Google I/O unveils Nexus 7 tablet (VIDEO)

Google announced the Nexus 7 tablet at its annual I/O conference on Wednesday, according to CBS News.

Rumors had been circulating around the tablet, and details emerged on Wednesday. It will be a 7-inch tablet powered by an Nvidia Tegra 3 quad-core processor which runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, according to MSNBC.

The tablet will come in two versions, an 8GB which costs $199 and a 16GB version which costs $249. The iPad, in comparison, starts at $499.

The Nexus 7 will help Google compete with Apple and Microsoft in the market for tablets, said Bloomberg.

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The tablet weighs only 340 grams and will include a 1,280×800 display, dual webcams, and WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity, according to The Huffington Post. It boasts a battery life of 9 hours with HD video playback and up to 300 hours on standby.

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BBC reported that the device is made by the Taiwanese company Asus, rather than Google's Motorola hardware unit which it acquired last month.

The tablets were already available in Australia, Canada, Britain, and the United States at Google Play, according to Agence France Presse.

The Nexus 7 will be shipped in mid-July, competing directly with Amazon's Kindle Fire which is releasing around the same time, said the BBC.

Last week, Microsoft unveiled its Surface tablet, priced comparably to the iPad. The iPad will account for 62 percent of the world's tablets this year, according to IDC estimates, compared to 36 percent for Android, said CNN Money.

Here is a video from Google, unveiling the Nexus 7: