Posts tagged "Reveals"

FCC Teardown Reveals Lytro Camera Secrets

The Lytro camera got torn apart and photographed by the FCC. Image: Wireless Goodness

The Lytro camera isn’t an ordinary camera. Instead of pixels and megapixels, it focuses on capturing all the light rays of any given scene — 11 million rays of light to be exact. It’s a novel approach to image capture that allows the user to change the focus of a photo after the picture has been snapped. You can easily make a blurry foreground as sharp as a tack with a simple slider control.

Amazing stuff. But how does Lytro do it?

The Lytro camera was recently torn down by the FCC, which revealed its processor, sensor, and other innards. The teardown also sheds light on what sort of features we could expect from Lytro in the future.

For instance, one of the chips inside the Lytro is a Marvell Avastar 88W8787, which has Bluetooth and Wi-Fi capabilities. The Lytro doesn’t currently offer any sort of wireless syncing abilities, so perhaps a future software update will enable those features, allowing for wireless photo transfer or perhaps remote control of the device via Bluetooth.

The camera’s sensor is a curious piece of hardware, as well. It’s sized somewhere between the sensor of an average point-and-shoot and that of the iPhone 4S. It also takes up about one-fourth of the camera’s slim profile. On a typical camera, the bigger the sensor, the better.

The Lytro is what’s called a plenoptic camera. It captures all the light in the scene you’re photographing, and then using desktop software, you can adjust the focus from one person or area in the shot to another. From what we’ve seen, it works really well for shots that have a lot of depth, with various items of interest positioned at different distances from the camera lens. We’ve seen a cross-section of what’s going on inside the Lytro before, but this view didn’t reveal any of its specific components.

The camera also includes a Zoran ZR364246BGXX processor, and Samsung-branded flash memory for photo storage. The purpose of the Zoran chip isn’t clear, but these processors are typically used in cell phones and digital cameras, so perhaps it performs some image processing.

The small, rectangular Lytro camera should be shipping to consumers some time early this year. It’s currently available for pre-order for $400 for the 8GB model and $500 for a 16GB model.

A close-up look at Lytro's WiFi-capable Marvell chip. Image: Wireless Goodness

via TechCrunch

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Lark Wristband Reveals the Best Lifestyle Choices For a Good Night’s Sleep

The Lark wristband and its accompanying iPhone app. Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired

Julia Hu is a bubbly, 26-year-old Stanford alum and CEO of a Bay Area start-up. She’s got the passion and product pitch you’d expect from a practiced entrepreneur, but demonstrates a curious quirk you don’t find in a lot of CEOs: She seems well rested.

One would hope so. Hu is in charge of Lark, a silent alarm clock, sleep monitor, and personal sleep coach, all rolled into one. The device itself looks a bit like a watch ensconced inside a lightweight, breathable, perforated band. The band’s hardware interacts with an iPhone app, sharing your nightly sleep habits with the app via Bluetooth when you wake each day.

The Lark isn’t the first wearable device to track one’s sleep patterns, but the system adds a clever coaching element that other sleep trackers don’t include. It’s an important addition, as competing devices tend to smother the user in sleep data, but don’t provide many tools to make sense of the data in an actionable way.

Hu considers the Lark a member of a growing class of “appcessories,” physical devices that interact with mobile apps to provide useful information or enhanced entertainment. Some of these devices track things like heart health. Other trackers similar to the Lark — such as the Jawbone UP and Fitbit — monitor a user’s activity 24/7, from daytime exercise to nighttime slumber, using motion sensors.

The Lark employs what it calls a “micromotion sleep pattern sensor” and, like the Jawbone UP and Fitbit, uses a data-tracking method called actigraphy to measure one’s sleep stages at about 85 to 95 percent accuracy.

All these activity-monitoring devices can provide helpful data in the quest for a better night’s sleep. The conventional wisdom says that once we begin mapping sleep data against the lifestyle decisions we make during our wakeful hours — for example, how much coffee we consume and how hard we exercise — we can begin adjusting bad habits to improve our sleep.

