It's actually interesting to see that, sometimes, covering the latest developments in the consumer electronics and IT industry can lead to people coming with their own concepts regarding such products. However, one of the few people who have managed to transform such an idea into... well, almost a reality is Michael Arrington from TechCrunch, who, together with a team of hardware and software developers, plans to launch an Internet browsing tablet at some point in the near future.

Called the CrunchPad, this device will presumably allow users to carry out pretty much any type of browser-related activity, whether we're talking about writing e-mails, visiting social networking sites, viewing flash-based videos, etc. Although this might have looked like a crazy initiative at first, the Prototype B of this thing is already out, partly due to the fact that the project now has a very capable manager, Louis Monier, of former AltaVista, eBay, Google and Cuil glory.

The CrunchPad Prototype B comes equipped with a 12-inch touchscreen (4:3 aspect ratio, 1024 x 768 pixel resolution) and is powered by a Via Nano processor, accompanied by 1GB of RAM memory and a 4GB Flash memory module. Other components worth mentioning are a built-in Wi-Fi module, an accelerometer, a webcamera, as well as a four-cell, rechargeable Li-Ion battery.

The case (which has been designed by David Yarnell and Greg Lalier from Dynacept) is actually a bit bulkier than your average e-book reader, for example, as it measures somewhere around 12.5 x 9.7 x 1.3 inches. Michael Arrington explains that they decided to make it a bit larger in order to stuff it with additional batteries, as well as prevent any heat-related issue.

As far as the software platform is concerned, the CrunchPad Prototype B runs on Ubuntu Linux, accompanied by a custom Webkit browser. For typing, it uses a virtual keyboard application developed by the Singapore-based Fusion Garage company.

The project is still a long way from becoming reality, but given the fact that the hardware issues have been almost completely solved and there are several people currently working solely on this project, we might see this device come to life sooner or later. Of course, it remains to be seen just how many of TechCrunch's readers will actually cough up $300 for the CrunchPad, since that's the estimated retail price at this point.




 
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