Obama gives his first iPad autograph

London: US President Barack Obama has given his first ever autograph on iPad, a tablet computer, which he had earlier denounced as a "distraction".
     
Obama, who once said he had no clue how to work an iPad, seemed to have brushed up on his technological know-how when he agreed to give his "iSign" to a fan named Sylvester Cann during a political rally.
    
While others in the crowd settled for a pen and paper, or just a simple handshake, Sylvester Cann held out his iPad bearing a handwritten message: "Mr President, sign my iPad", the Telegraph reported.
    
A scowling bodyguard shook his head at Cann and told him "No". "But the president smiled and stepped closer, touching his fingertip to the screen and scrawling his signature obligingly," the report said.
    
"Secret Service was leery about the idea, but they got over it and the president thought it was cool," said Cann, who is a legislative aide to Democratic state congressman Scott White, and a self-described "big technology guy".
    
"This has to be the first time an iPad has received a presidential autograph," he added.
    
Obama's technological breakthrough moment came at the University of Washington in Seattle, a day after he met with the iPad's creator, Steve Jobs, chief executive of Apple.
    
In May, the President bemoaned iPads and other computer gadgetry during a critique of modern media, telling students at Hampton University in Virginia: "With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations-none of which I know how to work-information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment."