguish among the various wavelengths of colours. It has been released via Microsoft Garage.

As per a report in ibtimes, the app aims to curb the limitations that come with colour blindness by offering three viewing modes – red and green, green and red, and blue and yellow.  Tingting Zhu, the co developer of the app, shared with The Huffington Post, “We read about special lenses that helped color blind people distinguish colours. However, that’s expensive. So we thought, let’s code something on a phone for free.” At the moment, the app is free for all ios users.
Overton, the developer of the app explained how it was more of a personal project to him. He shares, “I showed it off to my family. I have a cousin who is also colour blind, and he really enjoyed it. Also, when I’m cooking and I need to brown meat, I can bust it out so I can tell when it’s not pink anymore!” A fine example of how even the most daily chores become significantly simpler with the use of the app.
As for how it works, he says on a blogpost, “For example, since I have difficulty distinguishing between red and green, our app makes reds brighter and greens darker so that the difference is more obvious. It replaces difficult colour combinations, like red and green, with more easily distinguishable combinations, like pink and green. The name of the app is also a metaphor, you can see the world more zoomed in, you can use this app to see the world in a different way. You’re not saving images or video, but using the phone’s camera as a way to translate images.” In addition, the app helps you pick flowers, match clothes and diffreciates between coloured alters on screen.
If you think this is revoutionary, the developers aren’t done yet - they have claimed to develop more in the future. The implications of this technology are immense - it could revolutionise career opprotunities for people wanting to be pilots or join the army for instance. Early detection can help children adopt this technology at a much younger age, and there can be a complete change in the way they have learnt to percieve colour - the world would literally be a brighter place!

Feature Image Courtesy: The Huffington Post