Show HN: Bionic Reading – Formats text to make it faster to read
bionic-reading.com
bionic-reading.com
If you want to read the patent (in French), it's here: https://data.inpi.fr/brevets/FR3052587. I couldn't find the German patent (10 2017 112 916.2), but I'm guessing it's the same substance.
Best regards from the Alps Renato
This is amazingly innovative.
We have seen letter switching examples and how the brain will try to fill in the gaps.
This is superbly unique and justifiably a patent and trademark.
The demo works.
The rules may be simple. But as the old boat repairman story says, sometimes you need to know where to hit the hammer.
Please, please don't use this for evil.
Best regards from the Alps Renato
If you’re serious, then release a copy-left license for the patent (but not necessarily your implementation/product/sdk)
Otherwise, just add your commercial licensing terms to your website already so people aren’t misled into thinking they’ll be able to do anything with this idea unless they pay you.
More info detailed at my top-level comment.
Is that how patents work in general?
I always thought (and could be very wrong here) that if a patent exists for something but you've developed an alternative something in total isolation without seeing the patent then you would have free reign on how to design and develop your thing without violating the patent.
Ah yes, that's what I was thinking of -- thanks. Specifically a scene from an episode of Halt and Catch Fire (I won't describe it due to spoilers).
That's a real bummer for patents though and makes me wonder how something like Amazon's 1-click checkout was able to be patented. I wonder how "save billing details for future use" can be considered a novel idea.
They are a some of my favorites, and are fun to watch.
[0] https://dfarq.homeip.net/did-microsoft-steal-dos-from-cpm/
For a long time, software patenting law was famously lax. You could basically patent anything software-related if you knew the right legalese. The situation has apparently gotten better after a 2014 SCOTUS ruling, but in the '90s and '00s it was pretty dire.
https://www.eff.org/issues/stupid-patent-month https://www.infoworld.com/article/2608772/the-battle-against...
> Standards organizations, therefore, often require members disclose and grant licenses to their patents and pending patent applications that cover a standard that the organization is developing. > https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essential_patent
Please not that this is less of a "You have to offer licenses or else" and more of a "Hey please do that."
Looks fairly straightforward to implement. Until this is more widely available "officially", I'll probably just hack up some Chrome extension for personal use and try it out.
𝐖𝐡a𝐭 a𝐛ou𝐭 𝐭𝐡i𝐬 𝐭e𝐱𝐭? 𝐖ou𝐥𝐝 a𝐧y𝐭𝐡i𝐧𝐠 𝐰o𝐫𝐤 𝐛e𝐭𝐭e𝐫 𝐭𝐡a𝐧 𝐬i𝐦𝐩𝐥e 𝐩𝐥ai𝐧 𝐭e𝐱𝐭?
What I’m trying to say is: if you chose the Memoji with a turban to show an Indian person, it doesn’t match the -th in the name. As an Indian my first reaction was that the testimonial was fake, for this reason.
It’s probably a review written by somebody with a brown skin tone. Page authors don’t know the social intricacies of what constitutes Sikhs and chose this one as “close enough”.
I think it's unfortunate that (at the time of writing) the comments about the product and its effectiveness are ranked lower than this discussion about the _possibility_ that a non-Sikh person has been represented as Sikh.
If Sangeeth themselves had popped up in this thread to comment on the choice of emoji, then sure, but it's just somebody making some assumptions based on a 't' vs 'th' cluster in the name.
I think that the general idea is that either you're guessing at the appropriate representation of the testifying users, or that they've picked those emoji. If the latter, then all is good! If the former, then it's generally a bad idea to assume that you know something about a person based on their name, or even, really, anything other than their implicit election. (I would certainly be upset if a business to whom I had offered a testimonial used it and misidentified me, even in ways that may seem trivial, especially if they could have just asked me.)
I assume that was sarcastic, but why not? Do you have any right to choose the emoji to identify me? I mean, you surely have every right to editorialise with an emoji that you think reflects my behaviour, but, if you're going to quote me below a symbolic representation, then I think it's different. If one has to use an emoji to identify someone—and it's not at all clear to me that it's necessary—then, after all, we're talking about who has reached out; why not just ask them?
