Your brain reads faster than your eyes, at least that’s what Bionic Reading says. The company makes a tool that emphasizes certain parts of words so you can read faster. Bionic Reading went viral when it launched on a handful of iPhone and Mac apps. I got jealous and begged Microsoft to add the feature to Edge. Although Bionic Reading is not yet built into Edge, it is now available as a Chrome extension.
Bionic Reading recently launched an extension for Chrome. It also works on Edge as Microsoft’s browser is based on Chromium. In our short tests, the extension works as you would expect. It takes the text from a web page and emphasizes specific parts of each word to guide your eyes along the text.
The Bionic Reading extension has some limitations in its current state. It shows only text, which means that all images on the original page are hidden. You can still read the text, but Bionic Reading will not display images or other content from a web page. In contrast, Microsoft Edge’s reading mode displays images.
The extension also seems to have mixed results depending on which website you are trying to convert the text from.
Although it has limitations, Bionic Reading is customizable. You can select per word how much you want to emphasize the tool. You can also choose the font size, line spacing, and page width. You can even send a converted website to a Kindle.
First impressions of the Bionic Reading extension are positive. I’ll have a full review of Bionic Reading in the near future comparing it to Microsoft Edge Reading Mode and other text enhancement tools.
The makers of Bionic Reading want it to be available for a wide variety of apps, so there’s still a chance Microsoft could add the feature to Edge. In the meantime, Bionic Reading’s free extension is available through the Chrome Web Store.
[title_words_as_hashtags
