According to Wired, the project is already underway. Last year, contractors began assembling the components to the clock and excavation began at the mountain site that will become the clock’s final resting place. As the clock will run on solar power, computers at Jet Propulsion Laboratories have spent the last year calculating sun positions for the next 10 millennia.

The “father of the clock” is a man named Danny Hillis. The millennium clock has been on his mind since 1989. For him and for Bezos, it’s all about long term thinking. Bezos has set up a website for the project, at 10000yearclock.net.

There, he describes the project in brief. The clock will be stationed deep inside a mountain in the West Texas Sierra Diablo Mountain Range. The clock will tick once a year, and the century hand will advance every 100 years. And every time it hits 1000 years, a cuckoo will emerge.

Visiting the clock, once it is completed in the next few years, will not be an easy venture. Here’s what Wired says about accessing the clock according to their interview with Bezos and the team –

To get to the clock, you’ll need to hike half a day to the base of the mountain in which the clock is embedded. You’ll walk up into a narrow notch of stone, coming at last to a door made of stainless steel with panels of green nephritic jade. The door leads into a tunnel, which ends at the base of the vertical shaft, in darkness. Taking a flashlight to see, you’ll start climbing up the spiral staircase, winding around the outer wall of the shaft, going past various parts of the clock as you go.

One of the first sections you’ll pass is the power train, with huge suspended stone weights and a capstan that you can turn to raise the weights and wind the clock. Once wound, the energy of these weights will help power the clock and its chimes.

You’ll then walk past the mechanical computer (a complex collection of gears and linkages) that rings the clock’s chimes, and a bit further up, the actual chimes.

If it’s been wound, the clock will ring the bells once a day, playing a different tune each time. The mechanical computer will rearrange the notes to create a unique melody for almost every one of the next 3,650,000 days. (Musician Brian Eno is helping compose the music the chimes will play.)

The clock itself will be impressively huge and mechanical, with giant gear wheels made out of stainless steel turning on ceramic bearings, as well as smaller pinions made out of titanium. There will be no way to see it all at once — you’ll have to climb through a couple hundred vertical feet to see all its parts, one by one, ending at the clock face in the uppermost room.

Brian Eno Chimes! Awesome.

If you still want to make the commitment to go see the clock once it is completed, Bezos asks you to send a blank email to clockinterest@10000yearclock.net.

What is the point of this millennium clock? Why take on such an undertaking and invest so much money into a project that will be located in such a remote area? Long-term thinking. According to Bezos, we now have the technology to build this amazing clock so we should.

“Over the lifetime of this clock, the United States won’t exist,” Bezos says. “Whole civilizations will rise and fall. New systems of government will be invented. You can’t imagine the world — no one can — that we’re trying to get this clock to pass through.”

Bezos and the crew are thinking about this clock in the same way we think about the Pyramids. They are symbols of time, and of history. Thousands of years from now, Bezos wants people to visit the clock and see it still working. Whatever civilization looks like in 10,000 years, those people will have a glimpse into the past. And by building a clock like this, it allows us in the present to glimpse into the future.

But it sure is a lot of money, even for a project this cool. Some people are asking if the project is truly necessary –

Most of the internet chatter surrounding the project seems to be positive, however. The most commonly used phrases to describe it are “Wow,” “Amazing” and “Awesome.” I believe I fall into that camp.

Bezos is also looking for future generations to create “anniversary chambers” for the clock. Here’s what he has to say about that on the site –

Carved into the mountain are five room-sized anniversary chambers: 1 year, 10 year, 100 year, 1,000 year, and 10,000 year anniversaries. The one year anniversary chamber is a special orrery. In addition to the planets and the Earth’s moon, it includes all of the interplanetary probes launched during the 20th century, humankind’s first century in space. Among others, you’ll see the Grand Tour: Voyager 2′s swing by of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The Clock will activate and run the orrery once a year on a pre-determined date at solar noon.

We aren’t planning to build the animations for the 100, 1,000, and 10,000 year anniversary chambers, but will instead leave those to future generations. We are providing a mechanical interface into those chambers that provides those future builders with power and the correct Clock triggering events. We do intend to build the animation for the 10 year anniversary chamber, but haven’t decided what it will be yet. If you have an interesting idea for the 10 year anniversary chamber, please feel free to email it to 10-year-chamber@10000yearclock.net, and we’ll add it to the mix of ideas.

Sounds like a awesome project. Maybe whoever inhabits this planet in 10,000 years will stumble upon the clock and will view it like we view Stonehenge. At least I’m sure that’s what Jeff Bezos hopes.

It’s not hard to see why this practice upsets some groups within the states, especially those who protect the interests of brick and mortar stores both large and small. Why would a customer buy a $700 home theater system from a local electronics retailer and pay 6% sales tax (or more) when they can get it shipped to their door free of that state-imposed sales tax via Amazon?

