The darling of silicon valley and head blogger Michael Arrington, is venturing out into the hardware field. As I have previously reported Arrington has started a new company called Crucnhpad and is in the process of introducing his first prototype this month. His new Crunchpad will be a touch screen tablet device in which the user will be able to surf the web, do video chat and some light emailing.

According to an article over at the San Francisco Business Times, it states that:

“We’re going to make some really big announcements,” said Arrington, who predicted a prototype would be ready for unveiling by the end of July. “We’re full on. These prototypes are real.”

Arrington started work on the Crunchpad after meeting an expert in electronics manufacturing in China, and these days he estimates the project commands three-quarters of his time.

“There’s factories that just churn stuff out. It’s pretty simple,” said Arrington, who has incorporated a separate company called Crunchpad Inc. that has 14 employees in Singapore.

Whether selling the Crunchpad will be easy remains to be seen, but Arrington has already made it seem fairly straightforward to create a growing media empire.

Here is a sneak peek of what the CrunchPad will look like:

The device boots directly into the browser and is Linux based. The case will be made of aluminum and will be only 18mm thick, or should I say thin.

Comments welcome.

CrunchPad article on TechCrunch

SF Business Times story [please be aware you may need a paid account to view the entire story]