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This Insane New App Will Allow You To Read Novels In Under 90 Minutes
The reading game is about to change forever. Boston-based software developer Spritz has been in “stealth mode” for three years, tinkering with their program and leasing it out to different ebooks, apps, and other platforms.
Now, Spritz is about to go public with Samsung’s new line of wearable technology. Other apps have offered up similar types of rapid serial visual presentation to enhance reading speed and convenience on mobile devices in the past. However, what Spritz does differently (and brilliantly) is manipulate the format of the words to more appropriately line them up with the eye’s natural motion of reading.
The “Optimal Recognition Point” (ORP) is slightly left of the center of each word, and is the precise point at which our brain deciphers each jumble of letters. The unique aspect of Spritz is that it identifies the ORP of each word, makes that letter red and presents all of the ORPs at the same space on the screen. In this way, our eyes don’t move at all as we see the words, and we can therefore process information instantaneously rather than spend time decoding each word.
The game done changed. Try it for yourself.
250 words per minute:
350 words per minute:
500 words per minute:
The reading game is about to change forever. Boston-based software developer Spritz has been in “stealth mode” for three years, tinkering with their program and leasing it out to different ebooks, apps, and other platforms.
Now, Spritz is about to go public with Samsung’s new line of wearable technology. Other apps have offered up similar types of rapid serial visual presentation to enhance reading speed and convenience on mobile devices in the past. However, what Spritz does differently (and brilliantly) is manipulate the format of the words to more appropriately line them up with the eye’s natural motion of reading.
The “Optimal Recognition Point” (ORP) is slightly left of the center of each word, and is the precise point at which our brain deciphers each jumble of letters. The unique aspect of Spritz is that it identifies the ORP of each word, makes that letter red and presents all of the ORPs at the same space on the screen. In this way, our eyes don’t move at all as we see the words, and we can therefore process information instantaneously rather than spend time decoding each word.
The game done changed. Try it for yourself.
250 words per minute:
350 words per minute:
500 words per minute:
If you go to their site you can sample up to 600 wpm
The Science
Spritz has been working for nearly 3 years in “Stealth Mode” to perfect our reading methodology. We’ve learned a lot in that time and developed our findings into the core technologies that you see here today. As an introduction to how and why Spritz works let’s start off with a few basics about reading.
Reading Basics
Traditional reading involves publishing text in lines and moving your eyes sequentially from word to word. For each word, the eye seeks a certain point within the word, which we call the “Optimal Recognition Point” or ORP. After your eyes find the ORP, your brain starts to process the meaning of the word that you’re viewing. With each new word, your eyes move, called a “saccade”, and then your eyes seek out the ORP for that word. Once the ORP is found, processing the word for meaning and context occurs and your eyes move to the next word. When your eyes encounter punctuation within and between sentences, your brain is prompted to assemble all of the words that you have read and processes them into a coherent thought.
When reading, only around 20% of your time is spent processing content. The remaining 80% is spent physically moving your eyes from word to word and scanning for the next ORP. With Spritz we help you get all that time back. For more in-depth scientific explanations on just about everything that you might want to know about how Spritz works, check out our Blog section.
Why Spritz is Different
There are lots of other reading techniques out there such as skimming (not reading every word), avoiding sub-vocalization (talking to yourself while reading) and enlarging the peripheral span (reading an entire page at a time by mental “snapshot”) that attempt to increase reading speeds. While these methods can be effective, achieving significant improvement requires intensive, continuous training and dedication. By contrast, spritzing can be learned in less than 5 minutes and, if you don’t spritz for a month, no practice is needed to return quickly to your previous speed or skill-level.
In addition, none of these methods mentioned above help you unless you’ve got a lot of physical space for your content. From the fonts that we use to the algorithms that process content, Spritz is designed from the ground up to empower effective reading on a small display area. There is a lot more to Spritz than just reading fast!
