In a recent episode of the Gilmore Gang, which is a weekly podcast about technology with Arrington and other tech geeks, he stated that we will hear something shortly and that costs are actually coming down. He says:

The CrunchPad is great actually. It’s actually steam rolling along, everything is good. That stuff about costing was too high, I don’t know where it came from. Actually costs keep coming down. We’ve been working entirely on the software for the last month trying to make it perfect to get it to market. Should be good news on that shortly.

He also says it’s going to sell from “somewhere between 300 to 400 dollars” and the cost remains “in the high 200s, sort of all in”.

In addition, something we didn’t know before, Arrington says there will be some software revenue on the device such as sponsorships “without impacting the user experience” and of these avenues will include revenue from the search bar similar to how Firefox makes money.

It’s now November, the promised month for its release. We hope the price will be at the lower end of the range, but I have a feeling it’s at $350-375.

Arrington comes on at 38:50.

From GottaBeMobile.com

Last night the ceremony for the 2009 Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Awards was held. The day before, CrunchPad was one of the 10 Most Brilliant Products of 2009. Except the CrunchPad doesn’t exist yet and there were no representatives at the awards ceremony.

In the first post by Michael Arrington that talks about the CrunchPad since announcing the launch prototype in June,  he strikes a similarity between him and Barack Obama. Both are capable of “winning of an award based on nothing but an incredible ability to manipulate the press,” Arrington says.

Popular Mechanics has listed the CrunchPad as one of the 10 most brilliant products of 2009. I guess they assumed it will be unveiled before the year end, which is very likely. This announcement will be also be in the print version of the magazine which has a circulation of 1.2 million. Surely Big M might need to adjust his marketing budget for the year. Another geeky product on the list worth mentioning is the Palm Pre.

From @parthabha.

This time the story goes that a team from eSarcasm couldn’t wait till they laid their hands on a CrunchPad. So they dressed up as cleaning ladies and broke into the TechCrunch office to find that the tablet is actually a color Etch A Sketch with a TV antenna on top. Among the discoveries was also a marketing document that stated the device should be available in February at a cost of $1200. If you want an internet connection, you will have to pay extra for a premium 56K modem, the documents revealed.

This is not the first time eSarcasm has practiced its journalistic excellence. Last July they also revealed that the CrunchPad will sport AutoRumor and AlwaysRight technology which are being developed by FusionGarage in order to “emulate the true experience of reading the TechCrunch site.”

Around the same time, UK publisher The Register also wanted to be a publisher turned hardware developer like TechCrunch. So they introduced the RegPad which will come with a biscuit dispenser.

A few weeks later, Alley Insider decided this was getting very competitive. So they launched their own AlleyPad which is a yellow notepad that has unlimited battery life and does not require a wireless signal.

Editor-in-Chief John Biggs of CrunchGear confirmed that the delay of the CrunchPad is attributed to bugs on the device. That’s not too surprising, we’ve pretty much figured that out by now.

The most surprising element of the post, titled “The coming tablet wars”,  is the following from Biggs:

Expect the CrunchPad to be a excellent device for blogging – that’s what Mike made it for – and for web apps. Don’t expect much in the way of media.

Looks like he’s spending too much time writing on CrunchGear and not enough time reading TechCrunch. Back in April when pictures of the second last prototype were released, Michael Arrington said the exact opposite:

The key uses: Internet consumption. The virtual keyboard will make data entry a pain other than for entering credentials, quick searches and maybe light emails. This machine isn’t for data entry. But it is for reading emails and the news, watching videos on Hulu, YouTube, etc., listening to streaming music on MySpace Music and imeem, and doing video chat via tokbox.

Maybe the goal and the target market for the CrunchPad have changed since developers realized they won’t be able to design a 12″ media device for $300. Or maybe Biggs, a gadget enthusiast, has high expectations in terms of HD video output and HDMI jacks.

