Google is working on a Nexus tablet to be released by mid-2012 in a bid to challenge Apple’s iPad.
Google’s chairman Eric Schimdt told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that the company would be releasing a "high quality" tablet within six months.
He announced his company’s intention to continue the "brutal competition" with Apple in the mobile communications market.
Commenting on Apple’s Siri, he mentioned that Google has the technology to produce something on similar lines.
Google is itself becoming a major hardware manufacturer with its $12.5bn acquisition of Motorola’s devices division, currently under consideration of competition authorities.
Schmidt also paid tribute to Apple co-founder Steve Jobs’ role in kickstarting the tablet market and described the iPad as "amazing". He called Steve Jobs "the Michelangelo of our time."
