By Alongside this morning’s announcement of one of the Amazon tablets we’ve been waiting for – the Amazon Kindle Fire – the eCommerce giant has announced a new browser technology and the first implementation will be on the Kindle Fire itself.
They’re calling it Amazon Split and it’s essentially a two-part browser – Amazon’s EC2 super computer cluster loads and processes intense webpage images and code on Amazon servers, while the browser on the tablet is left to do much smaller tasks. Gizmodo provides us with this image from the event illustrating the load share between the two:
As you can see above the server will do a majority of the work, meaning your phone won’t need a fast processor and tons of RAM to deliver a good browsing experience. It’s essentially Opera Mini, but better.
Silk will preload certain pages that you visit often, meaning you’ll be able to load Phandroid.com’s new content in only a fraction of the time it currently takes you on other browsers!
Amazon can also store your cache on the EC2 servers, meaning you have virtually unlimited cache. This is how cloud-based browsing should be done and we’re very excited to see Amazon put everything into play on the Fire.
We’re hoping the Silk browser will eventually make its way to the Android market for all users to enjoy, but we won’t hold our breath. We’ll be on the lookout for hands-on video from various outlets in the coming hours. Be sure to watch a video overview of the Silk browser below!
By revolutionary you mean it does what Opera has been doing for years?
“It’s essentially Opera Mini, but better.”
This is much more extensive than what Opera provides.
Then you have to be more specific why Amazon’s cloud browsing should be considered “revolutionary” compared to the existing cloud browsing technology provided by Opera Mini. Or else, you are simply tossing around some dramatic words for cheap attention.
I think I provided good examples in the post. That’s all the information we were afforded and it already sounds a lot more powerful, flexible and extensive than Opera.
I agree with anonymous anonymous…Sure it’s better,, but hardly worth calling Revolutionairy. Maybe when you have more exciting details to share you can call it revolutionairy.
After all, this is phandroid….we don’t go down the road of “revolutionairy/magical/amazing/innovating” that apple takes with every small increment
Man, I feel out of control with all this cloud based stuff. Especially music and video content.
If by out of control you mean that you don’t like not having control over your files, then I agree.
Exactly…
hate the idea of this, no way do I want my personal surfing up in somebody’s cloud with no guarantee it is ever safe, I will definitely be sticking to tablets that can keep my data safe, ie load web pages on their own.
This is ideal for Amazon. It’s not about speed, folks. That’s just the carrot on the stick. This is about recording everything you do on the web, plugging that info into their e-commerce algorithms, which they’ll then use to further customize their shopping recommendations to you, in an effort to entice you to buy more shit….from Amazon, of course. Mr. Burns is smiling.
Jesus Christ, can you conspiracy theorists GTFO, please? You mean a company predicated on selling you shit is gonna try to sell you shit? Whoa…
Failing to see either the ‘conspiracy’ or the ‘theory’ in my statement. This is right out in the open. If you don’t mind a huge corporation recording your every action on the web, no matter how personal, and using your personal info however they see fit, then by all means, bend on over. Other news sites have been discussing this issue w/ the Silk browser today. They more or less re-iterated my statement.
Oooh, a version of Opera Mini/SkyFire that records your browsing data and serves up ads with it. That’s pretty revolutionary.
No. Fucking. Way.
…sooooo….. It’s Opera Mobile.