Increase Reading Speed (wpm)

[nemon1c]

A couple really interesting reading apps are beginning to come out to increase the rate at which users read (wpm or words per minute). The first app called Spritz is still in development by Samsung:

http://www.spritzinc.com/

Here's how it works: Spritz shows you one word at a time through a narrow, rectangular viewing pane called the "Redicle." That name is a pun of sorts, as each word has one letter highlighted in red (get it?!). In more technical terms, that letter is the "optimal recognition point," the letter that helps your brain piece the word together quickly (and with as little eye movement as possible). The speed is adjustable, too, ranging from 100 words per minute to 1,000 -- far exceeding Spritz's claimed average of 220 words per minute.Once Spritz releases its SDK, sometime in the coming weeks, developers will be able to build it into their apps, as well as create things like Chrome extensions. (Spritz CEO Frank Waldman says Spritz has no intention of doing this itself, which is probably fine, as 12,000 developers have already requested access to the SDK.). Website owners, meanwhile, will be able to integrate the technology by embedding some simple HTML code.

However, today a website popped up that seems to have stolen the idea from Spritz. Squirt adds a bookmark to your browser. When you're reading an article from a website, when you press the bookmark, it will run the text through an algorithm to help you read faster. You can choose the wpm rate at which the text is processed. If you only want the script to read part of an article, just highlight the selected part and then press on the bookmark. Information about Squirt can be found here.

http://www.squirt.io/

Anyways, the concept seems interesting and hopefully they'll eventually be able to implement this technology directly to the website itself.

[vezzy]

You're addicted to HN too, are you?

[nemon1c]

You're addicted to HN too, are you?

I just see this stuff come across my Feedly and figure EZ would be interested. I'm linked to HN articles though, so that's probably it.

[evilhacker]

It's decent to read long badly formatted sentences as you sometimes get lost. Then again, this new reading method would require some time to get used to (at least for me).

Thanks for the share.

[nemon1c]

It's decent to read long badly formatted sentences as you sometimes get lost. Then again, this new reading method would require some time to get used to (at least for me).

Thanks for the share.

I feel like if they could implement this to the webpage itself, instead of showing one word at a time, it could have some success.