“Amazon.com Inc. is planning an advertising-supported tablet computer that will be priced lower than similar models, according to people involved in discussions on the device,” Greg Bensinger reports for The Wall Street Journal. “The new device would come at a discount to tablets without the advertising subsidy, said the people, though exact pricing wasn’t clear. The tablet would display an ad after the user ‘wakes’ the gadget, said one person briefed on the matter. Amazon has discussed how some versions of the new tablet would connect to the Internet only through Wi-Fi networks, said the person briefed on the product.”

Bensinger reports, “The tablet may be part of what Amazon unveils at a planned media event next Thursday in Santa Monica, Calif., as the Internet company moves further into the hardware market… Amazon is pressing into other hardware products as well as it sets its sights on Apple Inc., which has the dominant tablet in the iPad. Amazon has a line of Kindle e-readers, which it began selling in 2007. And Amazon is also testing its own smartphone to take on Apple’s iPhone and could release it as soon as the end of this year, officials at Amazon’s parts providers who declined to be named said in July.”

“Any new device would enter an increasingly crowded tablet market,” Bensinger reports. “Amazon faces a raft of competitors, including the $199 Nexus 7 from Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp.’s Surface tablet, which is due in the coming months. Apple is also working on a device similar in size to the current Kindle Fire, according to people familiar with the matter.”

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MacDailyNews Take: It’ll be Apple sucking up all of good air while the little fishies flop around gasping in their pools of AppLack™, as usual.