(For example, surely—right?—we can agree that it would be bad to say "a user from India gave this testimonial:", or whatever—unless the place of origin is relevant, and you actually know it. I don't see much difference between these two.)
If it's posted on my website, then yes. It might not be polite or advisable, but I absolutely have the right to misgender you as well.
That being said, as an pedantic, unshorn hair, turban wearing Sikh I'm not sure I'd describe dastaarbandi as any sort of ceremony granting authorization.
I actually found the 'bumpiness' in reading a distraction and I had to read the paragraph a few times to truly get the meaning. So any speed gains from the reading methodology were lost during the understanding phase
by reading faster? I mean the examples are pretty compelling and it did feel like I was reading faster, but at the same time their goals are at odds - faster reading doesn't necessarily mean more attentive reading, or being able to absorb more information.
Still, interesting technique. I just wish they made their examples / comparisons actual text instead of images; surely they can just write a snippet of JS or some HTML to render the effect in the browser itself. Or would that be giving up their secret sauce?
Also if any of the authors are here, please get rid of the "small text in between big text", I'm not sure if I need to read the one and then the other, or refocus my eyes on the big then the small text.
I'd be more likely to read a longer piece of text (average content, not something I'm deeply interested in) if it was "easier" to read -- I get through it faster, or have to make less effort to get to the end.
But yes, this would be awesome to see as a browser extension. Maybe I'll get around to it at some distant point in the future.
Anyways, I don't believe speed-reading to be effective, especially for comprehension and long-term retention. The best and fastest way to get an overview of a written piece is not to read it faster, but to skip most of the content. Most of it is just supporting the core arguments, and can thus be skipped for an overview.
Maybe this brain reading faster than eyes thing is best aimed at sub-vocalisers? I'd be interested in knowing if the people this helps read 'out loud' in their heads
One test person in the study was also a speed reader. She had read two different texts. Once with and once without bionic reading. But her speed stayed at 800 wpm each time.
But believe me, there are a lot of people who have difficulty with reading. Surely also in your circle of friends. And for some of them Bionic Reading can help.
$$('span.commtext').forEach(span => {
const frag = document.createDocumentFragment();
span.textContent.split(/\s+/).forEach(word => {
const len = Math.ceil(word.length * 0.3);
const leading = document.createElement('strong');
leading.textContent = word.slice(0, len);
const trailing = document.createTextNode(word.slice(len) + ' ');
frag.appendChild(leading);
frag.appendChild(trailing);
});
span.parentNode.replaceChild(frag, span);
}) function bionifyPage(){
function bionifyWord(word) {
if (word.length == 1) {
return word;
}
var numBold = Math.ceil(word.length * 0.3);
// return "<div class=\"bionic-highlight\">" + word.slice(0, numBold) + "</div>" + + "<div class=\"bionic-rest\">" + word.slice(numBold) + "</div>";
return "<b>" + word.slice(0, numBold) + "</b>" + "<span>" + word.slice(numBold) + "</span>";
}
function bionifyText(text) {
var res = "";
if (text.length < 10) {
return text;
}
for (var word of text.split(" ")) {
res += bionifyWord(word) + " ";
}
return res;
}
function bionifyNode(node) {
if (node.tagName == 'SCRIPT') return;
if ((node.childNodes == undefined) || (node.childNodes.length == 0)) {
if ((node.textContent != undefined) && (node.tagName == undefined)) {
var newNode = document.createElement('span');
var bionifiedText = bionifyText(node.textContent)
newNode.innerHTML = bionifiedText;
if (node.textContent.length > 20){
node.replaceWith(newNode);
}
}
}
else {
for (var child of node.childNodes) {
bionifyNode(child);
}
}
}
bionifyNode(document.body);
}You can customize the css attributes of highlighted text and rest of the word using the two input texts.
Imagine you have problems with reading. You don't realize what a huge hurdle that is until you talk to people who are affected.
