Books or movies on your Kindle? How about both?

When is an e-reader something much more than an e-reader? How about every day. For example, the Kindle Fire is not just for books.

Amazon offers a service called Amazon Prime Video which allows members to downolad movies onto their Kindle e-readers. A deal with Paramount Pictures, announced today, states that hundreds of older legacy films will be available for download from this streaming video service. 

This service, which costs $79 per year allows parents to download hundreds of children's programming hours to their e-reader tablets. Many shows from Nickelodon and PBS, such as Caillou pictured here, are available. 

This brings up the question... is the Kindle an e-reader or is it something more? Is it a DVD player? A movie screen? And because you can play hundreds of games on the device, of course it's also a gaming module. 

Perhaps e-reader is too narrow a definition of these devices.

Perhaps a change is on the way. After all, if you can read e-books, wach movies and play games on a single device like Kindle, it won't be long before we begin to see hybrid offerings that combing reading, watching and playing.

It's the natural progression of this technology. We are on the verge of a momentous conversion of all media into true multimedia -- with emphasis on multi.