One thing is certain: you can’t expect a tablet to be your blogging device of choice.  Not only is it touchscreen which most people hate typing on for extended periods of time, but the form factor doesn’t allow you to type on it for a while since you’ll be holding it with two hands. Try doing that for 30 minutes for a blog post.

Rumor has it that a CrunchPad announcement tonight maybe be brewing. Nick Denton, founder of Gawker Media which owns Gizmodo, said in a tweet that tonight at the Gizmodo Gallery there should be “Big gadget news. Not sneak peek of Apple Tablet. But next best thing.” Gizmodo Gallery is a NYC event started in late 2008 to basically showcase dozens of gadgets to the public. It starts today and runs until Sunday. Except here’s the cool thing which makes the announcement much more likely: today is “Media Day” and only invited individuals can attend. Gawker.com, a sister site, also says that will be “killed very badly” if they reveal anything about the product that’s supposed to be a “Bombshell”.

30 more minutes!

Update: It was the Microsoft Courier booklet. Not at the gallery, just a blog post by Gizmodo.

Today was the TechCrunch50 conference, an annual event that allows 50 technology start-ups to showcase their new products to 1500 attendees that included venture capitalists, corporate buyers, and credentialed press.

A few fans thought this would definitely be an ideal venue for a CrunchPad announcement from Michael Arrington. There’s been a significant amount of frustration around the interwebs against Big M because of broken promises. The first of which related to a press event that was supposed to be held in July. He told the San Francisco Business Times the same thing. That didn’t happen but we gave him some leeway when he told the New York Times that an announcement will be made in the beginning of August. Time passed as if there were no fans, and not even a peep had come out about the CrunchPad.

But lets be fair. Chandra Rathakrishnan, CEO of FusionGarage, spoke to the Straits Times on July 31 and said that the CrunchPad should be released this November. We will wait and shall name the month Black November if the CrunchPad is not released then.

For more than a month, the domain name was redirected to an Engadget piece, “CrunchPad coming in November with built-in 3G connectivity, says Straits Times.” This will confirm that a 3G enabled CrunchPad will be available in November, for sure.

And before the redirect to that article, it was pointing towards a CrunchGear post named “CrunchPad prototype coming this month, be available ASAP,” but since then there has been no sign of the launch prototype. When I spoke to Tan Weizhen of Singapore’s Straits Times, he was not allowed to to view the aluminum launch prototype (which is what will be released), only the older plastic units.

Why these redirects? Maybe a marketing gimmick to allow people who type in CrunchPad.com to get at least something in their faces in this time of dire need.

Nik Cubrilovic, the current CTO of TechCrunch and founder of TechCrunchIT and a series of technology start-ups, is working alongside FusionGarage on the CrunchPad, Asian technology community e27 reports.

Cubrilovic was the CEO of Omnidrive, an online storage service  founded in 2005 that competes with the likes of Box.net. In 2008, it entered the deadpool, probably due to the increasingly crowded online storage space. Phil Morle, the ex-CTO of that company quit after 5 months because he mentioned he was never paid.

Another CEO of a deadpool was reported to have been recruited by CrunchPad Inc, though that rumor was denied. But having that history does not necessarily say anything about the person’s competence.

From Scoble.

Initially envisioned to be a “dead simple” tablet for $200, the price had seesawed between $200 and $300 for a while, until Chandra Rathakrishnan, CEO of FusionGarage,  was interviewed by the Straits Times where it mentioned that the price is “not confirmed yet, though it is likely to be in the range of US$399 (S$575).”

This is obviously just a guesstimate of the journalist at hand and I have contacted him to figure this out (Update: Tan Weizhen says this wasn’t a guesstimate, but was from the source which is unnamed of course). The blogoshpere exploded when the $400 price was mentioned, yet it would help if some merit were attached to it.

In other news, Arrington has not kept his promise of holding a press event in July. In the Straits Times article, Chandra mentioned that it will be available around November.