“In a significant step toward vanquishing the local video store and keeping couch potatoes planted firmly in front of their televisions and computers, Amazon.com will introduce a new online store of TV shows and movies on Thursday, called Amazon Video on Demand,” Brad Stone reports for The New York Times.

“Customers of Amazon’s new store will be able to start watching any of 40,000 movies and television programs immediately after ordering them because they stream, just like programs on a cable video-on-demand service,” Stone reports. “That is different from most Internet video stores, like Apple iTunes and the original incarnation of Amazon’s video store, which require users to endure lengthy waits as video files are downloaded to their hard drives.”

MacDailyNews Take: Do some, even just a little, research, Brad. Sheesh. Apple TV and Mac users have been buying and renting their favorite movies from their Apple TVs and/or the iTunes Store and watching them immediately after ordering for quite some time now (TV shows via iTunes Store since October 2005, feature-length movies via iTunes Store since September 2006, TV shows and movies directly via Apple TV since March 2008).

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Full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "michael" for the heads up.]