Amazon sells out of Kindle Fire tablets

NEW YORK Amazon.com Inc. says it has sold out of its Kindle Fire tablet computer amid expectations of a new model for the holiday season.

The Internet retailer has a major press conference scheduled for next Thursday in Santa Monica, Calif. It's widely expected to reveal a new model of the Fire there, so Thursday's announcement that the first model is “sold out” suggests that Amazon halted production a while ago to retool for a new model.

Amazon launched the $199 tablet last November. It was the first Kindle with a color screen and the ability to run third-party applications, placing it in competition with Apple Inc.’s iPad, at half the price of the cheapest iPad.

Amazon doesn't say how many Fires it has sold, but says it captured 22 percent of U.S. tablet sales over nine months.

That would make it the second-most popular tablet, after the iPad.

Tom Mainelli at research firm IDC said that figure matches his estimate of 6.7 million Fires sold, all in the U.S.

Buffett giving his kids more company stock

OMAHA, Neb . Warren Buffett is celebrating his 82nd birthday by giving each of his three children a big present: about $600 million worth of his company's stock for their charitable foundations.

Buffett announced the gifts in a letter made public Thursday, saying he is rewarding his children for the way they've run their foundations.

The new contributions, added to previous gifts, mean they'll each receive about $2.1 billion in stock over time.

In 2006, Buffett promised to give roughly $1.5 billion of Class B Berkshire Hathaway stock to each of the foundations his children run as part of a plan giving the bulk of his fortune to charity.

From wire reports