Fusion Garage, who hosted a press event this morning, announced the future release of the JooJoo internet tablet — formerly known as the CrunchPad. JooJoo will sell for $499 and begin shipping in the next eight to ten weeks (JooJoo, by the way, is spin-off the African word “joujou,” which means magical device.). Highlights of the device include: a 12.1-inch capacitive touchscreen (1366 x 768 – HD capable), a total weight of less than 2.5lbs, 5 hour battery life, 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor, 1GB of RAM, 4GB SSD to run its custom OS from, front-facing 1.3MP webcam, built-in speakers, accelerometer, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi (no 3G), and a nine second boot up time. Complete details will be revealed on December 11th. MORE »

Terrible news today. Michael Arrington posted on TechCrunch that the CrunchPad Internet Tablet is DEAD. The product’s demise is due to a falling out over IP rights and equity stakes with their hardware development partner, Fusion Garage. It’s all a big shame, really, since the CrunchPad, we’re now learning had a 12-inch capacitive touchscreen and would be able to run Chrome OS and Windows 7, was set to debut on November 20th of the this month and begin taking pre-orders. MORE »

Nearing its official introduction in July, TechCrunch has published new computer renderings of what the finalized CrunchPad will look like. I agree with Michael Arrington that the launch prototype looks better than the original concept design. The new enclosure looks sleeker and it’s now said to be made of aluminium instead of plastic. Another nice touch is that the screen is now flush with the case making it 18mm thinner than the last prototype we’ve seen. Below is a video from April demonstrating the UI in action. What do you think? Will a $300 device like this makes its way into your home? MORE »

A funny thing happened today. TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington inadvertently gave his Facebook and Posterous followers a peek of what looks like the soon to be released CrunchPad. Unlike the prototype demo we all got to see back in January, this CrunchPad model looks like it’s ready to go to market (there’s even a packaging shot – shown here). Luckily for us, Gizmodo spotted and posted the no longer available pics of the web tablet for everyone to look over.

UPDATE 1: ArabCrunch has posted additional images. Seriously… this looks like it should be out soon.
UPDATE 2: CrunchGear posts an offical blog entry on the “early debut.”
UPDATE 3: TechCrunch is providing additional details about the pics and where the device stands.

It’s hard to believe that it was just about 7 months ago that Michael Arrington at TechCrunch proclaimed he wanted to see a no nonsense $200 “Touch” Web Tablet produced that booted directly to a browser and allowed him to check and respond to email, surf the web, watch flash-based video, and make VoIP calls (with video). The idea here was not to beg a popular CE manufacture to develop one (and wait see), but to create a device internally with the help of a dedicated team and input from the public. Well, folks… it looks like the CrunchPad, as it’s called internally, is seeing the light of day. MORE »