An app called Spritz will let people read up to 1,000 words-per-minute, which translates to being able to read an entire novel in just over an hour.
Ever wanted to blaze through your novels and textbooks but find that you can’t since you can only read at a certain rate? Well, a new app called Spritz just might help with that. According to the company, Spritz will help people read 250 to 1,000 words-per-minute, which equates to reading an entire Harry Potter novel at just over an hour. The Boston-based company states, “Reading is inherently time consuming because your eyes have to move from word to word and line to line. Traditional reading also consumes huge amounts of physical space on a page or screen, which limits reading effectiveness on small displays. Scrolling, pinching, and resizing a reading area doesn’t fix the problem and only frustrates people. Now, with compact text streaming from Spritz, content can be streamed one word at a time, without forcing your eyes to spend time moving around the page. Spritz makes streaming your content easy and more comfortable, especially on small displays. Our “Redicle” technology enhances readability even more by using horizontal lines and hash marks to direct your eyes to the red letter in each word, so you can focus on the content that interests you.”
Spritz Inc. claims its tech can be integrated into photos, maps and websites, too. And while we know how traditional ways of reading can be time consuming, just how does the Spritz make us read faster? “The time consuming part of reading lies mainly in the actual eye movements from word to word and sentence to sentence. In addition, traditional reading simply takes up a lot of physical space. Spritz solves both of these problems. First, your eyes do not have to move from word to word or around the page that you’re reading. In fact, there’s no longer a page – with Spritz you only need 13 total characters to show all of your content. Fast streaming of text is easier and more comfortable for the reader, especially when reading areas become smaller,” the company claims.
For reference, a .gif showing what 500 words-per-minute looks like can be seen below, with 1,000 words-per-minute speeds doubling that of what’s shown.
While using the app might make people read faster, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll understand all the words flashing on screen. But according to a statement from Dr. Maik Mauer, co-founder and CTO of Spritz, “spritzing” does increase a person’s comprehension. “Happily, our tests confirmed that spritzing increases comprehension. We’re now starting to research whether time spent spritzing will also increase a user’s traditional reading speed and comprehension, an effect reported to us by many of our testers,” Mauer notes.
Currently, the speed-reading app is set to launch on the upcoming Samsung S5 smartphone and Gear 2 smartwatch; but the company states they are working with other mobile makers, wearable manufacturers and even e-book companies to make the technology more accessible in the future. You can test the app on its official site to see if it works just as the company intended, or you can also check out the open-source implementation or even the Chrome extension that’s available.
Personally, I’m all for making people read faster. Hopefully, continually using the app won’t make anyone feel dizzy or even nauseous. Can you imagine “spritzing” instead of reading or would you rather take your time when reading something?
Published: Mar 8, 2014 08:27 pm