[You know me- and can appreciate how unusual that is!]

Upon reflection, I’m still not sure I grok the whole propositions associated with your vision of the effects of the digital format and the associated capabilities. I do have a couple of thoughts though for your consideration:

- A large number of people are already probably looking at kindling (“Kindle” I think may have already reached Xerox or Kleenex status as a trade name confiscated by the common language; at least it’s “fixing to” become a generic term) as a technological oddity without any kind of sticking power. So a lot of folks may not be tuned in to some of the aspects of kindling that you bring up. I’m not sure exactly where I stand on that issue quite yet . . . (next)

- I do love to access textual information; massive quantities of it need to be available and searchable; and it has to be quick to find and pleasant to “upload” (to my brain).

- Therefore, I do appreciate the borg-like vision (Who were those dudes from Dune with the temporal lobe jack-in to the master database? The navigators? The cost accountants?) of having the sum of all man’s knowledge available to everyone instantaneously as being a Good Thing (many folks might not, OBTW). However

- I don’t buy into the fallacy that Omiscience and Omnipotence are the same thing though . . . sheesh, if we can’t talk on a bluetooth device without plowing into each other on the highway, having even more data feeds won’t automatically make us any *smarter* just more *knowledgeable*. There’s a difference.

O.K. so that’s my “big picture” vision. How close does the Kindle technology get us to the kindle universe?

Not quite there yet . . . but ya know what? Kindle 4.0 will probably get us very close to the vision . . . at least as close as a visual medium for data transfer can get us.

Kindle 5.0 with a heads-up display and eyeball tracking with blink point and click interface? Kindle 6.0 with direct jack into the visual cortex?

Strap it on, Johnny Mnemonic!