[thibaulthalpern]

Not every multifunction device performs its functions well. For instance, no one is going to use a cellphone camera to produce studio or professional quality photographs. And yet, we don't hear complaints that a professional digital SLR camera doesn't come with cellphone, keyboard, and laptop capabilities.

I think the article is totally misguided. I cannot imagine working long hours on a virtual keyboard. Yes, the iPhone and new Blackberry and numerous other cellphones now have virtual keyboards but those devices are not intended to, say for example, type out your dissertation of about 400 pages.

Similarly, there may not be really good reason to combine a digital reader with a laptop, cellphone, camera, video camera, radio, printer, fax, telefax, telex, gramaphone and DVD player. I think you may be getting the idea that multifunctionality doesn't always go together in one device?

I often suspect that technologists with such views seem to not really seriously engage with other forms of idea exchanges which are still very much alive today but likely that they themselves do not engage in on a daily basis. The book and professional/academic journal is one such type. A lot of technologists seem to mainly look at a computer screen and do their readings on screen and interact with videos and other internet apps. And to many of them, "THE web" is the messianic way and not only is it the way of the future but the future has already arrived. Ah...but little do they know how narrow-minded and insular their thinking is....

Yes, their world is one where those forms of information exchanges is what is relevant and efficacious to them. But they are also forgetting that not everyone in the world, including people in their very own demographics, use other forms of information exchanges. The printed book is still very much alive for me and many others. And they forget that to use their experiences to define as "THE way" and "THE future" is to simply in one big swoop deride the experiences of other people who do not engage in their forms of information exchanges or if they do, those forms of exchanges are not the only nor necessarily always the most efficacious forms of exchanges. To me, their views smack of myopia.

I don't think the Kindle is going backwards. It could certainly be improved, but it doesn't need to be like a laptop device.