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Culture

More Evidence of the Ayn Rand Moment

Katherine Mangu-Ward | 10.14.2009 3:49 PM

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Tech blog Gizmodo is offering a sneak peek of the new Barnes & Noble competitor to the Amazon's Kindle e-book reader. Guess what text is onscreen in the image?:

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Katherine Mangu-Ward is editor in chief of Reason.

CultureAyn Rand
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  1. Solana   16 years ago

    YES!

  2. EdM   16 years ago

    I don't believe it!

    Designer are all a bunch of technocratic commies...

    1. skr   16 years ago

      not all, they just have to stay in the closet.

  3. CoyoteBlue   16 years ago

    But one marketing gnome can throw a libertarian wrench.

  4. 24AheadDotCom   16 years ago

    Gosh help us if any liberal blogs found out about this and began a campaign. Or something.

    Well, gotta go.

    1. WWJGD   16 years ago

      I...do I? I can't bring myself to do it...

  5. Xeones   16 years ago

    Well, gotta go.

    Good.

  6. WWJGD   16 years ago

    It's almost sullied by Stephanie Meyer book in the little queue at the bottom.

  7. Dagny T.   16 years ago

    Cool!

    According to Gizmodo, the name of the device is pretty lame. Maybe they called it the Roark Reader?

  8. John Tagliaferro   16 years ago

    Very cool.

  9. Attorney   16 years ago

    I'll give up my Kindle when they pry it out of my cold, dead fingers.

  10. John Tagliaferro   16 years ago

    From the article:

    And the device will have some sort of access to all books scanned by the Google Books project;

    Nice! But did not see of you can download regular PDFs to it.

  11. Brett   16 years ago

    I just don't know how much I'd like trying to read a book on one of these. It will take some getting used to, that's for sure. It would be cool if they came with a built in dictionary for those pesky works you come across.

  12. Attorney   16 years ago

    It took me less than an hour to become completely comfortable reading on a Kindle. (It does come with a built-in dictionary, with a look-up feature accessible directly from other books.)

    1. Brett   16 years ago

      Cool, thanks. Not sure why I thought I had such an original idea there. I'd also like a language translator, for English books that throw in some foreign language and make you fend for yourself (yes, I'm looking at you, Cormac McCarthy).

      1. zoltan   16 years ago

        Or Nabokov or Umberto Eco. I mean, was Lolita even originally written in French? If so, who decided to leave whole paragraphs in freakin' French?

      2. Leah   16 years ago

        If the word or phrase you need info about isn't in the included dictionary, you can google or wikipedia it right from the kindle.

  13. brotherben   16 years ago

    I have been to the local Barnes and Noble about a dozen times in the last 6 months. Their inventory computer has been unusable every damn time. I hope this thing is more reliable.

  14. Mari Dupont   16 years ago

    Excellent. Our people are everywhere.

  15. Jonas   16 years ago

    The Kindle's e-ink display definitely gives it the competitive edge over other e-readers, IMHO.

    I say this as the proud owner of a Kindle, so you can take that either as Kindle-owner snobbery or an informed endorsement.

    1. Brian E   16 years ago

      This has an e-ink display, *and* a color multitouch display. When just reading, the color display is off so it doesn't drain power. When you're selecting a book, typing annotations, etc. the LCD is on. It's a brilliant hybrid design.

  16. Barnes and Noble Engineer   16 years ago

    This final eReader design is a compromise of my artistic and technical vision. Best to destroy it.

    1. Brian Lockwood   16 years ago

      If you need someone to distract the night watchman, let me know.

  17. P Brooks   16 years ago

    There must be a law against that.

  18. MattXIV   16 years ago

    OT, the Dow closed at over 10k today - let's all raise a glass of non-vintage domestic champaign to our new asset bubble!

  19. @   16 years ago

    More Evidence of the Ayn Rand Moment

    And yet, not a single Rand hate-comment?
    KMW instigation-fail.

  20. Fist of Etiquette   16 years ago

    This is only because the ink isn't dry on "Going Rogue" yet.

  21. supra shoes   16 years ago

    Nice work guys!
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  23. Rob   16 years ago

    Brought to you by another "corporation" pursuing "profit". (make sure you read the quotation-ed words with as much sneer as possible)

  24. plutosdad   16 years ago

    Why is this not available on the Kindle? Argh. Amazon has got to make a firmware update to read ebooks.

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    we like wholesale gucci handbags

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