The Kindle is currently getting a US$100 discount if you get the Amazon Rewards Visa card and buy a Kindle with it: that's a 28% discount on the list price of US$359. Good for you if you're about to buy a Kindle, and obviously will push the sales of the Kindle. It also raises a couple of questions: is the Kindle not selling as well as Amazon would like, hence the large discount, or is this tied to ditching stock before the possible Kindle 2.0 update we've mentioned before, and that's gathering momentum online? What's your take on this, chaps? [AlleyInsider via NewLaunches]

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Business Week is citing an internal Apple source today who is hinting at the company's upcoming manufacturing plans for the 3G, and they're huge--between 40 and 45 million phones by this time next year kind of huge. The numbers are necessary, obviously, to cover for the impending Best Buy availability and the additional 20 countries that make up the second phase of the international launch starting today (with over 70 launches eventually, China rumoured to be among them). But, wow. How about some perspective?

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Just in time for NFL, the World Series and all those delightful new network sitcom premieres, Gary over at HD Guru has caught wind of an across-the-board price drop that will lower prices of 2008 panels by a couple hundred dollars. Tons of Samsung's series 5, 6 and 7 sets will see a drop of US$100-US$200, with Sony, Mitsubishi and Panasonic expected to follow suit by Labour day, so it's probably a good idea to hold your horses on that new set until the prices start to fall, Wal-Mart style. Head over to HD Guru for Samsung's full discounted model list.

AU: Not sure if this will carry across to AU, but might be worth holding off just in case, right?

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According to a report on ZDNet today, analysts from both Gartner and IDC are claiming that Apple's Australian market share is growing at a rate that far outstrips the competition. And this is despite the fact that Macs cost twice as much as PCs...

Gartner analysts apparently reckon that the house that Jobs built is recording 52% year on year growth, and in the second quarter of 2008 captured 5.3% of the market (compared to 3.8% for the previous year.

But what's even more interesting is that Analyst group IDC claim that Apple are fast approaching Toshiba and Lenovo, who each claim about 8% market share (although they claim Apple has 6.2% market from Q1 2008).

HP are still the country's biggest computer maker, with Dell and Acer behind them.

Although nobody outside of Apple probably has any way of knowing, but I wonder just how much of an effect the Sydney Apple Store has had on Mac sales?

[ZDNet AU]

You call Marty McFly's hoverboard a movie prop? Nahhh.... this is a movie prop. The Tie Fighter that dinged Vader's own craft, sending him spinning out of the Death Star trench? Yes, the very same, from the original Star Wars movie. It could be yours, if you take part in an Ebay Hollywood auction scheduled for Thursday. And, of course, if you have around US$170,000 lying around—and probably a bit more too, as the estimated price goes to US$200,000. The 17-inch high resin, plastic and metal model comes with a letter of authenticity from effects wiz Richard Edlund, and two shooting reports describing its use in the film. It's legit, it seems. Hmmm.... sports car/tie fighter, sports car/tie fighter. Tricky choice. [Ebay via Geekologie]

Despite the disappointment that radiated from E3 last week like a Japanese lanyard, Nintendo Australia must be doing something right, seeing as how they just became the fastest selling console to reach the 500,000 mark.

The Wii, which went on sale back in December 2006, took just 84 weeks to reach the milestone, eclipsing the previous record holder by 23 weeks.

It's an impressive feat, although they still have a way to go before they eclipse the PS2's total unit sales of 2.3 million or so.

[Nintendo]

After outselling the Xbox 360 3:1 in June (660,000 vs 219,800), the Wii eeked ahead in the total U.S. sales race by 500,000 consoles, despite the 360's one-year head start. NPD is also reporting a 53% increase in game and hardware sales across the industry compared to this time last year. [Information Week]

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Last Friday might've been the most important day of the year for Apple, but today's looking pretty shiny too: Gartner estimates that sales of 1.4 million Macs last quarter effectively make it the number three computer maker in the US, trailing only Dell and HP, thanks to a swoopy 38 percent growth in Mac sales.

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Everyone's reporting how remarkable it is that Apple was able to sell a million iPhones in just five days, but let's think about this for a moment, shall we? As TechDirt politely points out, though, it would have been newsworthy had it been a US-only event, it wasn't, it was global, with millions of people eligible to get the new handset. It's also very worth pointing out that globally Nokia sells 1.28 million phones a day. So let's re-cork the champagne until we hit the 100 million mark. [TechDirt]

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It looks like not everyone in AT&T land loves the iPhone. When reader Dennis' mum went to the AT&T stand in the Moorestown Mall in New Jersey to ask about iPhone insurance, they laughed in her face. They then handed her a bunch of articles written arguing for the BlackBerry over the iPhone, printed from places like Crackberry.com and Pocket PC Magazine. At the end, there was the name and number of an AT&T regional manager.

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