Being ashamed in front of society. The problem of learning new things. Being called stupid. And these are just a few examples of people affected.
Therefore I thank you very much that you discuss the problem critically. Best regards from the Alps, Renato
This would be an awesome enhancement to Pocket- which already extracts web page texts into a lighter format - I'd probably read everything through that
I see patent registrations, but no mention of any studies underpinning the claims being made.
To me this smells like all the other pseudo-scientific BS marketing and product people are trying to spoon-feed me every day.
Also as said in a sibling comment, for me it killed my reading speed. From their examples I would estimate by about half.
So thanks, but no thanks - this is not an offering for me. But it will probably find its audience. I could imagine it will be a big hit in the self optimization scene.
So as said - there will be people who benefit from this. Still - being an empiricist I just like to see independent and scientifically valid representative studies being done before I believe marketing claims. ;-)
Going constructive on the HN comments, if someone found something, you got a right to protect and earn from it anyway, charging for however a simple idea helps it spread and let's you do more innovation on it. But that said, maybe a library with paid access is a better idea than api which needs to travel across 14 seas and 7 oceans!
Here is something that could legitimately be useful for many people, help the consumption of human knowledge when open-sourced, but instead it is patented and monetized to the maximum extent.
Super distasteful.
ANTIDISESTAblishmentarianism (initial 40% highlighted)
vs.
ANtiDisESTAblishMEntARianIsm (highlighting rules over morphemes)
vs.
AnTiDisEstAbLIshMEntArIAnIsm (highlighting rules over syllables)
The lay-typographer in me really hates the look of it too. Aesthetics don't trump readability, but perhaps there's a middle ground where the font weight drops off (e.g., with exponential decay), rather than having the binary "bold vs. not bold".
Perhaps the author of the current offering worked at craftworks at that time, then left and took his IP with him, I don't know.
It probably can be optimized in a bunch of ways:
* Less drastic transitions between accentuated text and the rest
* An ML algorithm to select quantifiably better patterns (with distillation if necessary)
* Enrolling visually- and cognitively-impaired persons (e.g.dyslexics) into the study to avoid undercutting accessibility
We've been doing printing and written/illuminated books for many centuries, and statistical readability studies for the last 80 years or so. If a variation of this technique is better than the existing 'flat' type (even with ligatures), NASA/DARPA/NIH would be investigating it shortly.
It is well known that text that is too thin and too light-colored is not great to read. The text modification shown here makes certain letters easier to read, but it appears this is partially because the rest of the text is specifically difficult to read. The background of the page very light grey, it looks like, which would magnify this effect even more.
I wonder what this would look like with a not-too-thin-font that is black or near-black. I also wonder what it looks like on a full-width paragraph, as the sibling commenter mentioned.
Regardless, it's always nice to see innovation in this space!
Also, have you patented BeeLine as well?
Best regards from the Alps Renato
Maybe because the part of the brain used to read/write/listen/speak a non native language is not the same as a native language. I really feel that I need to focus more while reading the example paragraph with the bionic stuff.
I tried the other examples, but I memorized enough of the text starting the 3rd example that I could not really infer anything. Putting the same text for all the examples is not really helpful in this case.
I am first grade teacher and have taught many children to read. Bionic's principles and algorithm do not match what I understand about the science of reading. This just holds the first part of a word, regardless of what the letters are. I would want an algorithm that is smarter than that (and I certainly wouldn't use bionic in the classroom, regardless!).
Thank you for teaching the children and best regards from the Alps, Renato
I think if you want to read a book in a relaxed way, but you have dyslexia (10% of people), then Bionic Reading can help you.
Looks like “shortpixel.ai” blocked by AdGuard Base.
“Data on Swiss servers”, but shortpixel.com and shortpixel.ai owned by ID Scout of Romania. Their Wordpress plugin and CDN both superficially ‘act like’ plenty of free beacon tracker type image hosts, though this service offers paid plans and copy paste data legalese doesn’t reference advertising/measurement/aggregation third parties.
