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Comment by jasonvorhe | Hacker News Reader

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jasonvorhe·

So much for the rhetoric of the malicious company that's putting 1984 devices into living rooms for the government.

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How do you know the exact number of devices, suspicious.

Don't worry, they're just pretending not to get it. It was a great joke.

I think he meant the devices were first patented in 1984.

I believe it was a joke about the book. Like the government being suspicious about knowing facts about the device. :)

Ahem Orwell's 1984. It's a book.

I bought that as an ebook on Amazon but it got remotely deleted for 'copyright' reasons from my kindle so I never got to read it. Is there something about listening devices in it?

Telescreens more or less fit the bill. From Wikipedia:

> Telescreens are fictional devices which operate as both televisions and security cameras. [...] All members of the Inner Party (upper-class) and Outer Party (middle-class) have telescreens in their homes [...] Telescreen cameras do not have night vision technology [but] their microphones are incredibly sensitive, and they are said to pick up a heartbeat.

Surely you're joking. Kindle himself deleting books that warn against Alexa technology, "for copyright reasons", is worth both a good laugh and a war.

If you're not joking, please write a blogpost about it and post it on HN.

I don't need to blog about it - it was headline news:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2009/jul/17/amazon-ki...

you can read it online for free here

http://www.george-orwell.org/1984/

I can't tell if they are joking or really didn't pick up on this.

That's part of why it's a good joke...or is it?

They're talking about the novel, 1984.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four

Whoosh! It was a joke.

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