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As the holiday season approaches, Amazon has opened thousands of temporary positions for workers at its fulfillment centers in Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky and Nevada. These are hourly openings in picking, packing and receiving/shipping across multiple shifts. Eligible applicants must be able to stand and walk for 8-12 hour shifts and lift up to 50 pounds.

"We're looking to hire smart and motivated people across the U.S. to help us deliver a great experience for our customers during the holiday season," says Dave Clark, vice president of Amazon's North American Operations. Each year, Amazon hires thousands of people to manage the variation in customer demand during busy seasons. It also uses these positions as a way to find full-time employees. Amazon says that more than 4,700 temporary workers have been hired full-time over the past year.

The Kindle Fire just hit stores, but rumors from the supply chain indicate that two new models are already in production for next year. DigiTimes says Amazon will launch an 8.9-inch model by the end of Q2 2012 and is also developing a 10.1-inch tablet. Already, 22% of prospective tablet buyers want a Kindle Fire (65% want an iPad). With more choices, Amazon can meet more demand.

Amazon has ordered 5 million units of the current model to meet pre-orders. Will those people have buyers' remorse when they hear about new models? Well, at the $200 price point, at least it won't hurt as much as an iPad. Amazon found the consumer sweet spot with that price, even though they lose $2.70 on each one. In other words, the first shipment of Kindle Fires cost Amazon $13.5 million, and that's if they sell them all. Why would they take that hit and still order two new versions? Because the Kindle Fire is a service, not a product.

Citigroup's research department reports that Amazon will introduce a smartphone in Q4 2012. This will push Amazon futher into the mobile market. The phone will go for an estimated $150-$170. Sources say it will run Android, but Amazon will still have to pay an "OS royalty" to Microsoft, which "claims that more than half of Android devices are subject to patenting licensing agreements," according to ArsTechnica.

There's an interesting discussion brewing in the wake of some of the comparison articles recently published about the latest Android tablet devices, including Amazon's Kindle Fire. I'm on record here as liking what I saw from the initial publication of Joshua Topolsky's "revenge" upon Engadget, The Verge, and I'd be blind if I didn't point out that competitor publications may feel they have something to gain by casting The Verge in a negative light. That's by way of disclaimer.

That said, I think the discussion about what's important in a product review is an important one to have, and we need to have it periodically. The current debate stems from whether device specifications - particularly with respect to this positive recommendation of the iPhone 4S by Consumer Reports and this comparison of Kindle, Nook, and iPad tablets by The Verge - truly matter nowadays with respect to buyers' decisions.

Continuing our series about the Consumer Cloud, today we compare the three leading music cloud services: Apple's iTunes Match (just launched today), Amazon's Cloud Drive and Google Music. With these three highly competitive services, online music fans have never had it so good.

There are two main battles going on in the online music market, each of which is benefiting consumers greatly. One is between the three so-called cloud lockers mentioned above, which are competing to be the online archive for your digital music collection. The second battle is about whether you even need an online archive at all.

Amazon has added another million Kindle Fire tablets to its initial order, bringing the first shipment up to five million units. This is the second increase since the Fire was unveiled in September. The initial order was for 3.5 million units, but the Kindle Fire has seen strong pre-order numbers.

On November 8, Amazon announced that the Fire, along with the new Kindle Touch, will appear in 16,000 U.S. retail stores on November 15. Amazon's profits were down last quarter while it invested in these big moves, and it's now set for a big turnaround this holiday season.

Charlotte-based CLT Blog connected the dots and found that Amazon has purchased a speech recognition startup called Yap, according to an SEC filing. While neither company has made a formal announcement - and the filing doesn't even mention Amazon by name - it says that Yap merged with a company called "Dion Acquisition Sub," which has the same address as an Amazon building.

With the Kindle Fire about to hit stores, it's tempting to compare this acquisition to Apple's purchase of Siri. But is that a fair comparison? Yap transcribed voicemail. Siri was based on a DARPA-funded military artificial intelligence project. With some consumers hesitating between the iPad and the Kindle Fire, there's bound to be a feature race. But speech-to-text input is one thing. The AI-powered future of search is another.

Amazon announced today that the new range of Kindles is coming to over 16,000 U.S. retail stores. The usual big-box and medium-box outlets will carry Amazon's whole family of media devices.

The basic new Kindle - which sells for $79 with ads and $109 without - has been available in stores since just after launch on September 28. Now the $99/139 Kindle Touch and the $199 Kindle Fire tablet will appear on physical shelves.

Scott Berken's book, Mindfire, is free until November 3, 2011. All of this and more in today's Daily Wrap.

Sometimes it's difficult to catch every story that hits tech media in a day, so we thought it might be helpful to wrap up some of the most talked about stories. Assuming this goes over well, we're going to give you a daily recap of what you missed in the ReadWriteWeb Community, including a link to some of the most popular discussions in our offsite communities on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google Plus as well. This is a new feature at ReadWriteWeb so we covet your feedback. If you have suggestions, please leave them in the comments below or reach out to me directly at robyn at readwriteweb.com.

Amazon just announced the release of Flow an augmented reality shopping app for the iPhone. It uses both barcode and image recognition in a live camera view to help users shop. It recognizes books, DVDs, CDs, video games and all kinds of other packaged items "like a box of cereal," whether by scanning the image or the barcode.

Flow can show shoppers Amazon's reviews and ratings as they're holding a product in their hands. It also has Facebook and Twitter sharing options. Of course, users can also opt to buy the product from Amazon, even though they're holding it in their hands. The free app is available on the iTunes Store.