Speed Reader

Nova Reader flashes text one word at a time in a fixed spot, so your eyes don’t have to move along the line (RSVP, rapid serial visual presentation). One letter of each word is highlighted as the focus point. It comes in two versions: a web app you can install on your phone, and a Chrome extension that reads the page you’re on or text from your clipboard.

[Why you built it, and what you read with it]

• Paste text or a URL, or share a page to it from your phone’s share menu. The web app is installable and registers as a share target.
• Set a starting speed and a target speed, and it ramps up between them over a few minutes along an S-curve, so you don’t start at full speed.
• Text in parentheses is dimmed, more for each level of nesting, so asides read as asides.
• On a phone, tap, hold and swipe zones control play, pause and speed. When you pause, the full text appears with your place marked.
• The extension adds a right-click menu entry and works on any page.

[What you learned, which version you use more, what’s next]