(Spritz)
The problem with reading? You have to move your eyes too much. This might sound like a line from the world’s laziest person, but it has been discovered that the movement of your eyes from one word to another is slowing you down.
A new technology is being deployed that could rewrite the way we read. Spritz streams text to the eye one word at a time and will have a red line at the Optical Recognition Point — where our eyes naturally go to in words to determine what they are.
When reading, only 20 percent of your time is spent processing content. The other 80 percent is taken up having to physically move your eyes from word to word, which is known as ‘saccade’ and scanning for the next ORP. When you read text using Spritz it makes things more efficient and can turn the average 220 words per minute reader into super human 500 or even 1000 words per minute champions.
You can adjust the reader to display words at different speeds but if you took a step up to 350 words per minute you could read the enitre Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in under four hours.
There’s no need to train to use the system unlike those who skim text to speed read who will know this can take plenty of practice and not everything is taken in. Also, it still requires space. Spritz will be running on Samsung’s Galaxy S5 and Gear 2 — being particularly useful on the latter device due to its small screen.
And it’s mobile where this is looking to take off. We’re all about getting information down us as fast as possible and this could really be a new way to consume content. We wouldn’t be surprised if ‘Spritzing’ became the next big thing.
We’ve tried the system on its website and have to say it does work. Even when text is flashing at us at 500 words per minute we were able to comprehend all that was said and didn’t feel the strain of eye movement after reading.
However, look away for a split second and you’ve just missed a whole sentence.
It is a bit of an odd way to read, but with devices moving from the pocket to the body, a way to read emails and texts on minimal screens like this is just what we’ve been looking for.
It’ll be arriving on Samsung's crop of new devices in April, but no word on whether it’ll be on Apple or Windows Phone as yet.
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