I found their choice of color scheme jarring. They highlight a specific letter in blue for some reason, and you get a strange optical sensation after staring at that shade of blue for too long. I had to download their js and css, rehost it myself, search through it for the color code, and change it to black. But then I found it very useful.
EDIT ten minutes later my eyes still hurt
One of the things that we do without thinking about it is make associations between things we know and things we don't know when reading. This allows us to provide a framework for the words and phrases we don't understand using the ones that we do, thus pulling the meaning out of the context. Spritz and by extension Squirt does not allow you to create these links because you don't retain the full breadth of the context for each word as you are reading them, and with no built in method for jumping back or forth through the information being presented it fails to allow these bridges to be built, and this lowers comprehension.
Now take something like this and implement an interface that tracks the users eye movement via a webcam to allow the flow of words to jump backwards and forwards through the surrounding information might work. But you would have to do some pretty impressive eye tracking and do it all with as little delay as possible to make the flow smooth, no matter what direction it goes. That said jumping back in the information would probably be jarring if the text just starts to flow in reverse. So one would probably have to jump back with some kind of visual cue to a pointer further back in the text and then continue reading forward again.
Also I'd love to see this implemented where it shows a sentence at a time. I'd be interested in the overall improvements to retention and understanding that would be gained with a reduction in potential top speed per word read. How drastically does speed fall off when you do this?
I recently rediscovered the joy of reading longer pieces that take their sweet time to build up to a point, or to explain something complex. These texts are generally both longer and denser than, say, blog posts, and while paragraphs don't always require repeated reading, I usually find myself skipping back and forth between them to get a good mental image of the way they relate to each other.
I think tools such as this might be useful for reading relatively simple texts (blog posts, biographies, certain novels), but if anything I want to do less of that in the first place.
I wish keyboard buttons were pressure-sensitive so that you could adjust how fast something is going by pressing harder. But in lieu of that, using arrow keys to scroll through the words is a pretty nice reading experience for me.
Also in the acknowledgements is a link[2] titled "The problem with software patents."
Essentially, Squirt's creator, Cameron Boehmer, is letting everyone know that he has appropriated patent-pending technology because he rejects the idea that the method should be patentable. (Whether a court will disagree with him and impose a fine is, apparently, a chance he's willing to take.)
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http://www.spritzinc.com/where-can-i-experience-spritz/
Squirt is prettier but the functionality looks identical.
To me it seems that it's a bit like patenting flappy bird.
I would think that if you are opposed to the idea of software patents in general, you would no doubt be opposed to this particular software patent.
But if you are not necessarily opposed to all software patents, but only the ones that try to patent something trivial, or try to add the words "on a computer" to an established real-world practice, then the question arises: Is Spritz's method, which positions words according to an algorithm that is meant to reduce saccades, trivial? One could argue that because it's an actively researched problem, it's not.
But even if you think that Spritz has a chance of getting its patent accepted, a further question arises: Does Squirt's implementation of ORP-RSVP use the method that Spritz is trying to patent, or some other similar method? I imagine there are probably a bunch of different ORP-RSVP methods, and it's not immediately clear whether Squirt's method is a true clone. It could very well end up that even though Squirt is heavily implying that it's using the patent-pending technology, it's actually using a different method.
So. Are you going to give me an iPad app that integrates with Pocket and can read PDF's or integrate with Kindle and iBooks? That's when it becomes super useful and I would definitely sign-up and if you let me try it for long enough to make sure I'm happy with it, then I'm also willing to pay.
Does readquick let you import existing PDFs?
Generally speaking, I do find ReadQuick has a very elegant UX, so I'd much prefer to use that app for all my reading needs. Just a shame it doesn't employ spritz technology and support for ePubs etc.
I've spent the last hour or so using this bookmarklet to read various articles and I have to say this is really cool. While I love to read, it's usually in short bursts because I get distracted. With this I went through a couple longer articles without changing tabs, or coming back to them. This really helps with my ADD.
I'll likely Google later, but is anyone immediately aware if there have been studies on this style of reading for people with ADD?
That being said, I do believe it has it's uses. Maybe on a mobile device, maybe for literature only.
https://hn.algolia.com/?q=squirt.io#!/story/forever/0/squirt...
The cutoff is about a year, so we're burying this submission as a dupe.
You can highlight the text you want to read or hover over a paragraph and click it while holding alt.
The thought of anything squirting in my eyes, ears or wherever is one I don't want.
I don't know if that's true or not, but my reading speed is over 500 wpm, and I'm not even a native English speaker. At that speed, Squirt makes me seasick.
