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Comment by kleer001 | Hacker News Reader

It's always fun for me to see flashes in the pan come and go.

I saw this first on reddit a few days ago and went "hmm, ok, whatever..."

And then on HN today.

Now I'm saying "Oh, someone's putting real effort into this thing. Shame, really, I wish they'd move on to something more productive or at the least talk to some experts about their goals. Sigh."

And it'll be gone in a week, or a month at most. Sorry.

"Convert Text into Better Way to Read Faster"

But, based on what? I don't see any pointers to papers or other academic work or collaboration.

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This is so simple that anybody can have a go at implementing it in a few minutes. Definitely more productive than a dismissive comment here.

Somehow this has been granted a patent... the way I see it, this needs to have 800 free/open implementations just to prove a point to the patent office that somehow let this pass as "innovative" (_whatever_, like you say).

Aside from various js snippets posted here, a firefox and chrome plugin I also found an emacs mode https://github.com/melpa/melpa/pull/7990

vim _definitely_ needs one too now please

> But, based on what? I don't see any pointers to papers or other academic work or collaboration.

Do you only experience things once they have been thoroughly peer reviewed?

Why not quickly try it out for yourself and decide.

> Do you only experience things once they have been thoroughly peer reviewed?

What a naive and leading question.

I judge strong assertions on the evidence provided. This is what taking "Caveat emptor" to heart looks like.

> Why not quickly try it out for yourself and decide.

I did. It doesn't make any difference for me.

That's the same argument that I've heard from religious members of my family. "Just read this book and apply what it says, your life will definitely improve."

Sure.

From comments on HN, Reddit and Twitter, this approach clearly does help many people read faster and with less visual strain - just not everyone. Others say they find it harder to read. I looked at a couple of the iPhone apps that integrate the original Bionic Reading tech and they make it an optional feature that can be toggled on by the user based on preference.

It would be very interesting to research what makes it more effective for some people than others. It implies some difference in how their brains or eyes are processing text.

Well, no. It clearly provides self-reported testament that it helps.

But if you believe that, then 9/10 women found shampoo/moisturiser to improve their shine/visibly fade wrinkles!

/that is to say, self-reported testaments and improvements have historically been the chosen method of snake-oil because placebo and self-dellusion are so powerful. There does not appear to be robust evidence that it works at all yet.

The lack of existing research to explain (or contradict) people’s reported experience is what makes projects like this so interesting, and worth devoting resources to researching further.

It makes it harder to read imo. I’d rather the beginning and ending of each word be bold and the middle faded.

Not seeing the end of the words clearly makes my brain only read the bold part.

Since we only need the first and last of a word for our brain to figure out, why not utilize a style that reflects this knowledge?

I agree with you - I only see the bold part. In some cases that makes it feel faster- but if you don't “guess” the word correctly from just the bold part, then my reading stutters.

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