And the same applies to monitoring one’s daytime activity, like how many potato chips we eat, and how many stairs we climb. Personal data analysis can identify potential problems before they get serious, and hopefully save time and money on doctor’s visits and pharmacy bills in the long run.

“What’s exciting about this new category of appcessories is that the hardware can stay the same, but the software is always innovating,” Hu says. In the past, she says, you “had to be a Sony,” anticipating your audience’s desires and delivering a flawless finished product to consumers from the get-go. However, “by having a mobile-connected product, your product can really solve needs so much better,” Hu says. “You can really listen to what the users want and build it for them as software and upgrade continuously.”

Julia Hu, CEO of Lark, proponent of healthy sleep habits. Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired

The Lark debuted in late June, but its app has been revised a number of times, adding greater utility to the system as a whole. In addition to tracking your sleep patterns and gently waking you up with a light vibration on your wrist, you can now provide the app with various data points to begin connecting the dots on which environmental factors affect your sleep.

For example, the Lark can enter the noise and brightness levels of your surroundings, or whether you had caffeine or alcohol before hitting the hay. When you wake up in the morning, you launch the app, and define how well rested you are. From there, Lark uses all its information to figure out what stimuli you should try to avoid.

Hu says the Lark system can also provide information as to why you may wake up in the middle of the night.

“A lot of people don’t realize it’s not always stress that infringes on sleep. It’s actually a little bit of a noise that wakes you up, then your brain can’t shut off,” Hu says. Women, in particular, are susceptible to this: High-pitched noises will wake them up, and leave them unable to get back to sleep.

Women also suffer more insomnia than men, Hu says, though men are far more likely to suffer from sleep apnea, waking up more times than they think they do during the night, and then not remembering the disturbances.

The latest version of the Lark app also includes a feature that was once limited to the $60 “pro” version of the software: an assessment to determine what type of sleeper you are based on the data and information you provide (Lu refers to the data as your “sleep hygiene”). The system pinpoints 12 different types of sleepers. Hu, for example, started out as a “rookie-erratic” sleeper when she first used the system.

It may sound like a gimmicky, Meyers-Briggs-esque personality assessment, but it lets the app provide you with personalized recommendations. Unfortunately, the assessment is an ongoing process, and the free app performs just one week of evaluation.

“I used to sleep at different times all throughout the night, and it gave me really fragmented sleep,” Hu says. She also had a hard time falling asleep. But by following the app’s coaching techniques, she says, she’s now progressed to a “rookie night lark.” A lark, like its avian namesake, wants to be early to bed, early to rise.

Hu still has trouble getting to sleep as early as her body would like, but at least she now falls asleep at a regular time each night. And the iPhone helps in this effort: If you try to stay up past your recommended bed time, the app will prompt you through push notifications to begin winding down.

“Until now, no one had a computer within three feet of themselves at all times,” Hu says of smartphones like the iPhone. “You can track real-time behavior and get feedback that happens the moment you’re making a decision. This allows for real behavior change.”

Notwithstanding a simple volume mute, of course.

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Apple Employee Meeting Reveals More Corporate Kindness From Tim Cook

Since assuming the role of CEO, Tim Cook has opened up charitable matching, and, as of Wednesday, a generous employee discount program. Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

With an employee headcount in excess of 45,000, Apple’s ability to manage news concerning its internal machinations sets a benchmark for corporate information control. It’s all described in fascinating detail in recent reporting from Fortune’s Adam Lashinsky.

Yesterday, however, CEO Tim Cook held an all-hands meeting for the work force, and a little bit of intel did seep out — and it’s good news that directly affects Apple employees.

9to5Mac reports that Cook announced an internal Apple discount program wherein employees will receive $500 off new Mac computers, and $250 off iPads. The report says the program will begin some time in June, and to qualify, employees must have 90 days’ tenure working for the company.