I haven’t the time to look into why AdGuard is blocking, but perhaps it’s that ad banner or ad injector companies like it:
https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdguardFilters/search?q=short...
Without that, how can this ever come to the browser?
Few questions:
From what I understand BR figures out 'what part of the word is unique enough to be a good enough approximation of the word'. Is this somewhat context aware or generic (with parameters available for developer)?
How focused are you on iOS?
Very cool insight in emphasizing the "important" parts of the words. For me at least, it seems to have worked - it felt like less effort to glide over the paragraph of text and take in the content.
As far as it becoming a product.. I'm sorry, but people will immediately rip this off. Someone will make a free browser extension, or add this to an existing one like Outline / Mercury Reader / etc. To enforce patents you have to have money to pay the lawyers, so for small fry they're kind of useless.
Very cool idea all the same, and I would love to see this embedded in anything that displays text.
It seems to color the beginning and end of each line, so that your eyes naturally follow from one line to the next, is this correct?
Have you tried and tested any other ideas?
It also improves visual tracking during the 'return sweep' — when you move your eyes from right to left, to find the new line.
The colors are user-configurable, and we make first-party tools like browser plugins, [1] PDF converters, [2] and iOS apps. [3] We also partner with reading and education platforms like Blackboard [4], who have embedded our tech in their products.
We do have a few other tricks up our sleeve, but for now this is the main event. It's not too shabby, and has won social impact awards from MIT Solve [5] and the United Nations Solutions Summit. [6]
1: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/beeline-reader/ifj...
2: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/beeline-reader-pdf...
3: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/beeline-extension/id1571623734
5: https://solve.mit.edu/articles/meet-the-solver-teams-introdu...
6: https://unfoundation.org/blog/post/meet-10-solution-makers-t...
The rules seems to be simple, so i don't know if somebody uses an api for that.
I think what I don't understand is the concept: "and so just a few letters are enough to recognize whole word".
This isn't expressed in the example. The rest of the word isn't hidden, it's still there in my peripheral vision (?). It is basically the same as I normally read.
If the unboldened parts of the words were actually discarded, I am not sure if I would be able to recognize all the original words, at least not efficiently and faster than the original.
A nice side effect is that it also helps your vertical tracking of lines by adding more visual anchor points.
My personal finding is that it makes the work my eyes need to do to keep on the line, and move from line to line easier.
But I will note that the largest increase in reading speed for me, up to 800 words per minute, came from single word focusing. There are tools, such as speed reader mode in Emacs, or an old browser extension called Squid, that take the readable text and put it all on one line, then move the text through a window that stays fixed on the screen.
By training yourself to relax and not read the words aloud, I was able to increase my reading speed from around 200 wpm to over 800 wpm. The trick is to slowly ramp up the speed, and not just jump up to the fastest speed possible. It’s also important to remember to blink.
Alternatively, text to speech works for to in a similar way, and I’ve found that I can handle 2.5x - 3.5x speeds after a few hours of training. As a bonus, nobody else can decider what you’re listening to, and you get some funny looks.
Let me know if others have found similar techniques to work for them.
What they have in common is that both are quite heavy fonts (thick lines), and with a bit of extra kerning (space between letters). They are also designed to have 'b' and 'd' (and other mirror-image pairs) that do not look like mirror images.
I have worked in this field for years, as the founder of BeeLine Reader. [3] We received a lot of requests to offer one of these fonts, and we've used OpenDyslexic for quite some time. I know some people really like it. At the same time, dyslexia researchers (especially those in the US) insist that dyslexia is not a visual condition, and that fonts cannot make a difference.
I tend to believe that even if it is not an issue that is primarily visual, that doesn't meant that adjustments to how text is presented can't make things better. This seems to be the sense among (1) researchers outside the US, (2) individuals with dyslexia worldwide, and (3) many assistive technology or SPED workers in the US — despite what US-based researchers say.
Glad you like BeeLine — we've integrated with several HN/YC'ers, ranging from blogs [2] to mobile apps. [3] Please feel free to reach out (developer@beelinereader.com) if you're interested in working together.
