Crunchpad reborn as JooJoo

The Crunchpad survives, but with a different identity

The Crunchpad is probably one of those rare gadgets that were anticipated eagerly but faded away. It was supposed to come out on Nov 17^th but then a post which was made by Michael Arrington (CEO of TechCrunch, the man behind the idea of the Crunchpad) recently declares that the internet device will never see the light of day. After about a year and a half of hard work and millions of dollars spent on R&D the Crunchpad project had finally come to a bitter end. Or has it?

Yesterday morning Fusion Garage, the partner in crime with Techcrunch on the Crunchpad project, announced its plans of releasing the Linux-based Web browsing tablet on its own. Techcrunch founder Michael Arrington mentioned in his blog that Techcrunch is no longer associated with the project. But the Crunchpad will come out as JooJoo.

Fusion Garage CEO Chandra Rathakrishnan revealed the specs of the upcoming gadget that is only a web-browsing device. The JooJoo will sport a 12.1-inch capacitive touch screen, very limited local storage only for caching data, will have Wi-Fi but no cellular connectivity, and will boot directly to the browser in nine seconds, like the Chrome OS - as promised. It is said to have five hours of battery life and weigh less than 2.5 pounds. There are no physical buttons other than the power switch, and black is the only color option. The operating system/browser, written by Fusion Garage, will be capable of displaying full HD video on the device.

The JooJoo is supposed to compete against Chrome OS, and Rathakrishnan is quite confident that his baby can take on Google. He believes the Crunchpad form-factor is more ideal for the purpose both are supposed to be used, and JooJoo will have a one year head-start as it is going in production right now.

Cnet reports of Rathakrishnan as stating a rift between his company Fusion Garage and Michael Arrington of Techcrunch, which they both described differently. Rathakrishnan says that they had agreed to be partners in inventing Crunchpad in the condition that Michael would arrange funds. But he never could do that, and at last when Fusion gathered the required funds, they started working on the system. Michael, on the other hand, accuses Rathakrishnan of cheating on him by taking away the intellectual rights stating a situation where the shareholders did not want Techcrunch to be a part of the project.

Whosever fault is it is not my interest. My interest is that afterall the Techcrunch aka JooJoo should see the light, but a staggering price tag of over $400 might set many consumers back.