Crunchpad Renamed JooJoo, Available For Pre-Order This Week

By now everyone is aware of the epic fail that was the Crunchpad. An almost-great American story of loose vision turned marketable reality, Michael Arrington’s baby was reported dead across the blogosphere last week.

Arrington, the TechCrunch editor, envisioned creating a simple Web tablet, known as the CrunchPad, and then commissioned manufacturer Fusion Garage to build it. The device was supposed to welcome in the holiday season with a Black Friday kick-off, but instead we got word that it would never come to market. According to Arrington, Fusion Garage had decided to build and sell the device itself, essentially cutting his team out. Since his side owned half the rights, it looked like the tablet would never see daylight.

Responding to the accusations, Fusion Garage CEO Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan held a video conference today to present his company’s side of the story–a side that boiled down to Arrington acting negligently and endangering the market success of the tablet, while Fusion Garage worked behind the scenes to make the device a reality.

That’s the he said/he said back story that we don’t care that much about, but had to include to frame the story. The more interesting part of Rathakrishnan’s video address is that Fusion Garage has renamed the device JooJoo and will be launching it next week. The device which runs exclusively on Wi Fi and includes a 12.1-inch touchscreen, HD video playback, fast, direct-to-Internet booting and e-reading capabilities will cost $499. Good luck with that.

For now, it appears Arrington will be relegated to sitting the sidelines as his dream (or an unsavory version of it) unfolds. We’ll see what happens next. [via VentureBeat]