Web Worker Daily

As Om reports over on GigaOM, Amazon’s Kindle device has taken a price cut and is now available internationally. I’ll be adding one to my holiday wishlist this year; it’s the perfect device for anyone who likes to read and travels frequently but doesn’t want to lug books and magazines with them. I have been dying to be able to get my mitts on one here in the UK. However, as Om notes, the price still looks a little steep at $279 (plus international shipping and taxes — as yet, Amazon.co.uk is not selling it and international customers must order through Amazon.com).

Now that the Kindle has dropped in price and is available internationally, will you buy one?

Amazon and their Amazon Web Services (AWS) tend to get the most notice when something goes wrong\. But their latest announcement is about something going right – for one lucky company, anyhow. The new AWS Start-Up Challenge is a contest for start-ups and entrepreneurs with a $100,000 grand prize (half in cash and half in service credits).

The contest is open to any site or service that uses one of the AWS services are part of its solution: S3, EC2, SimpleDB, SQS, FPS, DevPay, Alexa Web Services, or even Mechanical Turk. You’ve got until October 3 to enter, and if you’re in the top 5, they’ll fly you out to Seattle for a dog-and-pony show.

Amazon’s S3 cloud-based storage service went down earlier this morning, according to numerous tips we’ve received. The service has impacted many companies, including folks like Twitter. According to our tipsters, the service went down around 4:30 a.m., and is showing a 500 Internal Server Error message.

Read more over at GigaOm.