Show HN: A Speed Reading Bookmarklet | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: A Speed Reading Bookmarklet

gun.io

99 pointsMizza48 comments

Change the name. I'm pretty creative and am usually able to come up with at least a somewhat plausible argument for either side on any question, but here I can not even come up with an idea for how to even begin to search for an argument that the name you have chosen, "OpenSpritz", for your program that clones the functionality and appearance of the "Spritz" app, from "Spritz Technology, Inc." is not an infringement of their trademark, which they have been using in commerce for several months (according to their filing with the trademark office). Even if I had a holocaust cloak and a wheelbarrow, I would have no idea how to make a plausible argument in your favor.

If "spritzing" were a common term for presenting words one at a time, then maybe there would be the beginning of an argument, but as far as I can see this has never been called spritzing before they came up with that name.

ps: nice bookmarklet

You definitely could have been less sensationalist in your advice.

Something like, "Looks like you might be infringing on the trademark of a company that produces a similar product. You should consider changing your name to avoid legal complications."

Weasel words don't improve the advice.

Unless you're council for either party they're not weasel words.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_word

Just as body language dictates much of our communication, so does tone. I would therefore argue that it does in fact improve communication and therefore advice.

Also, why must we only use the bare minimum language to convey the point? We're not allowed to have fun with words and add some personality? Ok then, direct me to the grey overcoats and I'll join the single-file line of subjugated masses shuffling their way towards death.

    might be infringing

Almost certainly is -- hence the tone of the original commenter's comment.

Let's not use sensationalist this way, I think maybe you were looking for 'hyperbolic' or 'intense' or something. I agree with the others, too, no point in mincing words, as you have done for him.

> OpenSpritz is in no way affiliated with Spritz Incorporated, the developers of the Spritz reading system.

This is nicely done but i don't think you should use their product name as a part of your own product name, even if its open source.

Perhaps 'OpenSpray' to keep with the theme?

To keep the ideas coming, how about OpenSpreeder?

OpenSodaProseccoCampari

"WordSkeet"

I've been using something similar called "Spreed". It's an extension for Chrome and it's been super helpful for me to actually retain the things that I've read.

[0] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/spreed-speed-read-...

Why do people insist calling this "Spritz-like" like it's something new invented by Spritz? Just google on RSVP technique for speed reading and you'll find a million of references and implementations. Even wikipedia has an article[1] citing >50 years old research.

Nothing new there, just walk on.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_Serial_Visual_Presentati...

Happy to answer any questions if you have them!

Also, if you find sites which it doesn't work with, please report them here so I can triage them:

https://github.com/Miserlou/OpenSpritz/issues/8

Project source code:

https://github.com/Miserlou/OpenSpritz/

What are the words centered on?

According to the official Spitz app which this is based on, the red letter is the letter that's left of the letter at the center of the word.

Not sure on the scientific reasons but that left-of-center-letter as the focal point supposedly helps with the speed reading.

It's not magic. If they're long words, it's the fourth letter in, otherwise it just centers them.

Here's a similar project that literally just popped up (two hours ago). Spritz-like reading as a Chrome extension.

https://github.com/ds300/jetzt

Made the same thing yesterday: http://www.davidhampgonsalves.com/spritz-like-rsvp-reader-bo...

HN will probably see a lot of these in the next few days.

Edit: Some users requested keybindings and I found them useful(pause, skip, rewind, etc).

I was going to comment to say ability to pause/rewind would be awesome. Seems like you've already done that! I also like the interaction of selecting the text you want to speed-read.

One thing that might be interesting, is a shortcut to jump to the article where the current word is. This happens when I want to glance at a paragraph above, and don't want to rewind all the way back.

You should definitely also checkout http://www.beelinereader.com to hack your reading speed.

This is actually pretty amazing. When I speed read, I usually use my finger to set the pace ahead of my eyes which is REALLY hard to do on the computer. Since I'm used to using a finger as a guide, I often find myself skipping over lines/words @ 400-600 WPM on the computer. This appears to solve that problem. Thanks for the link!

Interesting idea but I can't get it to work. The chrome extension at least.

