Posts tagged as:

CrunchPad

Bad Joojoo – You’ve Been InterServed! CrunchPad v Fusion Garage

by Jay Garrett on December 12, 2009

joojooI guessed that after Fusion Garage dismissed Michael Arrington’s and TechCrunch’s involvement with the Crunchpad as being merely another blog on the release of the rebranded tablet, JooJoo, that the sound of lawyers preparing paperwork could be heard in the distance.

As sure as eggs are eggs the document INTERSERVE doing business as TECHCRUNCH and CRUNCHPAD INC versus FUSION GARAGE LTD has been filed.

According to Arrington, much of the key intellectual property – including the board and much of the mechanicals – is owned by Pegatron, the manufacturing arm of Asus.



”Pegatron was licensing this IP (intellectual property) back to the project exclusively. Fusion Garage is no longer working with Pegatron, they’ve hired a new ODM. They have likely given Pegatron’s IP to the new ODM to speed development. Pegatron has expressed concern to us about this, and I would not be surprised if they sued Fusion Garage separately over this issue,” claimed Arrington.

Unsurprisingly, Fusion Garage CEO Chandrasekar “Chandra” Rathakrishnan vehemently disagreed with Arrington’s claims.

“The JooJoo tablet – including the hardware and UI – was built and designed by Fusion Garage. We have been working on [this device] since February 2008,” Chandra told TG Daily. “Remember, TechCrunch originally wanted to acquire Fusion Garage, but that didn’t happen. [It is also worth noting] that [Arrington's] original [CrunchPad] price point of $200 was utterly unrealistic. In fact, it was little more than a hallucination.” 


My only word of advice would be to hang on before preording the Joojoo for the $500 deposit – I know it’s nice and been a long time in coming as the CrunchPad but if Arrington’s lawsuit is true regarding the lack of Fusion Garage’s sound capital resource then this could end up being a long wait and could involve you kissing your cash goodbye.

I for one will be waiting to see it fully reviewed and perhaps even sat on my desk at Gadgety Towers before advising you to splash some cash ;)

Check out the Civil Cover Sheet below if you love litigation ;)


SF-38-303-C2_20091210160410_00000001 –

{ 1 comment }

Crunchpad Released as Joojoo – Fusion Garage Dismiss Techcrunch as “Just a blog”

by Jay Garrett on December 8, 2009

JooJoo CrunchpadThere’s been a lot of “it’s on” and then “it’s off” articles regarding the fate of the fabled Crunchpad.

Unlike a lot of my fellow bloggers, I have resisted in reporting on every twisty-turny-onny-offy rumour about Michael Arrington’s much-hyped internet tablet.

But, as this talked-about tablet has just been unveiled at a press conference by developers Fusion Garage I thoughy it was time to join in the fray.

The CrunchPad is now named JooJoo and will go on sale for $400 this Friday, December 11.

Fusion Garage’s CEO, Chandra Rathakrishnan, says that the Joojoo is not a tablet PC – Huh?

The reason for that is that, yes, it does have a tablet form factor but it boots straight into the internet browser and will not run apps.

Joojoo will only come in black with a 12.1 inch capacitive touchscreen.

It will be packing a 4GB solid-state drive and local cache which means that Joojoo will be able to remember your stuff, you know, like user names and passwords.

You’ll notice that upon its sleek body there is just one button, for power. There does seem to be an SD card slot and a USB socket though.

Of course, the Joojoo is fitted with an accelerometer so it will be able to rotate its screen and perhaps even handle a little gaming.

Fusion Garage also says it will have enough graphics power to deliver HD video as well as delivering up to 5 hours of battery life per charge.

Joojoo won’t have 3G though as there’s nowhere to shove a SIM (boooo!) so it will have to rely on WiFi.

Fusion Garage will be demoing Joojoo this week and says it has resources to meet “significant demand” with $3m dollars in funding already and another round of investment just completed. It denies deals were completed with Mike Arrington or Techcrunch.

Asked if Techcrunch had even contributed to the device’s marketing, Rathakrishnan was dismissive: “It depends what you define as marketing. Michael has helped us talk about what the tablet can do but so have many others. We can take this to market without Techcrunch…Techcrunch is just a blog.”

Hmmmmmmmm……….. I wonder what a certain Mr Arrington has to say to that ;)

What do you think?

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

{ 1 comment }

CrunchPad Tablet Confusion – Old Version Seen in ‘Unboxing Vid’

June 15, 2009 Click to read more →
Thumbnail image for CrunchPad Tablet Confusion – Old Version Seen in ‘Unboxing Vid’

The Twitterverse tweeted the ‘breaking news’, a Youtube video of the CrunchPad prototype unboxing has been spotted and all kinds of folk got excited – including Gizmodo.
Loic Le Meur, the Seesmic.com founder who has close ties with Michael Arrington, posted the video of what appeared to be the earlier prototype which came in red plastic shown [...]