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by sp332 4790 days ago
A bit off topic, but I hope this isn't true: Additionally, there won’t be any new colors years from now. The color spectrum of the future will be exactly the same as it is today. It’s neat to think we already have access to the color palettes of the year 3000. The usual sRGB colorspace used by most of the web is a small fraction of visible colors. Don't get me wrong, it covers most use cases just fine, but it would be nice to fill out the rest sometime. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRGB (The colored blobby area represents all the shades the human eye can see, and the little triangle represents the colors in sRGB.) Oh and more contrast would be great too!
3 comments
rjvin 4790 days ago
related: Here's an illusion that lets you see true cyan. http://www.moillusions.com/2006/03/eclipse-of-mars-illusion....

Your eyes can see the color, but your monitor can't represent it.

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msutherl 4789 days ago
Just the thought of being able to use that color in design. The depth is moving.

When I do lighting installations, I always insist on RGBA fixtures so you can get true warm colors – another thing you can't do with RGB displays.

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simba-hiiipower 4790 days ago
pretty cool.
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nyan_sandwich 4790 days ago
That (quoted) statement is probably wrong (with the uncertainty focused on how the future goes).

The Mantis shrimp[1] can see colors in up to 12 dimensions, instead of the pathetic three that we can see.

Further, a study done with mice which I can't find now involved implanting mice with the genes for a third type of color receptor, and they grew up being able to distinguish colors in three dimensions instead of two. In other words, if you add a few genes for more color dimensions, the brain adapts.

To advance the human capability to perceive color, it is probably just a matter of adding a few genes. This kind of stuff is within a century for sure. Our descendants could grow up being able to see visual subtleties we can't even imagine, if we choose to go that way.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantis_shrimp

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sp332 4790 days ago
Oh yeah, I was avoiding augmented vision like Steve Mann's headgear, which enables HDR vision as well as making some IR and UV visible. http://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/profiles/steve-mann-my-au... New cell types would be awesome, but you can already (very faintly) see polarization of light. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haidinger%27s_brush
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girvo 4789 days ago
So THAT'S what that is!

I can see it, have done for as long as I can remember. That's super neat!

I always thought it was just an error in my eyes themselves not handling light properly

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Isamu 4789 days ago
You are right, we don't have access to the color palettes of the year 3000. The term is gamut (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamut) and the point is each current system has its own gamut which is a subset of visible colors.

All of today's print systems, monitors, etc cover a certain subset of visible colors. I think we can expect the technology to improve toward the year 3000, and there will be new colors that we can't represent today in sRGB. But until then, no, sadly we don't have access to (all) those color palettes.

But hey, the colors we have today are forward-compatible.

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