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Electronista: Amazon on Thursday released its fourth-quarter earnings report, indicating a net income increase of 75 percent to reach $9.5 billion.

CEO Jeff Bezos claims that “millions of people now own Kindles,” although the company has yet to release specific distribution numbers for the e-book reader.

The US Kindle Store now offers over 410,000 e-books, covering 100 of 112 New York Times bestsellers.

Customers can also choose from over 8,000 blogs and more than 130 domestic and international newspapers.

“When we have both editions, we sell 6 Kindle books for every 10 physical books,” said Bezos. “This is year-to-date and includes only paid books — free Kindle books would make the number even higher. It’s been an exciting 27 months.”

Amazon has reported a 28 percent increase in net sales for the full year of 2009, reaching approximately $24.5 billion. Net income rose to $902 million for the year, a 40 percent increase compared to 2008 profits.

The company recently changed its Kindle payouts to compete with Apple, now giving 70 percent of the purchase price back to the publishers. Apple has maintained its 30 percent cut, however publishers are not restricted to Amazon’s $10 price cap for e-books.

The iPad maker recommends that publishers charge $14 or $15 for hardcover bestsellers.

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Wired: Any moment now, the hot new Kindle should be all over the news. It has many hopes pinned upon it, from the ludicrously optimistic wishes of the newspaper industry to the rather worried expectations of the chiropractic industry (no heavy textbooks equals no spinal injuries to treat).

One thing is sure, though. Tech rolls in and out of fashion, and today the turnover is faster than ever. It won’t be long before many seemingly permanent gadgets disappear and become mere curiosities.

Here are a few things that will seem as retro to the kids of tomorrow as the steam ship seems to us today.

1. VCR: Just last night I asked the Lady “When was the last time you taped a TV show?” It was, of course, years ago. In fact, the only reason she still has a VCR is because the TV remote is lost, so the VCR is effectively a giant channel changer. It’s increasingly hard to rent movies on video, recording is both a pain and low, low quality and even buying a machine is tricky. Death Rating 5/5
2. Books: This one will take a while, but paper books will eventually be the written equivalent of the vinyl record — loved, collected and sold in small numbers, but really just a niche market. The e-reader isn’t nearly ready enough yet, but if the Kindle Magnum (or DX, or whatever) makes its way into schools and colleges, the formative experience of reading will be electronic, not paper, and that will be the beginning of the end. Death Rating 2/5
3. Letters: More paper, and more words. A personal letter that comes in the mail is so rare these days that we can probably declare it extinct, with a few unsubstantiated sightings every year — much like Bigfoot. It’s a shame — writing a letter was a longer, more considered affair than banging out an email, an act which itself already seems out-of-date in these days of the Twitter. And receiving one from a friend or loved one is magical. This romantic, personal method of communication has also formed a good chunk of history, something that will be lost — can you imagine the collected emails of a famous person being posthumously published? Death Rating 5/5
4. The Newspaper: The news isn’t going anywhere. The opposite, in fact — it is now possible to consume news from an almost endless supply, from amateur video to local blogs to forward thinking magazine-based sites (like Wired.co.uk, for example). But the newpaper? Dead. Or at least on life support, begging to be put out of its misery. The reason is, of course, the internet. Gutenberg’s legacy might limp on a little longer, but the internet does the exact same job — dispersing information — much more efficiently. In fact, the jump from printed paper to electronic delivery makes the original move from handwriting to movable type look like a mere historical blip, and that isn’t to put down the printing press in any way at all. Death Rating 5/5
5. The Desktop PC: What? Yes. The beige box is headed the way of the mainframe. Notebook computers already outsell desktops, and for good reason — the performance of a portable is close enough to the desktop for everyone except Pixar. More importantly, computing is so ubiquitous and essential that anyone who can afford a computer wants their own machine, and they want to take it with them. A laptop is no longer a luxury, it’s the norm. But even these are going to disappear, or perhaps be consigned to remain, ironically, on the desktop. Take a look around you: What do you see in everybody’s hand? That’s it — a phone. And the phone is fast becoming the only computer most people will need. It will probably also be their book, their newspaper and their VCR. Death Rating 4/5

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