improve screen reading
Screenshot: buddybuzz.org
Gregory M. Lamb describes in his article at the christian science monitor two technologies to improve online or screen reading:
ScentHighlights
"ScentHighlights gets its name from a theory that proposes that people forage for information much in the same way that animals forage in the wild. 'Certain plants emit a scent in order to attract birds and bees to come to them,' Chi says. ScentHighlights uncovers the 'scent' that bits of information give off and attract readers to it.
If the reader types in 'Wimbledon tennis,' for example, ScentHighlights would highlight each word in its own color in the text, as search programs do. But ScentHighlights adds additional keywords in gray that the system has inferred that the reader would be interested in (perhaps 'US Open' or 'Andy Roddick'). It would also highlight in yellow entire sentences that it deems likely to be especially relevant.
To do this, ScentHighlights combines two approaches, noticing how often words are near each other in text and using a technique called 'spreading activation.' Chi says: 'It basically mimics how humans retrieve information.' ScentHighlights actually knows nothing about tennis, he says. 'It's a purely statistically based technique.'"
BuddyBuzz
"Analysts expect mobile phones to evolve into a multipurpose 'third screen,' along with televisions and computers displaying both pictures and text. But the small screen size has made reading cumbersome, as users scroll through tiny screen after screen.
To solve that, BuddyBuzz, a project of a small group within the Stanford Persuasive Technology Laboratory, flashes text to the viewer a word at a time.
BuddyBuzz is based on a reading technique called RSVP (Rapid Serial Visual Presentation) that's been around since the 1970s, says Matt Markovich, editor in chief of BuddyBuzz. Using it, people can learn to read with good comprehension up to 1,000 words per minute, Mr. Markovich says."