The concept of Google's Chromecast dongle has been followed by Mozilla with the Matchstick and now by Amazon.com, with the just announced Fire TV Stick. Priced at $39, the Fire TV connects to the HDMI port on your HDTV for instant access to movies, TV shows, music, photos, apps, and games.

The small stick packs a dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of integrated storage, and dual-band, dual-band, dual-antenna (MIMO) Wi-Fi. It also comes with a remote, an optional game controller, and the same user interface as the standalone Fire TV box. It delivers 1080p HD video and Dolby Digital Plus surround sound.

If you prefer to navigate using your phone as a remote control, the Fire TV Remote App for Fire phone, Android phones, and coming soon to iPhone, lets you navigate and manage playback from your phone. The app also features voice search powered by the same voice search engine as Amazon Fire TV, enabling you to simply speak the name of a movie, TV show, actor, director, or genre into your phone, and you’re done.

You can also wirelessly mirror your tablet display to your Fire TV Stick from Fire tablets, Fire phone, and Miracast-enabled phones or tablets including devices from Motorola, Samsung, LG, and Google without any additional apps or software.

Amazon is taking pre-orders for the Fire TV Stick right away, and it expects to start shipments on November 19. But the device is on sale for $19 until October 29 at 6:00 AM Pacific Time.

Rooftop Media acquisition

In related news, Amazon is buying online comedy service Rooftop Media as part of its efforts to become a media and entertainment powerhouse.

Rooftop records comedians at clubs across the country and licenses the digital rights to hours of comedy, which is broadcast either live or later on demand.