Amazon Unveils Cloud-Optimized Browser ‘Amazon Silk’

Amazon has unveiled its first tablet, officially called the Amazon Fire. But in a surprising move, the company announced it would also launch a brand-new browser, called Amazon Silk.

Silk is the answer to the question, What does a browser look like in today's era of cloud computing?

Unlike other browsers, Amazon Silk cuts down the time it takes to load a page by dynamically splitting the browsing experience: Silk is partially run on your device, and partially run in the cloud. All jobs are split between front-end and back-end, including networking, HTML, CSS, and Javascript, and the smart system optimizes speed on your device so webpages load quickly. This creates persistent Internet connections with fractional waiting times.

Since it's partially run on the cloud, Silk also has a virtually limitless cache, and like Google.com, features machine learning that can detect behaviors to guess the next page request.

No word yet if Amazon Silk will be available for any other devices besides Amazon's Kindle Touch 3G or Fire.

Amazon also unveiled its first tablet today, called the Fire. Fire features a 7-inch IPS display, a dual-core CPU, and weighs 14.6 ounces. The tablet has acess to movies, songs, apps, books, and magazines. All of the content on Fire is displayed on a bookshelf interface, similar to iBooks, but this shelf works like a carousel to keep the content mixed. To quickly access favorite shows and movies, however, users can pin their favorites to the shelf.

Amazon's first tablet, which is Wi-Fi only, will be released for an extremely cheap $200. The tablet will not feature a microphone, but considering the tablet is $300 cheaper than the cheapest iPad, this will be an excellent tablet option for buyers on a budget. Again, just to reiterate, one could potentially buy two Amazon Fires for $100 less than the price the cheapest iPad.

Amazon will also reportedly release a second 10 tablet in early 2012, which will feature both 3G and WiFi. This confirms early rumors from May that Amazon would release two tablets, codenamed Coyote and Hollywood, which would both feature different core processors.

Amazon will also sell an expanded version of its Kindle called the Kindle Touch 3G, which will feature a touch interface, built-in Wi-Fi, free 3G wireless capability, long battery life, and an advanced e-ink display. This top of the line Kindle will start taking pre-orders immediately at $149.

Amazon says it will also now sell its original Kindle e-readers for a moderate $80.