Mobile By Lee Mathews Feb. 25, 2014 1:27 pm
There was an interesting reveal that took place quietly during Unpacked 2014 alongside the Galaxy S5, Gear 2, and Gear Fit launches. It was a little app called Spritz, which could dramatically change the way you consume digital print content.
Spritz is going to let you read a whole lot faster — in fact some test subjects were able to blow past 900 words per minute. If you can sustain a pace like that, you’d be able to Spritz-read all of Tolstoy’s epic War and Peace in a little over ten hours.
Comprehension doesn’t take a beating, either. According to Spritz those speedsters all passed a non-multiple choice test with flying colors.
The key to the Spritz system is properly aligning words so that
your eyes don’t have to make tiny back-and-forth movements (called saccades) to find the “balance point” the brain needs to process them.
Words are streamed one at a time into the Spritz “redicle” (see what they did there?). It’s a narrow window that can handle up to 13 characters and fits nicely even on a smartwatch display. You can customize both the display font and the speed at which words cycle. Their web demo ranges from 250 to 500WPM, but you’ll be able to crank it past that in the Spritz app.
It may seem like an awkward way to read at first glance, but it can be a whole lot more efficient once you get used to the change. If you’ve ever tried reading an eBook on, say, a 3.5-inch smartphone display, you may have discovered this already.
Spritz has been in stealth mode for several years, but they’re ready to make a splash in 2014. The company is working with a number of different content providers. You may see the Spritz redicle appear as an option in your favorite reading app in the near future — and it just might pop up on news websites and blogs like this one soon, too.
More...
Spritz is going to let you read a whole lot faster — in fact some test subjects were able to blow past 900 words per minute. If you can sustain a pace like that, you’d be able to Spritz-read all of Tolstoy’s epic War and Peace in a little over ten hours.
Comprehension doesn’t take a beating, either. According to Spritz those speedsters all passed a non-multiple choice test with flying colors.
The key to the Spritz system is properly aligning words so that
your eyes don’t have to make tiny back-and-forth movements (called saccades) to find the “balance point” the brain needs to process them.Words are streamed one at a time into the Spritz “redicle” (see what they did there?). It’s a narrow window that can handle up to 13 characters and fits nicely even on a smartwatch display. You can customize both the display font and the speed at which words cycle. Their web demo ranges from 250 to 500WPM, but you’ll be able to crank it past that in the Spritz app.
It may seem like an awkward way to read at first glance, but it can be a whole lot more efficient once you get used to the change. If you’ve ever tried reading an eBook on, say, a 3.5-inch smartphone display, you may have discovered this already.
Spritz has been in stealth mode for several years, but they’re ready to make a splash in 2014. The company is working with a number of different content providers. You may see the Spritz redicle appear as an option in your favorite reading app in the near future — and it just might pop up on news websites and blogs like this one soon, too.
More...