The employee discount program isn’t the first example of hardware generosity on Apple’s part. On June 28, 2007, Steve Jobs announced during an all-hands meeting that every employee with one year’s tenure would receive a new iPhone. It was an impressive gesture that Engadget estimated to cost Apple $12 million.

But it was also one of the few acts of overt, showy gifting that Jobs ever bestowed upon the work force, or even the world at large. Indeed, in the days following his death last October, a small but significant number of news outlets took Jobs to task for his apparent lack of interest in philanthropy, including the closure of Apple’s philanthropic efforts when he returned to the company in 1997.

Two recent gestures from Tim Cook, however, signal Apple is taking a kinder, gentler approach to wealth distribution (or wealth re-distribution as it’s known in some quarters).

First, there’s Wednesday’s hardware discount announcement. No, there weren’t iPad 3′s hidden beneath the seat of every employee, but by directly acknowledging the employees’ role in record earnings — backing up verbal praise with hardware discounts — Cook sent a message loaded with symbolism.

But the grander Cook gesture occurred early last September, after Cook become CEO, but before Jobs passed away. Cook announced that Apple would match charitable donations made by Apple employees, up to $10,000 per year for full-time workers in the U.S. The move spoke volumes about Tim Cook’s management style, and what a Tim Cook administration might mean for not only philanthropy, but corporate “openness” in general.

At Gadget Lab we’re not looking for hand-outs, but we’d love to receive an iPad 3 review unit, oh, say, maybe two or three weeks before the tablet hits retail.

It never hurts to ask.

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Apple Reveals iTunes Top App and Media Content

Apple’s iTunes Rewind shows us this year’s top content on iTunes, as well as some top picks from iTunes staff.

Apple unveiled Thursday its top picks for the best apps and games of 2011, doling out prestigious honors to a handful of lucky developers.

The photo-sharing app Instagram took top marks for iPhone App of the Year, while the iPhone Game of the Year honor went to Tiny Tower, a luxury tower/real estate simulation. For iPad, the top app was Snapseed, a photo effects program, while Dead Space, a third-person sci-fi action adventure, took top game honors. These and other top picks are chosen by iTunes staff.

For app makers, earning one of these top spots is a nod to their quality and accomplishments, but primarily offers another means of exposure, as these apps are featured prominently on the iTunes App Store Rewind page.

“I’m thrilled for the Instagram team and community to have the opportunity to be recognized in such a way,” Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom said in a press release.

Instagram has more than 14 million registered users who’ve uploaded more than 400 million photos. The Instagram team has expanded from two to 10 employees over the past year, and they have “big plans for the future of the app.” Perhaps Instagram’s hotly anticipated, oft-rumored Android app will finally make an appearance.

The publisher of Tiny Tower, which Apple’s iTunes team chose as top game of the year, feels that its freemium model is a key part of why it has such a popular, successful product.

“We believe that Tiny Tower’s success has sprung from putting players first and giving them a fun and unique game that truly is free to play,” Ian Marsh, co-owner of NimbleBit, the company that built Tiny Tower, told Wired.com via email. “There is nothing in the game that you can only get by paying, and a lot of players really respect that.”

Apple’s Rewind 2011 section also features charts for most popular content among users. The top selling movie of the year (in terms of both sales and rentals) was The Social Network. On the bookish side of the iTunes aisle, Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs biography came in as the number one selling non-fiction book.

As far as iTunes music, Adele dominated the year, achieving the number one spot for top-selling song (Rolling in the Deep) and top-selling album (21). She also garnered the Artist of the Year title from iTunes.

For Apple’s full top 10 lists for each iTunes download category, hit up iTunes Rewind for yourself.