Some states have stepped up and voted to approve new tax laws that require online retailers to collect state sales taxes. Most recently the state of California voted on this issue as part of their new budget.

Here’s how it usually goes – a state decides to enact laws requiring companies like Amazon to collect sales tax. Amazon threatens to sever ties with the affiliates in that state. TheStreet.com has a nice map that shows the current state of the union when it comes to the Amazon tax wars.

The law of the land for a while has said that states cannot force businesses to collect sales tax if it doesn’t have a physical presence within the state. In states like Kentucky, Kansas and New York, Amazon already collects sales tax because those states contain Amazon offices. But no actual Amazon offices equals no sales tax. Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos has said that it is protected in the U.S. constitution’s prohibition of state’s interference in interstate commerce -

And in the U.S., the Constitution prohibits states from interfering in interstate commerce. And there was a Supreme Court case decades ago that clarified that businesses — it was mail-order at that time because the Internet did not exist — that mail-order companies could not be required to collect sales tax in states where they didn’t have what’s called “nexus.”

But now, more and more states are saying that Amazon affiliates count as physical presences and are enacting sales tax regulations on the company. Texas is one of those states that is currently in battle with Amazon.

Apparently, Amazon has extended a compromise to the Lone Star State. Amazon proposes that they would spend $300 million in the establishment of distribution centers across the state that would provide over 5,000 jobs to Texans. All they ask in return is to remain exempt from collecting sales tax for the next 4 1/2 years.

They also suggest that Texas’ comptroller sets up a separate website for the collection of voluntary sales tax owed on Amazon purchases. That money would then go directly to the state. It’s highly suspect that many people would choose to pay a sales tax, however.

The current push for online-tax regulation in Texas is part of a pending school finance bill. Governor Rick Perry is unable to line-item veto that online-tax provisions, so he would have to veto the entire school funding bill if he wanted to keep his state online sales tax free.

Texas will certainly not be the last state to debate this issue. What do you think? Should Amazon be forced to collect sales tax? Or does that interfere with interstate commerce laws? Should the federal government step in and mandate a standard online sales tax? Let us know what you think.

The Schedule 13G, which Amazon filed today, shows that Bezos reduced his stake to 19.5 percent on December 31st, 2010.  That’s down from 21.2 percent beforehand, which works out to a cut of 8.0 percent.

Of course, in fairness to the CEO and his company, Bezos still owns a whole lot of Amazon stock, and it’s his business if he wants to build another house or purchase a selection of exotic cars.  Many people in his position would have already sold everything, bought an island, and retired.

Also, as reported by Reuters, Bank of America Merrill Lynch said in a note, "Owning the stock here requires trust and patience.  We have seen Amazon go through investment cycles before and believe investment in growth is the right long-term strategy for the Internet."

The timing of this announcement is just less than opportune.  Amazon’s stock plummeted in after-hours trading yesterday evening, heading from $184.45 to $164.65, and although things are looking a little better this morning, it’s still down 8.09 percent (at $169.53).

On a semi-related note, Eric Schmidt announced last week that he’d be selling 534,000 shares of Google’s stock.

We’ll start with the good news, at least.  Amazon reported $7.56 billion in revenue versus estimates of $7.35 billion.  Earnings per share hit $0.51, too, rather than $0.48.

Here’s the problem: operating margins decreased from 4.6 percent to 3.5 percent on both a quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year basis, which is sort of a big drop.

Also, Amazon stated with respect to the fourth quarter, "Operating income is expected to be between $360 million and $560 million, or between 24% decline and 18% growth compared with fourth quarter 2009."

So Amazon’s stock is now down 4.10 percent despite the company’s past achievements.

Still, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos assured everyone that his business will do its best to attract customers, saying, "This holiday season we’ll have the best prices, the biggest selection, the highest in-stock, and the fastest delivery in our history."

The funding was led by Mohr Davidow Ventures and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Bezos Expeditions.

Doxo said the funding is aiding the company’s expansion and private trials with some of the largest U.S. utility, insurance, banking, Internet, satellite, phone, travel and cable providers.

"Closing what we call the ‘paperless adoption gap,’ is a massive market opportunity," said Steve Shivers, doxo co-founder and CEO.

"Based on comparable online metrics, paperless adoption can and should be at least four or five times higher than current levels cited. For customers, all this paper mail is a big headache. For businesses, it’s enormous wasted expense. Adoption is lagging so dramatically because clear, straightforward customer needs aren’t being met. doxo is out to remedy that."

Doxo says only about 12 percent of the 55 billion transactional document volume is delivered exclusively in electronic format today. The direct expense of paper, printing and postage for transactional mail cost businesses more than $35 billion each year.

