Boston based startup, Spritz, is on a serious mission to change the way people read and communicate forever. They assembled a team of experts in reading methodology to develop an app that reimagines the way we read.
According to these guys, the way we’ve been reading – moving from word to word and line to line – is inherently time consuming. It also takes a lot of space, especially on mobile devices with relatively smaller screens. Spritz looks to solve both problems with their proprietary reading technology. What is does is fast-stream the content, one word at a time, through a very narrow display. This solves both the problem of space and uneccessary movement. With you eyes focused on only one part of the screen, reading is supposedly faster. You can select the speed at which the text is streamed. Spritz says the average human can comfortably read at a speed of 220 words per minute. You can set it as high as 1000.
With words, coming and going at that speed, one would wonder about readability. Spritz has that covered; every single word that is streamed through the display (called the “redicle”) has a letter highlighted in red. That highlighted letter happens to be the optimal focal point for each word that makes it instantly recognizable to the reader. The “redicle” employs horizontal lines and hash marks to direct your eyes to the red letter in each word, so you can focus on the content. One particularly ingenious use case of this technology is for reading on wearable tech like smartwatches.
Spritz is available as a single app download (not in stores) that you can use to read epub files on your mobile device. In the future, they are looking to integrate it with everything – photos, maps, videos, and websites to promote more effective communication.
