Bionic reading

A new #lifehack has been making the rounds on the interwebs recently. You might’ve read it, too. It’s selectively bolding certain parts of the beginning of words to be able to read faster. It looks funny, something kind of like this, but it seems to work.

The science behind it? Turns out the bottleneck while reading is our eyes and not our brain. Reading this way helps our brain “autocomplete” the rest of the word after only seeing the first few characters, speeding up the process.

That’s how Jiffy Reader was born. Jiffy is an open-source browser extension that applies that technique when you’re browsing articles. “The way that Jiffy Reader works is by taking a certain part of every or some of the words and changing the font weight. For example, in our default settings, we take the first half of every word and make it bolder. This allows for a more seamless reading experience,” the makers shared.

Tools like these (Bionic Reading was one of the first to draw buzz) work by guiding your eyes over the page using fixation points. This encourages a smoother reading experience while maintaining comprehension of the words.

If you want to put this bionic reading extension to the test, here are some recent (play)books to check out.

📘 The Founders offers a look at the origin of PayPal and its founding team—including Elon Musk, David Sacks, Amy Rowe Klement, Peter Thiel, Julie Anderson, Max Levchin, and Reid Hoffman.

📗 Become a Nocoder is a collection of resources for learning no-code, including terminology, building guide, tools, and platforms.

📙 Product-Led Growth Book explains the strategy and execution behind product-led growth.

📕 Maze x ADPList Scaling Research Playbook showcases real-life examples and key principles for product teams to run their own research and make informed product decisions at scale.

• Know your countries? This Geography-Game takes you around the globe to flex your world knowledge.

• Total Compensation Calculator helps you navigate your tech startup compensation under current market conditions.

• Screenshots Pro allows you to create production-grade App Store screenshots.

• Londoners, birb lets you easily navigate to your favorite neighborhoods and see the best properties to rent.

The RØDECaster Pro II is like a fully integrated audio production studio for streamers, podcasters, musicians, and content creators.

Its 5.5-inch high-definition touchscreen with haptic feedback and rotary encoder allows for easy navigation and control.