It looks like Amazon has thrown down the tablet gauntlet to Apple (and others) in a big way today. During a press event in New York City, the company unveiled its $200 Kindle Fire tablet.

And before you get too skeptical and lump the device in with the recent offerings from Blackberry or HP, let’s check out the specs. The Kindle Fire has a 7-inch display and will give users access to all of Amazon’s services including: AmazonMP3, Amazon Prime, Amazon Kindle Bookstore, Amazon Instant Video and the Amazon AppStore.

It’s powered by a dual-core processor and weighs 14.6 ounces. Customers can pre-order the Kindle Fire today and it will ship in November. Not bad Amazon, not bad.

Also unveiled was a brand new version of the company’s eReader called the Kindle touch. It is $99.00 for the base model or $149 for the 3G one and has an infrared layer on top of the E-Ink display to help avoid with any interference while reading.

It also has Amazon’s EasyReach technology for turning pages by tapping the screen in specific areas. In addition, an X-Ray feature allows users to view where and when certain characters and more take place in a book. Pre-orders for the Kindle touch eReader begin today and will ship by November 21st.

Finally, Bezos announced a new non-touch Kindle for $79. It is available for shipping today.

Well, that’s a lot of info. It will be interesting to see how the Kindle Fire and it’s reasonable price competes with the iPad and its not so reasonable price. The Christmas season just got a lot more interesting.

Check out the full press release from Amazon after the jump.

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With all the ways available to be entertained and pass the time, people still like to read. In fact Amazon is betting you’ll want at least one more way to read eBooks you’ve purchased from them and have today debuted a brand new way to do it: the web-based Kindle Cloud Reader.

This new service provides users with access to their entire Kindle library using Chrome or Safari on Mac, PC, Linux and the Chromebook. Kindle Cloud Reader is also optimized for the iPad and offers a caching feature for offline reading, which is nice.

To get started, go to http://read.amazon.com and, when prompted, install the required plug-in. That’s pretty much it. I gave the service a try late last night and liked it. It’s another great way to read your Kindle content if you don’t have your ipad or Kindle handy.

Although, I still prefer the Kindle for reading or, in a pinch, the iPad Kindle App. Still, it’s nice to see Amazon continuing to innovate in this area and also potentially find ways to get around Apple’s sometimes difficult iTunes Store rules. Can’t blame them for that.

For more details, click through for the full press release.

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Amazon released its “Best of 2010″ lists late last week which highlight the online shopping powerhouse’s best-selling, most wished-for and most gifted products of the year. In the best-selling category, Amazon’s own Kindle topped the electronics category.

Kindle is now the best-selling product of all time on Amazon.com. Which, if you think about it, makes sense. It’s a great product and it has tight integration with the rest of Amazon. That’s what they call in the trade a “win win.” AT&T’s Samsung Captivate was Amazon’s best-selling device in the Wireless & Accessories category, reaffirming Android’s continued success in that market. Just sorry it had to be on AT&T’s network.

Call of Duty: Black Ops was Amazon’s best-selling video game, Apple’s 13-inch MacBook Pro topped the computer category and Sherlock Holmes was the company’s most streamed movie of 2010. So, kudos to Activision, Apple and Robert Downey, Jr.

Click through to check out the full list.

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