The days of skimming through lengthy articles on the Web are over. A new tool now lets you read every single word of any news article, blog post or other text-based Web medium at nearly 1,000 words per minute.
Squirt is a speed-reading tool similar to Spritz, the company that recently inked a deal with Samsung to bring its technology to the Galaxy S5 smartphone and Gear 2 smartwatch. But while Spritz is currently accepting submissions from Android, iOS and Web developers to implement its utility in apps, Squirt can be used in your Web browser right now.
Simply head over to Squirt.io to get started. From there, you can view a quick tutorial of the technology (which looks nearly identical to Spritz) and drag the install link to your browser's bookmarks bar. Once the Squirt bookmarklet is saved to your bookmarks bar, you can click it at any time to speed read an article. Like Spritz, Squirt works by flashing words in front of your eyes at a designated speed.
Readers can pause the word stream at any time to adjust its speed, with options ranging from 200 words per minute to 950 words per minute. The average person reads between 120 and 200 words per minute according to Squirt, and the Huffington Post reports that a typical college level reader can absorb between 200 and 400 words each minute. You can also choose to only read part of an article using Squirt by highlighting the text and then hitting the button in your bookmarks toolbar.
Since Squirt is a bookmarklet, it can be used to speed read articles on any website as long as you're using Google Chrome, Safari or Mozilla Firefox on your desktop. The crucial difference between Spritz and Squirt seems to be that Spritz will become more common among mobile devices, whereas Squirt works as a speed reader tool for desktop use.