1: https://www.helperbird.com/
- - - -
An interesting and effective method of speed reading is Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP). These days it's mostly used in the context of psychological/perception studies, but it came about as a I/O method for military machines IIRC. Anyway, the trick is you display text one word at a time, in the same location, so the eye doesn't have to move at all. With a little practice and some tweaking (i.e. slight extra delay after periods and commas, that sort of thing) you can read very very fast. (For me I could read faster than my internal mental voice can speak.)
- - - -
There's an interesting effect where you can take some text and, for each word longer than ~5 letters, you leave the first and last letter in place but scramble all the "interior" letters. The resulting text is still legible!
(I'd give an example here but I'm too lazy. Exercise for the reader, eh?)
I think you're referring to this (dubbed "Typoglycemia"):
> Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are [...]
It's sort of true (although there was never any research at Cambridge that anyone has been able to unearth), but it's way more limited that "any word longer than 5 characters". This is a good explanation of it (arbitrary link found after a search):
https://www.sciencealert.com/word-jumble-meme-first-last-let...
People seem to want it to be universally true, though. It's for sure an interesting phenomenon (and meta-phenomenon).
Unreal. Reading the non-bionic (?) text on the website suddenly felt like a sluggish chore, and for the first time I am realizing that I am actively using not insignificant amounts of energy to mentally parse text.
Similar to audio books ... some podcasts/audiobooks I can listen to at 2.5x or higher and others I need to reduce to 1.25 or 1.5x. Some readers are already fast enough and I listen a 1x; Mary Robinette Kowal for instance.
The website needs more attention to detail, this typo is one of the first things a visitor sees:
> We humans store learned words and so just a few letters are enough to ecognize whole words.Sorry for the error. My english is not so good. Can you write me the sentence 100% correctly? That would be very kind of you.
(Though I'm not sure if the typo was intentional.)
Mch lk n cn rd wtht vwls.
If you would like, send to me an email (my gmail username is the same as my HN username) and if I spot anything else I'll reply back with corrections.
I'm honestly wondering if this would make me lazy for reading non explicitly partway bolded text.
At the very least I think that should all be clearer given the primary claim.
Bionic reading does not have to be learned, it happens intuitively. Because we humans read the way we read.
How do you plan to make money at the scale that this system could apply at, without alienating the world by forcing text flow through your system or pay some kind of royalty?
And what you have to remember is that your brain has already absorbed the words. So your eye jumps back instead of gliding over the text.
However, this will turn off and you will find that you understand the text without having read every letter.
For example with 'theists', 'the' would be bold by default, but maybe bolding 'th' or 'thei' would result in less confusion.
Is there an app that can 'un-bolden' letters so I can slow my brain back down.
I suspect this is likely a typographic side-effect, similar to traditional print where dark pages "swallow" light text where as the opposite happens when inverted.
Also a bit of tangent, but I wonder, could fellow English native speakers generally skim books like less than three to five seconds on each page, and roughly get the idea of those pages? I'm a native speaker of Chinese and it's pretty easy for me to do it in Chinese, but there's no way for me to do the same in English despite I've been reading English for years.
I trained myself since my time at university to mark important parts in text (either with text marker in a book or with bold typesetting in a digital text).
I then primarily scan only the bold/colored parts and skip over the non marked parts. So my eye/brain jumped from bold letters to bold letters. As these were not full words, I just had gibberish in my head.
Maybe for the untrained reader this might work. I know that I am just anecdata.
There's a fair bit of work in say philosophy where for example the concepts being discussed may be things like relationships between things, or things themselves, or being, also unavoidably something that crops up in the actual discussion, you're comparing comparisons or saying that that that thing that is is. You kinda usually have to slow down considerably to break these things down to have any hope of actually understanding them.
Like many others, I scan over sentences multiple times. This has made me more a apt reader technical writing than creative or conversational writing.
Maybe I’m yet another smooth-brain falling for the placebo effect, but I truly perceived an increase in reading speed that did not outpace my inner voice. Nice!