Hehe, you've got to fix it working on that page! ... everyone is going to press that button.

I knowwww! It's Readability's fault. I've opened a ticket and they've actually been very responsive about fixing it. Something to do with SSL.

For now, you can just select the text you want to Spritz.

Looks like you've actually now surpassed your Readability API limit... oops! Great bookmarklet, by the way

Rich, if you'd like help with clean text extraction, ping me at john at diffbot.com. I like the Spritz concept and we'd be happy to support your bookmarklet through free API calls.

Here's a nice book on the biological apparatus of reading: http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Brain-Science-Evolution-Invent...

One idea that I've yet to see anyone try is to increase letter size as distance increases from the highlighted letter on either side. Presumably as the fovea is centered on the highlighted letter, resolution for letters farther away decreases gradually, so increasing letter size may compensate for it. I'll be trying this soon for my iOS speed-reading app (http://velocireaderapp.com).

I bought two speed reading apps earlier this week - didn't realize yours did epubs. More important than increased letter sizes, I think, is the redicle. I hope you add it to your app.

That is the patent-pending bit, unfortunately.

Here's the Spritz patent application: http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20140016867

Instead of choosing WPM from the outset from a drop-down, how about having a default start WPM and being able to change the WPM with keyboard shortcuts while you're reading?

With this as in most reading I find myself slowing down in some parts and speeding up in others. With keyboard shortcuts one could keep one's eyes on the text while tweaking the speed.

The keyboard shortcuts for the speed could be =/- or 0-9, like for the Autoscroll bookmarklet:

http://tim.theenchanter.com/2008/08/autoscroll-in-safari-fir...

Since there seems to be a nice collection of speed reading bookmarklets and extensions being shared on this thread, I want to toss in mine as well: "Read"

The chrome extension can be found here: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/read/aiijjeoekhpdp...

Github home is: http://github.com/jamestomasino/read_plugin

Comments and feedback for improvement would be appreciated.

Most of the speed reading extensions listed in the comments use one word at a time. Maybe its just me but I find it very disconcerting since word lengths change causing a flashing experience. When I read I like the continuity of the sentence or phrase. Maybe in addition to selecting wpm there should also be an option of phrase length. I did an informal test and found that I could read faster than 400 wpm when reading the original text but found it tough to maintain context when using 300wpm using the bookmarklet

This method of speed reading relies on you not having to move your eyes, so unfortunately adding phrases to the mix would likely sabotage it.

Mine has phrase-length, plus some highlighting to help keep your place in the text.

http://qwerjk.com/force-feed

Really well done. This is precisely the tool I've been looking for for a long time. Thank you!

Nice! As I mentioned in the original Spritz thread, I've just released an android app[0] that does something similar. Think I'll use the positioning concept from (open)spritz to improve things.

I do wonder what the Spritz team were doing for 3 years. Like the OP, it took me a couple of hours late one night to get to basics working.

[0]https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hughesoft....

It doesn't seem to play well with Pocket but the text selection feature helps when it doesn't. Well Done!

I would love a pause button for when you're disrupted while reading.

While I don't have a Google Glass, I could see this being the ultimate reading interface for a device like that.

Google Glass is not centred as far as I recall, I imagine it'll put quite a bit of strain on your eyes to read any significant volume of text from top-right corner.

I have Google Glass and this is horrible. Your singular eyeball will be toast after a few minutes.

Hate to say it but this is awesome. Exactly what I was hoping to find as soon as they announced. Change the name, or perhaps give them the code and they can release it if they see fit.

This felt really revolutionary! I love it.

Started testing it on 200 WPM, but quickly went to 500. Tested out 750 WPM and was amazed that I got the entire text at this speed.

I think I'll certainly give this a try in places where I remember.

Such a shame I can't see it working for pdfs, I could save hours reading research papers.

This is a big use case I'm interested in. Unfortunately, browsers can't read selected text of PDFs at the moment.

I'd suggest "printing" to HTML and then Spritzing that, but it's suboptimal.

I'm not easily impressed, but this blew me away. You can have very good understanding of the text and still read blazingly fast.

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