Today, Amazon launched its new Kindle Fire.

Read the announcement and an introductory video here.

This is basically a tablet PC running on Android 2.1. What is different though, is that – among many other changes that make the free Android surfing experience nearly invisible – the latest Amazon tablet uses a proprietary technology for browsing the internet. (watch a straight forward marketing video on the link below, which helped me understand what is behind that new technology http://amazonsilk.wordpress.com/2011/09/28/introducing-amazon-silk/ ).

Faster browsing – for free!

In all simplicity, the new Silk browswer will send your request for internet content to the EC2 Amazon network, where the heavy computing, pre-loading and resizing of the content will be made, before it is sent back to your handheld device in smaller bits and pieces. As a result, an image that you wanted to see will not download with its original 3 MB of data, but after resizing is done, it may be as small as 10 KB, because your Kindle Fire does not need more resolution. Ultimately, this will speed up your browsing experience tremendously. – Sounds smart, doesn’t it?

Faster business – for free?

In fact, being a bit suspicious about such generosity of re-inventing the internet ‘for free’, I am wondering: what if Amazon would get a chance, to scan and pre-browse each of their user’s content ‘for free’, what could they do with it? What if they exploit their position as content bottleneck to the information, networks and products you are seeking? What opportunities would that bring to a company that controls both your browsing experience and your mobile device, while on the backend, acts as the largest online retailer in the online world? – Would you still want a device with these capabilities – for free?