The JooJoo tablet PC which caught the attention of the world after its developers, Fusion Garage suddenly dumped Mike Arrington’s CrunchPad project is back in the news again as the company has announced that, it will be shipping the product this month.

After the launch of the JooJoo tablet, there seemed to an endless row of accusations from the founder of  TechCrunch, Mike Arrington stating that the CEO of Fusion Garage, Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan had overtly deceived TechCrunch by edging out Mr. Arrington and convincing the investors to releases the product under the flag ship of Fusion garage. The JooJoo was available on pre-order in the month of December last month, with a price tag of $499 and as per the CEO himself, the device will reach the consumers by the end of February 2010.

The launch of the Apple iPad tablet PC is surely going to make the JooJoo endeavor that much harder to succeed, however, Chandrasekar is fairly optimistic that the device will do well in the market, due to its bigger screen size and a faster loading time. Since the announcement of the iPad, the pre-orders of the JooJoo have seen a significant rise and as per Mr. Rathakrishnan, Fusion Garage is currently in talks with an unnamed mobile phone company in the Southeast Asia, that could also help in covering the manufacturing cost of JooJoo.

Via SG Entrepreneurs

Last month, we saw the death of TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington’s dream machine, Crunchpad when the manufacturers of the device, Fusion Garage suddenly pulled away from the project and left it dead in the water.

Now the same firm has introduced the all new avatar of Crunchpad, in the form of the all new JooJoo, a tablet device that has made heads turn, since the bombshell dropped by Fusion Garage CEO, Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan when he announced his company’s decision to apart its ways from the Crunchpad project.

The all new JooJoo will be available for $499 a piece with a 13 inch touch sensitive screen offering a 1366×768-pixel resolution. As a standard mobile platform, the JooJoo will sport a camera, mic, and speakers, one USB port along with a card slot. However, the processors that powers JooJoo seems to be a closely guarded secret by Fusion Garage. The all new tablet from Fusion Garage is said to be operable with a wifi connection and boasts of a really fast boot up sequence of nine seconds. JooJoo has also been designed to be able to playback video files. Although the new tablet is a mobile device, still its developers have provided JooJoo with an optional stand and a USB keyboard for ease of use.

Via Cnet & JooJoo.

The much talked about Tablet, CrunchPad, that was the brainchild of the Michael Arrington of TechCrunch, it seems became a major failure even before starting its journey towards the success ladder. The manufacturing firm that was given the task to make this device has reportedly backed off the deal and has informed TechCrunch that, they no longer be associated with the project.

Apparently, Fusion Garage, the firm tasked with the manufacturing of the CrunchPad was overwhelmed by share holders’ pressure to part their ways from the project and just before the planned mass production and sales, Fusion Garage announced its separation from the project. In an internal e-mail sent by the companies, CEO, Chandra Rathakrishnan the share holders had stated,

“We still acknowledge that Arrington and TechCrunch bring some value to your business endeavor…If he agrees to our terms, we would have Arrington assume the role of visionary/evangelist/marketing head and Fusion Garage would acquire the rights to use the Crunchpad brand and name. Personally, I don’t think the name is all that important but you seem to be somewhat attached to the name.”

The Crunchpad project was led TechCrunch’s Brian Kindle in collaboration with the engineering team of Fusion Garage and the intellectual property of CrunchPad was jointly shared by TechCrunch and Fusion Garage and the development expenses were also shared by both the companies.

Via Engadget.

Known as the CrunchPad, it has been Mr. Arrington’s vision of a tablet device that could be used for internet surfing, Instead of the bulky laptops and desktop computers. According to recent reports, Michael formed a separate company called ‘CrunchPad’, to fulfill his dream. Michael has been working on his project for the last one year and now, news has arrived that the all new Tablet web surfer will be up for sale as soon as possible. Michael Arrington is expected to unveil his all new gadget in the month of August this year.

The CrunchPad is powered by Intel Atom processor and designed solely for browsing purposes. Due to the absence of a hard drive, downloading content onto the tablet becomes impossible. Although the tablet browser doesn’t come with a keyboard, yet there is support for USB keyboards. For the purposes of browsing, CrunchPad supports Flash, with a 12 inch screen and by all means seems to be an excellent tool for browsing the internet.

According to Michael Arrington,

“We’re going to make some really big announcements. We’re full on. These prototypes are real.”

The CunchPad tablet internet browser is expected to hits market at retail price of $300 a piece, that when compared to a notebook designed for the web, sounds incredibly reasonable and worth spending $300.

Via Gizmodo & New York Times