Amazon launched yesterday a device that is both amazing and ordinary, at the same time. If you love gadgets and you also like reading, Kindle could be the perfect choice for you, as the device appears to be the most performing reader on the market. Kindle is different because it brings its users E-Ink’s high-resolution display technology called electronic paper as well as many other nice little features that practically transform the gadget into a tiny Library of Alexandria.

With a screen that works using ink (which is displayed electronically), wireless connectivity and built-in access to The New Oxford American Dictionary and to Wikipedia.org, Amazon’s Kindle seems to be everything that you have ever dreamed of. Thanks to this tiny device you have the possibility to read more articles, blog posts, e-books, e-magazines and e-newspapers than you will be ever able to. This is why Kindle could also be called an ordinary gadget. Similarly to other high tech devices, Kindle offers you nothing else than a dream. It makes you pay $400 just for offering you the illusion that this device makes you somehow immortal, so that you would have the time to read all those amazing books you have always wanted to read. And this not true, unfortunately.

Kindle is a nice gadget, because it is really highly performing and because of the knot it tries to tie between culture and technology. But, the illusions it tries to sell could somehow more effective over our brains and souls than its high performances. Even the electronic paper is an illusion. It reflects light just like ordinary paper, but it doesn’t feel like paper. It uses ink, but this ink will never stain your fingers with little dark blots.  

The tech analysts called Kindle an experiment because of its price and because Sony’s similar device had limited success. But, Amazon’s reader could be called an experiment also from an anthropological point of view. Will culture and education be able to resist the temptation that technology brings? If not, what will then happen?

The quantity of information doubles every two years, and we’re still in a hurry. What’s the solution? More Kindles, or more wisdom?