Spritz Technology
Spritzing presents reading content with the ORP located at the specific place where you’re already looking, allowing you to read without having to move your eyes. With this approach, reading becomes more efficient because Spritzing increases the time your brain spends processing content without having to waste time searching for the next word’s ORP. Spritzing also enhances reading on small screens. Because the human eye can focus on about 13 characters at a time, Spritzing requires only 13 characters’ worth of space inside our redicle. No other reading method is designed to help you read all of your content when you’re away from a large screen. But don’t take our word. The following video compares traditional reading to Spritz and is a real eye-opener when it comes to the efficiencies that are gained by placing words exactly where your brain wants them to be located
Spritz vs Traditional Reading
Removing eye movement associated with traditional reading methods not only reduces the number of times your eyes move, but also decreases the number of times your eyes pass over words for your brain to understand them. This makes Spritzing extremely efficient, precise, convenient and comfortable.
Spritz has been working for nearly 3 years in “Stealth Mode” to perfect our reading methodology. We’ve learned a lot in that time and developed our findings into the core technologies that you see here today. As an introduction to how and why Spritz works let’s start off with a few basics about reading.
Reading Basics
Traditional reading involves publishing text in lines and moving your eyes sequentially from word to word. For each word, the eye seeks a certain point within the word, which we call the “Optimal Recognition Point” or ORP. After your eyes find the ORP, your brain starts to process the meaning of the word that you’re viewing. With each new word, your eyes move, called a “saccade”, and then your eyes seek out the ORP for that word. Once the ORP is found, processing the word for meaning and context occurs and your eyes move to the next word. When your eyes encounter punctuation within and between sentences, your brain is prompted to assemble all of the words that you have read and processes them into a coherent thought.
When reading, only around 20% of your time is spent processing content. The remaining 80% is spent physically moving your eyes from word to word and scanning for the next ORP. With Spritz we help you get all that time back. For more in-depth scientific explanations on just about everything that you might want to know about how Spritz works, check out our Blog section.
Why Spritz is Different
There are lots of other reading techniques out there such as skimming (not reading every word), avoiding sub-vocalization (talking to yourself while reading) and enlarging the peripheral span (reading an entire page at a time by mental “snapshot”) that attempt to increase reading speeds. While these methods can be effective, achieving significant improvement requires intensive, continuous training and dedication. By contrast, spritzing can be learned in less than 5 minutes and, if you don’t spritz for a month, no practice is needed to return quickly to your previous speed or skill-level.
In addition, none of these methods mentioned above help you unless you’ve got a lot of physical space for your content. From the fonts that we use to the algorithms that process content, Spritz is designed from the ground up to empower effective reading on a small display area. There is a lot more to Spritz than just reading fast!
Spritz Technology
Spritzing presents reading content with the ORP located at the specific place where you’re already looking, allowing you to read without having to move your eyes. With this approach, reading becomes more efficient because Spritzing increases the time your brain spends processing content without having to waste time searching for the next word’s ORP. Spritzing also enhances reading on small screens. Because the human eye can focus on about 13 characters at a time, Spritzing requires only 13 characters’ worth of space inside our redicle. No other reading method is designed to help you read all of your content when you’re away from a large screen. But don’t take our word. The following video compares traditional reading to Spritz and is a real eye-opener when it comes to the efficiencies that are gained by placing words exactly where your brain wants them to be located
Spritz vs Traditional Reading
Removing eye movement associated with traditional reading methods not only reduces the number of times your eyes move, but also decreases the number of times your eyes pass over words for your brain to understand them. This makes Spritzing extremely efficient, precise, convenient and comfortable.
The Big Question: Where can I get Spritz?
So far we have received interest in licensing our technologies from content providers, mobile device manufacturers, educational software developers, web portals, wearable manufacturers, e-book companies, and several others. We are actively working with these companies to bring Spritz to you. If you are interested in helping us bring Spritz to your website, mobile app or anything else, please visit us in the Developers section and sign up for more information. In addition, see below for more information on helping us test new technologies as we develop them through our beta program.
So far we have received interest in licensing our technologies from content providers, mobile device manufacturers, educational software developers, web portals, wearable manufacturers, e-book companies, and several others. We are actively working with these companies to bring Spritz to you. If you are interested in helping us bring Spritz to your website, mobile app or anything else, please visit us in the Developers section and sign up for more information. In addition, see below for more information on helping us test new technologies as we develop them through our beta program.
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