Amazon announced this week that its newest Kindle, the Kindle Paperwhite, will start shipping at the end of ths month. So what does the new and improved Kindle Paperwhite have to offer that the original flavour Kindle and the Kindle DX don’t? (It makes no sense to compare the Kindle Paperwhite to the Kindle Fire, as they are completely different animals – the Fire being a full-fledged tablet, and the Paperwhite being a reader only.)

The Washington Post has just announced that it will be sold to Jeff Bezos, CEO and Founder of Amazon.com. Jeff Bezos is buying the Washington Post for $250 million.

Earlier this week President Obama paid a visit to Amazon’s immense distribution center in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The president praised, among other things, Amazon’s unique Career Choice tuition assistance program, which is available to all full-time Amazon employees, as well as Amazon’s job creation – Amazon had announced just a few days earlier plans to hire up to an additional 7000 workers across the country. But President Obama’s support for Amazon has brought howls of outrage from independent book stores and their trade organizations.

The U.S. Federal government’s case against Apple for price-fixing is under way. Last year the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) accused Apple and five ebook publishers of attempting to fix the prices of ebooks, claiming that there was a conspiracy to affect the e-book market. Here’s an explanation of the law suit against Apple.

If you use Amazon Prime Instant Video through certain devices, such as the Roku, Apple TV, or other Internet-enabled device such as a DVR or DVD player, and if you couldn’t connect to Amazon Instant Video today, take comfort in the fact that countless others were in the same situation.

The Marketplace Fairness Act (“MFA”) has been in the news quite a bit lately, and no wonder. The proposed Federal law, which if passed will result in sales tax on Internet sales across state lines, cleared its first Senate barrier on Monday, and is expected to be passed by the Senate this week.

Amazon has announced that it has acquired social media book recommendation and “social cataloging” site Goodreads. So far the money involved in the deal has not been disclosed, but commentators are speculating that the deal was worth several hundred million dollars, in large part due to Goodreads’ membership base of over 16 million active users.

Readers of all ages and backgrounds love a trip to Barnes & Noble for the selection, the atmosphere, and the service. And that really great coffee. But lovers of e-books have ignored Barnes and Noble’s proprietary Nook e-reader in favor of the iPad from Apple and Kindle from Amazon. As a result, the foray into its own tablet has hemorrhaged loses to the point that the retailer appears to have given up on the much ballyhooed effort.

Amazon has just launched its autorip service – Amazon Auto Rip. So just what is Amazon Auto Rip? It’s a bit of a misnomer, as you don’t have to rip anything – the CD is automatically ‘ripped’ for you, which is why it’s called Auto Rip, and added to your Amazon Cloud Player (you can also play it on your iPod or other MP3 player). And it’s retroactive back to 1998!

If you, like many, have been using Amazon.com for some of your Christmas shopping, then your account may be vulnerable to a scam using your order number that is genius in its execution, and uncovers some of Amazon’s failings in inventory control. It all comes down to the individual order numbers assigned to your orders. Those order numbers are for sale, along with the corresponding email address (as in your email address), and scam artists are using that information to get duplicates of your orders sent to them.

Countless people ran to their local supermarkets and convenience stores today, to corner the market on Twinkies, Hostess cupcakes, Snoballs, and Ho Hos, as the news of American fixture Hostess Bakery announced that it would be closing after being unable to resolve a contract negotiation dispute with the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM, or, simply, “the Bakers Union”). Pictures of empty Twinkie shelves at grocery stores started showing up on the Internet, and, at just about the same time, Twinkie’s started showing up on eBay, and through Amazon, at prices of as much as $1000 or more for a single box of Twinkies.

Mitt Romney’s “Binders full of women” comment is continuing to make waves as the Avery Durable View Binder on Amazon.com is gaining reviews, not so much for their organizing ability, but for their ability to keep women.

This weekend Amazon sent an alert to all of their Kindle customers, informing them of a recent antitrust lawsuit settlement over ebook pricing (some people are calling this a ‘class action’ lawsuit, but it was actually an antitrust suit filed by the government). The settlement is expected to be approved sometime in February 2013, at which time those who have purchased Kindle books can expect to see an estimated credit of $0.30 to $1.32 per each eligible Kindle book that they purchased.

Facebook unveiled their new online commerce plan, Facebook Gifts, and many hope that this will help the company’s slumping advertising revenue. Facebook introduced the new feature today, and it gives users the option to send gifts from 100 different merchants with which Facebook has partnered, including Starbucks, 1-800-Flowers, and Magnolia Bakery.

The new Kindle Fire HD has broken the mold by being the only tablet to finally offer parental controls over what their kids access. While parents go to great lengths to control their child’s TV and PC usage, the tablets have managed to slip by the radar, allowing children unhindered access to the very same things that parents have kept them from on other devices. And at only $199, this kid-friendly tablet has quite an attractive pricetag.