He arrived early in his brown corduroy coat with a book taken from the library, copied all its pages on the Xerox machine, and sat at his desk reading what looked to passersby like the honest pages of business.

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Whereas tablet PCs are full-blown PCs that contain all their components inside the casing of a notebook-sized flat-screen display, smart displays are light, portable display screens that connect wirelessly to a PC, so a user can interact with the PC away from the desk for reading documents or surfing the Web.

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The two-story, English walnut-lined room has five reading nooks, a work desk that can be hidden behind two sliding doors, and a spiral staircase that leads to a catwalk of books and the master bedroom.

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Born in 1791, Faraday started out as an apprentice book-binder, reading everything that passed across his desk.

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But with reading e-mail on our smartphone or tablet becoming the New Normal , not the exception, Roth suggests what you actually need is an e-mail signature for the increasingly-special cases when you are actually desk-bound, reading Microsoft Outlook.

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When he arrived, he spent 10 minutes alone there, reading a note left for him on a desk by outgoing President George W. Bush.

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There he is, in his office, behind his desk, with his feet up, reading a book.

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At night he worked at the computer desk in the bedroom, before getting into bed and reading a few pages of the book on his nightstand.

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In hindsight, when you have the luxury of sitting at your desk with a nice cup of coffee and a fresh donut reading about this, you will likely wince and shake your head.

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