The Navy doesn't allow its personnel to uses iPads or Kindles—they're too risky—but there's a limit to how many books you can squeeze onto a submarine. So it's developed its own super-secure digital reader for use aboard underwater vessels.


The Navy's General Library Program just announced the Navy eReader Device—or NeRD to its friends. It's an an e-reader in the same style as the Kindle, but it has no internet capability, no removable storage—and no way to add or delete content.

In fact, it comes loaded with 300 books that will never change. That selection includes modern fiction—apparently Tom Clancy and James Patterson are particularly popular in the Navy—as well as nonfiction, the classics, and "a lot of naval history."


It may sound a little limited, but it's secure and gives personnel a library that would otherwise "have taken up their entire library locker " according to Nilya Carrato, program assistant for the Navy's library program. Apparently about five devices will be sent to each U.S. submarine to be shared between multiple crew members initially, but more will follow in time. [Findaway World]