Now this is just plain cool.

Tired of waiting for Apple or Dell or Sony to put out a killer-app tablet that won’t break the bank, tech site TechCrunch.com took the initiative to make it happen on their own. The result is the CrunchPad, and despite all odds, it actually seems to be happening.

TechCrunch’s idea is simple: create a very thin, light touch screen device that has no hard drive and exists solely to surf the web. Upon investigating, TC’s Michael Arrington discovered that such a gadget could be constructed for less than $250, and sold for less than $300.

They’ve been prototyping the thing for more than a year, and it’s getting closer and closer to actual production. The customer for this thing is envisioned as someone who wants to surf the web, read email, watch online videos, and video chat. It’s a bare-bones device not intended for data entry, with just one USB port, a built-in camera, speakers, microphone, and a 12+ inch screen. The OS they’re using is Linux-based, with a Webkit-based browser.

The prototype is darn purdy and looks like something I’d love to have. And at less than $300, it’s seems like the perfect device for anyone who wants to surf the web on the couch for pleasure, without the need for a leg-burning full laptop. I can’t wait to see more of the CrunchPad! Here’s hoping it actually goes into production.

Image: Copyright 2009 ©TechCrunch.

Was it a case of bad planning, low expectations or just a complete oversight? Did anyone think about how popular Microsoft’s Photosynth application from Microsoft Live Labs was actually going to be?

When I talked about Photosynth back in May I barely gave it any thought at all.

Perhaps the most famous of them is the Photosynth application. This takes a collection of images from the same place and stitches them together into a sort of 3D virtual image of the location.

I thought the technology itself sounded like it would be interesting, but I didn’t really think it would gain much traction with users. Which brings us back to the original question, what was the deal with Microsoft being prepared for the launch.

The Photosynth examples on the website sure make the technology look pretty good. I can imagine this becoming really popular in an organized fashion. I’m thinking of realtors that would use it for virtual house tours and tourist destinations and buildings.

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I was working on a blog post the other day about whether or not the Google Toolbar was a trojan horse for online advertising targeting. I was referencing a post on TechCrunch that talked about it and in their post they had a video of Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer talking about the issue.

The video was labeled as being from the Washington Post. When I tried to paste the embed code into my post in Windows Live Writer, Internet Explorer tried to keep opening new IE windows one right after another.

I have no idea what was happening or why, but my question is how do you recover from an impending crash that you know is about to happen? I tried to open Task Manager and start ending the tasks manually but they were starting new ones faster than I could kill the applications. It was the same case for trying to kill the processes as well. I knew it was coming. How do you stop it? I couldn’t even get to my other open programs to try and save items before it happened.

Anyone with an idea of what occurred let me know so I can try and avoid it in the future. Was it a problem with IE? Was it a problem with Windows Live Writer? Was it a problem with the embedded code itself trying to do something?

If you don’t know the answers to that but know how to escape from an impending crash quickly please let me know.

What’s changed?

TechCrunch is reporting that Google and Yahoo are announcing a search partnership today at 1:30pm.

Update: everything I’m hearing says that the companies will be announcing a search partnership of some sort at 1:30. Since we’re talking about public companies here, I want to stress that this has not been confirmed by either Yahoo or Google at this point.

It wasn’t long ago that I wrote about Yahoo! managers not wanting a Google partnership. Do they now want one because Microsoft isn’t interested anymore and they think that’s all they’ve got now?

I just can’t imagine this not being considered a monopoly if they consider other things Microsoft does is a monopoly.

What do you think?

Google/Yahoo Search Partnership Announcement At 1:30 This Afternoon