1. make it short
2. use simple words
3. use lists
I feel 80% of text is just filler.
I suppose the more common version is "this article could have been expressed as a tweet!"
This did on the surface feel like it is a help for me, in particular not so much the reading speed but the 'pull' of the words meant I was less likely to get distracted halfway through a paragraph and tab away. (Yes, I suspect I may have undiagnosed adhd).
Suggestion: on the EN version of the website, you could consider linking to EN App Store pages, e.g.,
https://apps.apple.com/app/fiery-feeds-rss-reader/id1158763303
https://apps.apple.com/ch/app/fiery-feeds-rss-reader/id1158763303In computer screen I adjust the text, making it narrower, and can read fast. With pdfs and sites I can't do that so I read slower.
In smartphones the screens are already too narrow and this technique works!
It might help the website more if the testimonials themselves were in the same way.
> this book author did not write his texts in written German, but in a form of the Swiss language, which I did not understand with reading. So I noticed that I have great difficulties to read the text.
This makes me angry. The German Swiss have deprived themselves of their own culture by normalising the practice of writing a German variety that is not theirs, and that is not spoken. The other three Swiss ethnicities wouldn't dream of doing such a nonsense.
It is nigh 100 years past time that someone who cares – following the footsteps of Adelung, Karadžić, Manzoni – pushes through with https://als.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieth-Schreibung and takes it to the schools, so that in future generations people like Renato won't have trouble reading their own native language, and the pupils of Romandy learn a (secondary) language that is actually useful for orally communicating with their fellow countrymen, unlike what happens today.
Depends on the quality of the video but can get at least x1.25 and upto x1.75 without my brain frying.
Instead of reading what if this was text->speech at a multiple?
I started doing this too.
But mostly because it helps with those videos where the speaker is speaking about an interesting topic but is speaking very slowly, or with large gaps or with many fillers. It helps making the viewing experience much more bearable.
Its the BR verion1
My finding before the study was that 10% of all readers gain an advantage in Bionic Reading. And 10% is already very much...I find
You literally made this technology inaccessible for decades to come now. Thanks for that.
However, not in the form of a font, but in the way of highlighting within the text.
A big advantage of Bionic Reading is that the reading setting can be adjusted individually by each reader. In other words, individual.
We humans store learned words and so just a few letters
your brain reads faster
are enough to recognize whole words.
than your eye?
I'm embarrassed how long this took me to understand.
If there are <= 3 letters, one letter is bold.
If there are == 4 letters, two letters are bold.
If there are > 4 letters, 40% of all letters are bold.
We are happy if as many people as possible can use the advantage of Bionic Reading. For this reason, Bionic Reading should be able to be integrated into existing apps and services. The benefit for the reader should be the main focus.
Because money.
With the rules it depends on whether it is short, medium or long words. But in principle it is simple.
As simple as we humans read. Eye - brain - representation products (words)
Ja ich hatte bereits zwei Browser Extensions (Chrome, Firefox) als Beta-Versionen. Aber die Erkenntnis war, dass sehr viele Websites — da diese ja individuell erstellt werden — keine gute Experience ergab.
Deswegen habe ich mit Silvio Rizzi (Reeder5) getestet, wie es am besten nutzbar gemacht werden kann. Hab aus Fehlern gelernt, aber wir denken dass es viele Entwickler gibt, die BR in ihren Leseprodukten anbieten möchten...
Aber vielleicht liegen wir da ja auch falsch. Man muss es versuchen und dann weitere Erkenntnis daraus ziehen.
A liaba Gruass us Chur Renato
Thank you very much noeltock. Yes, I already had two browser extensions (Chrome, Firefox) as beta versions. But the finding was that a lot of websites - since they are created individually - did not give a good experience. That's why I tested with Silvio Rizzi (Reeder5) how it can best be used. Learned from mistakes, but we think there are many developers who want to offer BR in their reading products... But maybe we're wrong about that. You have to try it and then draw further knowledge from it. A dear greeting from Chur Renato
That has to be the most unfortunate choice of wording !
