Editor’s note: This article was first published in March 2014, when Spritz was launching its technology and an Apple “iWatch” was still a rumour; the Apple Watch was announced later that year. It should be read as news from that time.
Spritz is a company working on “high-speed reading” technology. The idea behind it is that readers waste most of their time turning pages (the old way of reading) or swiping their fingers across a touchscreen (the modern way), as well as moving their eyes from one word to the next and from one line to the next.
What this technology does is bring the whole mass of words into a single spot, where we see only one word, which then gives way to the next word, flashing at intervals of a fraction of a second that we set ourselves.
When we see the words in the same place, one after another, the only thing our mind has to do is process each word before the next one appears, while eye movement is practically zero. Spritz plans to license the technology to other companies that want to use it. There are even rumours that it could be used on the screens of the iWatch (Apple’s rumoured smartwatch).
In the demos published by Business Insider, the first example runs at 250 words per minute and the second at 500 words per minute.
According to Business Insider, a college-level reader normally reads at between 200 and 400 words per minute. If Spritz lets you process 1,000 words per minute, you would read the first Harry Potter book (223 pages) in just 77 minutes.
Now, can anyone really process words at that speed? Will this technology one day change the way we read? Personally, I can’t see myself reading a book this way.
Featured image: Bjørn Bulthuis, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Flickr.