The company says a 30 percent increase in paperless adoption of transactional documents would save at least three million trees, over 150 million gallons of gas, and eliminate more than three million tons of greenhouse gasses every year.

"Despite the best efforts for paperless adoption by many corporations, there appears to be a cap on adoption," said Marc DeCastro, research manager at IT market research advisory firm IDC Financial Insights.

"For the enterprise, they want a new approach that will save money and drive greater customer adoption and interaction. For the consumer, they want a simplified process without having to manage or share login credentials across multiple web sites."
 

Analysts expected earnings of 61 cents a share on revenue of $6.87 billion, according to a consensus forecasts from Thomson Reuters.

"We remain heads-down focused on customers," said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com.

"Amazon Prime has just celebrated its fifth anniversary, adoption of Amazon Web Services continues to accelerate, Kindle remains our #1 bestselling product, and earlier this week, Kindle selection reached 500,000 titles."

Net sales increased 46 percent to $7.13 billion in the first quarter, compared with $4.89 billion for the same period the previous year.

For the second quarter net sales are expected to be between $6.1 billion and $6.7 billion, or to grow between 31 percent and 44 percent compared with the second quarter of 2009.

Operating income is expected to be between $220 million and $320 million, or to grow between 39 percent and 102 percent compared with the same period the previous year.
 

The online retailer said its net income increased 71 percent to $384 million in the fourth quarter, or 85 cents per share, compared with $225 million, or 52 cents per share in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Net sales increased 42 percent to $9.5 billion in the fourth quarter, compared with $ 6.7 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008.

"Millions of people now own Kindles," said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com.

"And Kindle owners read, a lot. When we have both editions, we sell 6 Kindle books for every 10 physical books. This is year-to-date and includes only paid books — free Kindle books would make the number even higher. It’s been an exciting 27 months."

Amazon said it expects its operating profit for the first quarter of 2010 to be between $275 million to $365 million, on revenue of $6.4 billion to $7 billion, for growth between 32 percent and 43 percent.

Shares rose 3.7 percent in after hours trading to $130.41 signaling investors were pleased with Amazon’s Q4 results.
 

Related Articles:

> Amazon Kindle Publishers and Authors to Get More Royalties

> Amazon Kindle Breaks Monthly Sales Record

> Amazon In eBook Deal With Best Selling Author

In addition, Amazon said its Kindle reader has become the most gifted item in the company’s history. The Kindle Store boasts more than 390,000 electronic books.

"We are grateful to our customers for making Kindle the most gifted item ever in our history," said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com.

"On behalf of Amazon.com employees around the world, we wish everyone happy holidays and happy reading!"

Amazon has not released sales figures for the Kindle, but Forrester Research estimated in October that the Kindle has close to 60 percent of the U.S. market share, followed by the Sony Reader with 35 percent.

Amazon said its peak day was December 14, with customers ordering over 9.5 million items globally, which is a record breaking 110 items per second.

Amazon Worldwide 2009 Holiday Facts:

•     Amazon shipped to over 178 countries.
•     One of our most remote shipments contained the EMU Australia Toddler Boot and was delivered to   Atqasuk, Alaska.
•     On the peak day this season, Amazon’s worldwide fulfillment network shipped over 7 million units.
•     Amazon shipped over 200,000 units to APO/FPO addresses.
•     Amazon shipped more than 99 percent of orders in time to meet holiday deadlines worldwide.

Last week Amazon, without notice, deleted customers copies of Orwell’s "Animal Farm" and "1984" later saying the action was taken at the request of the publisher. After removing the titles from its catalogue, Amazon deleted the titles from all of its customers Kindle devices. Customers were refunded for their purchase of the titles.

Jeff Bezos

In a Kindle Community forum post, Bezos apologized for the error. "This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of 1984 and other novels on Kindle. Our ‘solution’ to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles.

"It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we’ve received. We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission."

 "With deep apology to our customers."

The Kindle terms and conditions state digital content is licensed to the user, but not owned by them.

"Digital Content will be deemed licensed to you by Amazon under this Agreement unless otherwise expressly provided by Amazon."
 

Amazon said the move is part of a reorganization of its distribution network so it can "better balance product mix and customer orders."

Jeff Bezos

Patty Smith, spokeswoman for Amazon, said the distribution centers would close by the end of May, affecting 210 employees. Smith said "eligible" workers would be given the chance to transfer to other U.S. fulfillment centers.

"A variety of factors went into the plan to close these three buildings," said Smith. "We added approximately 3 million square feet of capacity in the North American fulfillment network in 2008, and will be converting a fulfillment center in Phoenix to accommodate our larger items (such as big screen TVs) and adding several hundred thousand sq feet to that facility."

"This additional capacity allows to the opportunity to better balance product mix and customer orders across the network year-round."

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos spent the past week working in a fulfillment center here in Lexington, Kentucky.