New offerings from Amazon Web Services on Tuesday highlight how far the cloud computing business has evolved beyond its roots.

The big picture: AWS pioneered cloud services as a provider of raw computing and storage accessible over the internet, but Amazon and its rivals are increasingly offering services tailored to specific industries or designed to solve one problem for a wide range of businesses.

Why it matters: Amazon, Microsoft and Google now remotely handle a vast amount of work that businesses once did on their own servers — and with consumer spending slowing, all three tech giants are counting on the cloud for much-needed growth.

Driving the news: At its AWS re:Invent conference on Tuesday, Amazon announced several new products that show just how specialized the cloud has become.

• AWS Supply Chain, which can help companies in many industries get a better handle on their flow of components and goods, is an example of a service where Amazon sees broad appeal.
• Although there is an industry for such tools already, it is highly fragmented and the necessary data is often stored in fragments spread out among multiple locations. That makes it well suited to the cloud, according to AWS senior VP Matt Garman.

Other new services are targeted at a single industry, or a handful of industries.

• AWS Clean Room is designed to allow multiple companies to benefit from one another's proprietary data without having to share it directly.
• Instead, they can share in the insights their proprietary data provides without giving partners direct access to the raw information.
• Advertising is a key initial market, Garman said, but Amazon also sees opportunities in healthcare and financial services.

State of play: Amazon is not alone in the push toward more specialized cloud products, with Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure also evolving in a similar direction.

• Google introduced Confidential Space, a service conceptually similar to AWS Clean Room, at its cloud computing conference earlier this year. It also has debuted specific cloud services targeted at tasks ranging from medical imaging to manufacturing to fleet management.
• Microsoft introduced its own cloud-based supply chain management service earlier this month. It has also has added new offerings for the financial services and health care industries as well as a cloud-based tool businesses can use to help measure their sustainability efforts.

Yes, but: Basic computing and storage remain a key part of the cloud business.

• Amazon and Microsoft have both begun offering customers a wider range of options for the type of chips their cloud servers use, providing more flexibility for businesses whose software is written or optimized for a particular chip architecture.
• What was once an all-Intel market now includes chips from rival AMD as well as ARM-based options from Nvidia as well as Amazon's own ARM-based processor.
• In the past, market demand didn't support the cost of expanding chip options, but today even a modest sliver of the cloud market equates to billions of dollars in revenue. "That's a big business," Garman said. "There's a lot more we can invest in."

Amazon's Kindle e-reader has gotten modest refinements over the years, but this year's Scribe is the first Kindle in years to take on a significantly new task.

Catch up quick: Announced in September and going on sale Wednesday, the $330 Scribe is the first Kindle that can also be used for handwritten notes. It's also the first large-screen device since the Kindle DX line, which was discontinued more than a decade ago.

Hands on: I've spent about a week and a half with the Kindle Scribe and have been mostly pleased.

• Even before you pull out the included pen stylus, the Scribe is a very nice Kindle, with good ergonomics and a large, well-lit display.
• Using the pen opens up a range of additional uses, from taking handwritten meeting or lecture notes to marking up a PDF or Word document to jotting notes alongside the book you are reading.
• The Scribe does have a few quirks. For example, it's not immediately clear how to shift between tasks, such as reading books and taking notes. By default, the Scribe also takes notes slightly differently depending on whether one is reading a book or viewing a document, like a PDF.

Between the lines: Kevin Keith, Amazon's VP of devices, tells Axios that Amazon took its time releasing the Scribe because it wanted to produce a device that was equally good for reading and writing.

• Keith said that recent advances allow for a device that has high pixel density (300 per inch), backlighting and a feel that's much more like writing on paper than using a stylus on a glossy tablet.

At the same time, Keith said Amazon aimed to keep the Scribe from trying to do too much.

• It's still designed for dedicated tasks, chiefly reading and writing. "We’re not trying to be a tablet," he said.
• So far, Amazon says it is happy with the response. "Early sales have been very brisk," Keith said.

The big picture: The Scribe isn't the first device to use an e-ink display for writing. Startup ReMarkable is on its second-generation product, and it offers some features the Scribe lacks: It can synchronize with various cloud services and convert handwriting to text.

• On the flip side, the ReMarkable lacks the pixel density and advanced lighting of the Scribe.
• Most importantly, it doesn't offer access to the huge book library Scribe provides through Amazon's Kindle catalog. The ReMarkable is much more oriented toward viewing work documents and taking notes.

What's next: Amazon has already promised that Microsoft will add a "save to Kindle" option within Word, and Keith said there is a long list of features that could come to the Scribe, including turning handwritten notes into text.

• "If that’s really important to customers we’ll bring it out as soon as we can," Keith said.

Sam Bankman-Fried always intended to roll over at least a portion of his former firm’s $100 million Twitter stake into the private, Elon Musk-controlled version of the company, the former FTX CEO tells Axios’ Lucinda Chen.

• But the former FTX CEO said in an interview on Monday night that he's not sure that ever happened with the Alameda Research-controlled stake.

Why it matters: It's the first time Bankman-Fried has addressed the question around his Twitter stake since Musk said last week that neither SBF nor FTX ever held a position in the privatized Twitter, a statement that contradicted a Semafor news report.

• The Semafor report said Bankman-Fried owns a sizable chunk of the now privately held and debt-laden Twitter.
• Alameda Research, the entity that Bankman-Fried said owned the Twitter stake, is the trading firm he controlled that's at the center of FTX's implosion. A text message seen by Axios that Bankman-Fried sent to Musk said the Twitter stake Alameda owned was worth around $100 million.

What he's saying: "I believe that it was intended for Alameda to roll over at least $20 million or more," Bankman-Fried told Axios. "I don't know for sure whether that ultimately happened."

Go deeper: Read the rest of this story and more from Axios' Bankman-Fried interview in Axios Pro's Fintech Deals newsletter.

On Tap

• AWS re:Invent continues in Las Vegas.
• Salesforce and Snowflake report earnings after the markets close.
• Today's New York Times' DealBook Summit includes interviews with the CEOs of Meta, Amazon and TikTok.

Trading Places

• Arm is adding former Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs to its board of directors, along with Rosemary Schooler, a former Intel data center executive. The moves come as Arm has sued Qualcomm and is also seeking to grab more data center business away from Intel.

ICYMI

• Yahoo has inked a long-term deal with Taboola, taking a stake in that company, as it seeks to grow its core finance and sports franchises. (Axios)

For those excited for the upcoming Super Mario Bros. movie, here is a new trailer.