More seriously though, does BR work in your native Swiss German ?
I came across BR during my studies as a typographic designer. There was a language problem there.
That's why I realized that reading and listening are completely different. You can understand a language by listening to it. But reading the same language does not mean that you can understand it.
I can't imagine this working too well with German words ? e.g. how much of Rechtsschutzversicherungsgesellschaften, Kraftfahrzeughaftpflichtversicherung, Lebensabschnittpartner or Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän would you need to highlight ?
I don't speak German, but surely with compound words, your concept doesn't work that well ?
Even just a couple days ago I came across “Personalisierungsinfrastrukturkomponente“ [0] in a news article, so it is not just a rumor that Germans like long-ass words :)
[0] Apparently these are the devices used by the government to verify passports and / or fingerprints of refugees.
For instance now THeir and THere will be bolded the same, on a quick glance that can be confusing. (Using caps as HN can't do bold)
Would it increase pattern recognition in the brain if it instead was THeIr and THeRe, or some other variant where the bolding highlights the unique parts of a word compared to other common words?
Well I wrote the idea here, so don't try patent it, hehe.
Edit: but thank you for sharing your concept here, very interesting, and I like the discussions it created.
Each of us is motivated by different goals. I am motivated to have a comfortable life, and I've worked for different companies over time to achieve this. I also find personal satisfaction in helping others so I've occasionally make charitable contributions of time and money, but I don't expect that everyone else is going to make the same choices I have. We don't know the motivation that drove the inventors of this new reading technology. Maybe it was to simply make money for riotous living, but it could be that they have a critically sick partner that needs expensive surgery. These are personal and private choices that I don't feel a need to weigh. Improved reading technology sounds like a good thing for not just the inventor, but for all of us.
When I buy some peaches from a farmer at a stand by the highway, I want the peach more than I want the dollar I have in my pocket. The farmer wants the dollar more than the peach. After I buy the peach we are both better off. I don't need to feel that the farmer is a non-profit farmer. I expect the farmer to be happier after the sale, for otherwise next year he may not even be there for my benefit during peach season. What I do expect, is that the farmer doesn't misrepresent his product, that he doesn't steal my credit card number, that he holds up his side of the bargain; if so, next year, I will be there to buy his peaches again.
I've invented a number of important technologies and benefited from doing so. Some, when I worked for others, ended up being patented. Such is the environment we find ourselves in, but for many of my ideas I chose not to protect them by patents and let these be adopted by standards organizations instead. Personally, I don't think patents are a good fit for software, and I would rather see better use of copyright protection for software or a simpler much shorter patent, say three years for software. The open source software movement has been an amazing gift to humanity, but so has the deluge of products (and peaches) produced for the profit motive.
If you innovate without filing a patent, you get a head start. The time the you have until other catch on - that is how you can monetize your invention.
That’s like Microsoft saying they want as many people as possible to use Azure: no shit
A different company published almost an identical product more than 3 years ago (see https://web.archive.org/web/20190119032121/http://br.craftwo... as well as my top-level comment).
So I am absolutely against patenting something that is 1) not new 2) that has a very simple implementation and could thus easily be disseminated widely if patents weren't "protecting" it. Reminds me strongly of the various patent wars regarding scrolling on the smartphone and other simple user interface gestures; in the end everyone looses out.
Seems like a great use of time.
1 * .4 = .4, 1 bold letter (minimum)
2 * .4 = .8, 1 bold letter
3 * .4 = 1.2, 1 bold letter
4 * .4 = 1.6, 2 bold letters
etc.
Very cool :)
I would have thought there is also value in bolding the last-x-amount of letters.
I forgot the name of the "concept" but it's been shown that the beginning and ending parts of words are the most "recognizable". You usually see a sample of that on those 'silly-facebook-posts', example:
"I cnduo't bvleiee taht I culod aulaclty uesdtannrd waht I was rdnaieg"
[1] https://www.ecenglish.com/learnenglish/lessons/can-you-read