New tablet is ‘kid safe’

NEW YORK, United States of America – As the tablet wars heat up, Toys R Us on Monday, September 10, announced that it was launching its rival to the market-leading iPad, with “kid safe” content.

The device called “tabeo” will be available from October 21, at a cost of US$150.

The 7-inch tablet using Wi-Fi and running on the Android operating system includes 50 free, pre-installed apps designed for children.

“Over the past year, we’ve spent considerable time talking to parents and children to determine what features and functions they really want in a kids’ tablet, resulting in tabeo,” said Troy Peterson, vice president at Toys R Us.

“We are proud that tabeo offers robust and flexible parental controls that can help protect children as they surf the Internet, and we are pleased to offer the tabeo App Store, that features only kid-safe content carefully curated by the Toys R Us team.”

The device has preloaded a number of books, educational programs and games.

Apple’s iPad has about two-thirds of the global market for tablets, and the company is expected to introduce a smaller version of it later this year.

Amazon, that introduced 3 new versions of its Kindle Fire last week, claimed to have 22% of the US market.

Microsoft is launching its Surface tablet in October, and a variety of others on the market use the Google Android operating system. – Agence France-Presse