TechBytes: iPad Arrives

Jan. 28, 2010— -- Apple has finally unveiled its highly anticipated tablet computer, dubbed the iPad. At the press conference in San Francisco, CEO Steve Jobs described it as "so much more intimate than a laptop and so much more capable than a smart phone." The device has a 9.7 inch touchscreen, is half an inch thick and weighs 1.5 pounds. Apple's hoping it will revolutionize the way people surf the Web, play games, watch videos and read books, among other things.

"It's certainly a beautiful machine, what you expect out of Apple. It's very slick, and there's a lot you can do," said USA Today's Ed Baig. "It's definitely a shot at Amazon's Kindle. And with color and video, it's a lot slicker than the Amazon device."

One knock against the device is that it doesn't have a camera. Leander Kahney, author of "Inside Steve's Brain," has one theory about why the camera was left out.

"If you have this thing sitting in your lap, you've got a camera starring up underneath your chin and that's not flattering. I mean that gives everyone a double chin, that's not a good way to look at somebody," Kahney said. "And so [for] video-conferencing, they'd have to hold the thing up vertically. No one wants to do that. It's not a good way to use this thing."

The iPad goes on sale in two months. It starts at $499, and goes up to $829, depending on how much memory you get and whether it can connect to AT&T's network.

Twitter is rolling out a new feature that lets users check out hot trends in certain cities. The feature is limited to 15 U.S. cities for now, but is expected to grow.

New numbers show a sharp drop in recent years of British kids getting injured from outdoor activities like climbing trees and skateboarding. That's not necessarily good news. The decline seems to be a result of kids spending more time inside playing video games. And that's not as safe as it seems. The number of repetitive strain injuries from pressing all those buttons is soaring.