Fusion Garage rolls out JooJoo touch screen tablet

Following the very public fallout between TechCrunch's Michael Arrington and Singapore-based Fusion Garage over a tablet PC, Fusion Garage revealed its side of the story and unveiled its tablet device.

Last Monday, Arrington of TechCrunch, made the declaration of the end of CrunchPad and claimed that they will file litigation against Fusion Garage.

Chandrasekar Chandra Rathakrishnan, the chief executive of Fusion Garage, said in a web conference on Monday that back in early 2008, his company was developing a browser-based OS independently of TechCrunch when he first read Arrington's first post on the idea.

At TechCrunch50 in September 2008, Chandra introduced himself to Michael and that was when two began to discuss plans for the CrunchPad.

Michael made many promises suggesting he will deliver on hardware, software and funding, none of which came true. We had to move on, Chandra said.

Chandra added that Despite what is written, there has been no legal case that has been filed today. We own the intellectual property, and we will defend it.

During the web conference, Chandra unveiled the JooJoo, a 12.1-inch capacitor touch-screen tablet capable of booting up in nine seconds.

[Fusion Garage] did the hardware. We had made the software. And we had secured the funding. Michael did not deliver on his promises, and we decided to move on our own.

JooJoo, an African term that means magical, is designed to let users wirelessly browse the Internet. It has only one button, the power switch, leaving users to navigate using their fingers, much like the iPhone.

Everything on this ultra-portable device is done by touch. It is built from the ground up and offers a revolutionary UI without preloaded apps. It offers support for slide gestures, scrolling, e-books, digital newspapers and music [playback], Chandra said.

JooJoo will go on sale this Friday for $499. The site is already taking pre-orders.