Spritz: No Biggie, Just a New Way to Read

Remember when reading looked like that?

Credits: Morguefile

It has changed a lot over the last decades but hopefully books are still read by many, –let’s say most of the– people. There is always an ongoing debate between people using actual books and people reading them online/on their e-reader/on their phone or tablet. 

Today I’m introducing a new way to read, no less than that!! It might change your view on e-reading. This start-up, whose product was first released to the public in February 2014, is called Spritz. Funny name I must say, which is definitely the opposite of what the 3 co-founders look like (well they’re scientists…)! Anyway they invented a way to read A LOT faster, and without any training. 

How does it work? They make you read without moving your eyes! In their “redicle” they put one word at a time with one letter in red. This letter is the “Optimal Recognition Point”, usually in the middle of the word, which enables you to understand fast and easily the entire word. They start with a speed of 250 words per minute which is a little bit faster than the average speed of 220. But then you can go up to 1,000 words per minute (I’m definitely completely lost there but you can try). 

It’s simply amazing and impressive. And the good part is that you remember what you have read. But it’s true I am not sure I could read a long text with this. You can “pause” the scrolling text but it’s not quite the same thing as when you’re slowly loosing track of what you’re reading in a physical book. I mean your mind can decide to digress, your concentration to take a break. They you realize you’ve been thinking of something else and you go back a few lines earlier and start to read again. With Spritz you can less easily let yourself ramble. 

Though, this start-up might revolutionize our lives. It has already enabled Emails and SMS messages to be read using Spritz technology, but also digital books and news articles. Social media are next on the list. Here’s the link with all the applications using Spritz today: http://www.spritzinc.com/where-can-i-experience-spritz/

And here’s a video of how it works:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xxyDVBGHL8

The company's website: http://www.spritzinc.com/

f.lux: Wanna Stop Messing Up with Your Eyes??

I have never been a huge fan of technologies. Oh that's actually a lie. I remember myself as a kid, getting excited of all the new technologies. Especially for instance being jealous of my father because he owned this phone:

Ericson T20, credits: http://www.ixbt.com/mobile/review/ericsson-t20-to-t28.shtml

Funny fact, I thought back in those days that this screen was a color LCD even though it had only one color.

I also spent many afternoons having fun on PowerPoint, using all possible animations as well as these little fellows:

Credits: Clipart, PowerPoint

Then I got excited for my first cell phone and my first Windows Movie Maker videos. Since then, all my enthusiasm for new technologies have kept slowing down to the point where it started to be actually negative. I mean I have started to fear new technologies more than I am enthusiastic to discover them. I feel completely overwhelmed and scared of the room these technologies have already taken up in our lives and will continue to take.
So that's why I am so much looking for ways to slow down these trends and find alternatives. 

In today's article, I looked at means to fight against what screens do to our health. Nothing really new or transcendent here, but as you know the blue light generated by screens prevents you from sleeping. Unless you're like me and you can sleep every where at any time even if you just had 3 hours of computer-viewing! 
Many international researches have indeed showed similar results, you find sleep more easily after reading an actual book for instance than looking at a smartphone or computer. 

How to avoid this annoyance?
Orange is the complementary color of blue so you should see orange light instead of blue!
What to do if ever you don't own one of these cuties:

Credits: Flickr

It's simple, just download f.lux. This start-up founded in 2009 by Michael and Lorna Herf (husband and wife or brother/sister that's the question!) is helping you a lot. How? By changing the color temperature of your screen depending on the time of the day (at night, more and more orange). This not-too-heavy-software replicates better natural daylight on screens. It works with PC, Mac, Linux and Iphone/Ipad.Because it knows your location, the app can tell what time the sun rises and goes down every day and can therefore adapt the lightning/temperature of your screens. Your eyes will be a lot less tired and yourself as well. We are in front of screens basically all day so better make this experience a bit less painful for your eyes and general health.

Credits: Technology Voice, http://technologyvoice.com/2011/10/10/flux-releases-ios-app

Warning, though: people using f.lux found themselves liking it so much, thinking it was so surprisingly effective, that they got quite addicted to it: they now have issues using computers and phones that do not integrate this technology.

One last thing, what I also like about this start-up is that they try to be really transparent and to actually improve your life. For instance on their website there is a big section dedicated to support/FAQ. Moreover in order to help you they agree to put themselves in jeopardy regarding Apple. f.lux is not available on App Store yet because Apple has not allowed it so far, thus the app has to force its way using jailbreaking. This is what f.lux's website says about this:

"Because f.lux runs automatically as a background process, and due to the low-level access needed to change your colors correctly, we cannot currently create an app that Apple will approve. We are hopeful that we will get support from Apple in the future as more people come to know about f.lux and love its benefits"

Further reading:



https://justgetflux.com/
https://justgetflux.com/research.html
https://justgetflux.com/faq.html
http://technologyvoice.com/2011/10/10/flux-releases-ios-app
http://www.opticianonline.net/new-software-utility-better-replicate-natural-daylight-screens/
http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/07/f-lux-gets-updated-to-work-around-your-personal-sleep-schedule/