Motorola's Xoom tablet will be the first built around the honeycomb release of AndroidGoogle has unveiled an operating system for tablet computers aimed at ramping up the competition with Apple's iPad.
More than 15 million iPads have been sold since Apple launched the gadget in 2010.
The latest version of Google's Android OS is called Honeycomb and it has been specifically optimised for tablets.
The features include the ability to buy applications from a computer, buy features inside the app, video chat and improved graphics.
"This is a serious investment of years of design and engineering to really nail the experience for a larger screen," Hugo Barra, Google's director of products for mobile, told BBC News.
"This is not a large phone - we wanted tablets running Honeycomb to not just be bigger but also to be better."
Motorola will be the first to bring a product running Honeycomb to market. Its Xoom device is due to go on sale this month, although a release date and price have not yet been revealed.
"Honeycomb brings Google closer to parity with Apple and underlines the battle between these two titans," said Ben Parr, co-editor of technology news site Mashable.
"Google has its strengths especially in the cloud, with their open source platform and integration with other Google products like Gmail and Google docs," he said. "But Apple has the design edge and a vast number of apps as well as a new iPad expected in the next couple of months."
Google's announcement of a web-based version of the Android market is one that is seen as long overdue
