The program is still in beta, but allows EC2 users to launch “official” images of the operating system created by Canonical (the makers of Ubuntu) running within minutes for use on Amazon’s EC2 cloud computing platform. More here

Before, one was either on their own to create their Ubuntu AMIs or rely upon someone in the community to open their AMI’s to the public to be launched. Canonical has also said it will maintain security patches on the AMIs so a freshly launch image will be fully patched as well.