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Show HN: Bionic Reading – Formats text to make it faster to read

bionic-reading.com

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Re: Show HN: Bionic Reading – Formats text to make it faster to read

#111

Post by karatinversion »

nickjj wrote: post #107
pxeger1 wrote: post #22

This does indeed seem to work for me, but the repeated emphasis on the patents and trademarks makes me suspicious. It looks like a company who cares much more about patent royalties than about their invention - whom I would never be willing to give my money to. Having seen the principle, I could write a browser extension in an hour. I suppose I'll have to wait 25 years (or whatever the French patent expiry length is)…

> I suppose I'll have to wait 25 years (or whatever the French patent expiry length is), though. Is that how patents work in general? I always thought (and could be very wrong here) that if a patent exists for something but you've developed an alternative something in total isolation without seeing the patent then you would have free reign on how to design and develop your thing without violating the patent.

The opposite is true, in fact - a patent is a monopoly on the patented technology, no matter where alternative implementations come from. You might be thinking of “clean room” techniques which protect against claims of copyright infringement.

Re: Show HN: Bionic Reading – Formats text to make it faster to read

#113

Post by lekevicius »

renato_casutt wrote: post #47
red0point wrote: post #39

The rules implemented are very simple (taken from the patent application [1], the exact numbers are configurable). If there are 4 letters, 40% of all letters are bold. There is this claim as the first text on the website: We are happy if as many people as possible can use the advantage of Bionic Reading. For this reason, Bionic Reading should be able to be integrated into existing apps and services. The benefit for t…

I decided to take out a patent a long time ago. Unfortunately I had to make bad experiences, which is why I now want to offer BR as API. With the rules it depends on whether it is short, medium or long words. But in principle it is simple. As simple as we humans read. Eye - brain - representation products (words)

I'm quite certain I could fit BR logic in less than 300 bytes of JS Regex. There is no need for an API here.

Re: Show HN: Bionic Reading – Formats text to make it faster to read

#114

Post by woliveirajr »

Interesting. When reading in paper and after training for speed reading, having those fixed points would slow me down.

In computer screen I adjust the text, making it narrower, and can read fast. With pdfs and sites I can't do that so I read slower.

In smartphones the screens are already too narrow and this technique works!

Re: Show HN: Bionic Reading – Formats text to make it faster to read

#115

Post by tarsinge »

sdoering wrote: post #57

Are there any actual studies on the gained speed being done by Independent scientists? I could not finde anything on their (quite beautifully done) marketing/landing page. I see patent registrations, but no mention of any studies underpinning the claims being made. To me this smells like all the other pseudo-scientific BS marketing and product people are trying to spoon-feed me every day. Also as said in a sibling co…

I don't have links to studies but last time I checked and from anecdotal experience reading speed with high comprehension is limited by information throughput in the brain. It's also why languages spoken faster carry less information per word, because the limit is information processing. To experience that if you are a good reader, you can try to speak out loud a sentence while memorizing a second sentence and see that you'll not have process and understand the words until you have spoken them, even if you have read and stored them (short sentences like in TFA, obviously doesn't work on HN).

Re: Show HN: Bionic Reading – Formats text to make it faster to read

#116

Post by insta_anon »

traceroute66 wrote: post #103
renato_casutt wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry for my bad English traceroute66... I came across BR during my studies as a typographic designer. There was a language problem there. That's why I realized that reading and listening are completely different. You can understand a language by listening to it. But reading the same language does not mean that you can understand it.

No problem, but the second half of my question was genuine. I can't imagine this working too well with German words ? e.g. how much of Rechtsschutzversicherungsgesellschaften, Kraftfahrzeughaftpflichtversicherung, Lebensabschnittpartner or Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän would you need to highlight ? I don't speak German, but surely with compound words, your concept doesn't work that well ?

Slightly off-topic - while I know that there are these lists of “crazy long German words” to make fun of each one of your examples besides the “Donau..” I actually used normally in conversations in the past.

Even just a couple days ago I came across “Personalisierungsinfrastrukturkomponente“ [0] in a news article, so it is not just a rumor that Germans like long-ass words :)

[0] Apparently these are the devices used by the government to verify passports and / or fingerprints of refugees.

Re: Show HN: Bionic Reading – Formats text to make it faster to read

#117

Post by moritonal »

matsemann wrote: post #66
renato_casutt wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha...nice The basic problem with reading is that your eye needs a fixed point...that's why they should be "blocks". This one doesn't have to be at the very beginning though ;) But cool comment Hehe

True. You made me remember a different concept, where words would flash at the same point, but centered around some fixed highlighted character per word. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ky8DP55YEO0 Edit: but thank you for sharing your concept here, very interesting, and I like the discussions it created.

Ironically (given the GP comment) this tech also died because of their aggressive attempt to commercialise it.

Re: Show HN: Bionic Reading – Formats text to make it faster to read

#118

Post by nickjj »

karatinversion wrote: post #111
nickjj wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I suppose I'll have to wait 25 years (or whatever the French patent expiry length is), though. Is that how patents work in general? I always thought (and could be very wrong here) that if a patent exists for something but you've developed an alternative something in total isolation without seeing the patent then you would have free reign on how to design and develop your thing without violating the patent.

The opposite is true, in fact - a patent is a monopoly on the patented technology, no matter where alternative implementations come from. You might be thinking of “clean room” techniques which protect against claims of copyright infringement.

> You might be thinking of “clean room” techniques which protect against claims of copyright infringement.

Ah yes, that's what I was thinking of -- thanks. Specifically a scene from an episode of Halt and Catch Fire (I won't describe it due to spoilers).

That's a real bummer for patents though and makes me wonder how something like Amazon's 1-click checkout was able to be patented. I wonder how "save billing details for future use" can be considered a novel idea.

Re: Show HN: Bionic Reading – Formats text to make it faster to read

#119

Post by layer8 »

blackbear_ wrote: post #9

Actually this made it harder for me to read. The text felt "bumpy", unlike normal in text where it felt smoother and flowing. Maybe it's just a matter of habit. Anyways, I don't believe speed-reading to be effective, especially for comprehension and long-term retention. The best and fastest way to get an overview of a written piece is not to read it faster, but to skip most of the content. Most of it is just supporti…

It felt like listening to speech with constantly changing volume. Probably because bold is associated with shouting/strong emphasis.
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