Sunday, July 31, 2016

Oh, you know what else is fixed now? Color blindness.

A company named EnChroma claims to have invented a pair of glasses that cures color blindness. The many videos of patients seeing the full range of color for the first time are extremely moving:

I was a little skeptical, but it all seems to check out. You can read this Forbes article in which the author tested the glasses.

The author leaves with the conclusion that these are a luxury item; expanding the browns he's always seen to more vibrant reds is not life-changing enough to justify the high cost of the glasses.

While that's probably a good assessment today, now that we've invented the technology, it's only a matter of time before the cost comes down. Not only that, but we could see this technology embedded in contact lenses or even expanded in other ways. Centuries ago, regular corrective glasses seemed like a luxury item; indeed, they still are in many parts of the world, but that area is shrinking. And contact lenses were much more indulgent when I was young, now they're more commonplace. I'm eager to see this technology spread in the coming years.