New software helps colour-blind people

Associated Press

Like many colour-blind people who have adapted all their lives to a particular way of seeing things, Mr. Harry Rogers feels his inability to discern red and green hasn't caused him much trouble over the years. Even so, there is one particular difficulty, making sense of charts, graphs, weather maps and other colourful material on his computer screen.

Now, eyePilot software will enable colour-blind people such as Mr. Rogers to navigate the Internet, identify colours on computers and make charts and diagrams.

The software works by allowing users to place the cursor over the area they want to view and eyePilot reports what the colour is. If they click on a colour name, all instances of it on the page will appear. There is more to it: a colour can be made to stand out by converting the rest of a page to grey and white. With eyePilot, several options are available to change colour hues until contrasts are more easily seen.

Developed by Tenebraex Corporatio’, Boston, U.S.A., the software is priced at Dollars 34 (Rupees 1,530 approximately).

Mr. Peter Jones, C.E.O., eyePilot said: "It's a set of tools. It's a Swiss Army Knife. You can use it yourself to decode colour." He stresses that the colour blind might not be alone in benefiting from the way eyePilot lets users pinpoint particular shades on a screen or shift hues to bring out easier-to-detect contrasts.

Colour blindness makes some kinds of occupations off-limits, such as the job of an electrician and pilot. For those and other jobs that might require use of colour computer screens, eyePilot could open up some opportunity.