Automating Immersive Reading • Hacker News Board

Re: Automating Immersive Reading

#51

Post by trunch » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 8:57 PM UTC

altmanaltman wrote: post #19

thelisu wrote: post #17

This highlights the core reason why I don't like audiobooks, podcasts, or even movies, compared to reading: it's too slow. Looking at the example, I read two or three times as fast as the audio goes. What I would need is the opposite: some eye-tracking software that plays the audio at the point I am reading. I don't know if it would be any useful though, as it would be very sped-up, but maybe it would increase "immer…

I read very fast and I noticed that after a certain point, it helps to not have the inner voice. Instead its more like I see a bunch of text and I understand it instead of going word by word. I don't think its possible to do this with audio.

do you normally have an inner voice and just suppress it when reading quickly? or not have one at all?

wondering as I lack one so curious if it's also worth trying to develop it in the other direction

Re: Automating Immersive Reading

#52

Post by altmanaltman » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 12:45 PM UTC

trunch wrote: post #51

altmanaltman wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read very fast and I noticed that after a certain point, it helps to not have the inner voice. Instead its more like I see a bunch of text and I understand it instead of going word by word. I don't think its possible to do this with audio.

do you normally have an inner voice and just suppress it when reading quickly? or not have one at all? wondering as I lack one so curious if it's also worth trying to develop it in the other direction

you lack one as in while reading or general? For me I have to supress it and force myself to read in "fast mode" where I purposely look at the words and try to understand them without sound. I read about it in some speed reading guide and started practicing it and it does seem to work. But it still baffles me that we can just straight up get information without having to speak it out or verbalize it internally. That is pretty insane to me

Re: Automating Immersive Reading

#53

Post by leobg » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 8:02 PM UTC

deivid wrote: post #48

leobg wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried running Kokoro on my iPhone XS (several years old), and it was slower than real-time. So, i wouldn’t expect it to be usable on a Kindle. But if you find a solution, please let me know.

Kokoro can be hacked a bit (see script https://github.com/DavidVentura/translator-rs/blob/master/sc... ) which makes it about 3x faster. My phone went from slightly slower than realtime to very comfortable (also lower latency on first utterance!)

Thanks. Will try!