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Samsung Galaxy Nexus Teardown Reveals Easily Swappable Innards

The Galaxy Nexus houses simple yet elegant hardware, though it is not terribly easy to repair. Photo courtesy of iFixit

Rumors of Google’s next-generation Nexus smartphone have been floating in the ether for months. As we approach the phone’s imminent release, only a fortunate few have been able to get their hands on one, including not only we at WIRED, but also the gadget tinkerers at iFixit, who just posted a full teardown of what lies beneath the Nexus hood.

First, the Galaxy Nexus is way easier to open than any Apple phone. Unlike the iPhone, the Galaxy Nexus doesn’t use any esoteric screws to attach the case to its frame, and this allows quick access to the phone’s innards. There’s also minimal adhesive sticking the motherboard to other components, making a full teardown relatively easy. This will come in handy if you abuse your phone enough to warrant cracking open the hood for a look-see.

Removing the Galaxy Nexus’ battery is also a breeze, as snapping off the thin, plastic back panel requires virtually no effort. Of course, this could be a bad thing if you’re prone to random acts of klutziness, but it also means that should your battery die, you’ll be able to swap it for a back-up relatively quickly. And believe us, you’ll want this option because the the Galaxy Nexus’ brilliant screen is a definite power-sucker.

Take note, however, if you’re the pioneering type who likes to swap smartphone batteries in the field: The battery that comes with the stock Galaxy Nexus includes an NFC antenna inside of it (NFC technology powers some of the cool features that come with Ice Cream Sandwich, like Android Beam, for instance). So unless you’re swapping that battery cell out for similar one, don’t expect to be waving your Google Wallet around anytime soon.

Try your best not to crack the Nexus’ screen. It stretches across nearly the entire face of the phone, and is sullied by only the slimmest of bezels, which means you’re getting loads of viewable real estate. Unfortunately, Samsung fused the outer layer of glass to both the super AMOLED display and the display frame. So, if you break the display, you must buy all three new components for replacement.

The screen notwithstanding, the phone has very few parts that directly adhere to each other. In fact, only the volume switch and the vibrator motor are soldered to other pieces, making part replacement infinitely easier. The only other major drawback affects the hardcore tinkering crowd. While there’s little adhesive that connects the motherboard to other parts, accessing the motherboard itself by pulling off the inner case isn’t simple. iFixit’s crew says it involved “lots of careful prying” to loose the parts from its protective shell. It’s frustrating, but not a deal-breaker.

All in all, iFixit gives the phone a six out of ten repairability rating, above average marks hampered mostly by the complications involved when cracking screen glass. So when Google finally drops the actual release date — which may come in early December, as rumor has it — try not to drop the phone itself if you pick one up.

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Nook Tablet Teardown Reveals a Near Impenetrable Fortress

Sometimes the best part about a getting a hot new gadget isn’t actually playing with the device. For inveterate hardware hackers, it’s taking the thing apart.

The gadget teardown experts at iFixit just received the newly released Nook Tablet, and immediately began to disassemble it. But much like Apple’s iPhone 4 and 4S models, the Nook Tablet is held together with an “insidious” set of screws that are resistant to classic screwdriver configurations.

In other words, common Phillips and flathead screwdrivers won’t work. And if funky screws weren’t enough, the Nook Tablet comes slathered in more sticky adhesive than a stack of flypaper — a design decision likely aimed at keeping prying fingers from yanking out the tablet’s battery. In fact, iFixit had to remove the tablet’s motherboard to simply access the battery storage area.

While it may present challenges for amateur device repair enthusiasts, the Nook Tablet’s impenetrable assembly aligns with a smart strategy for many an electronics manufacturer: If a consumer can’t get inside, there’s less opportunity to damage the thing. That means fewer customer service reps spending expensive time on the phone with irate customers, and fewer demands for refunds and replacements. And this in turn means a much improved bottom line.

Barnes & Noble’s tablet design would make Apple proud. Apple is famous for its special proprietary “pentalobe” screws designed to keep would-be hardware explorers from poking around. Indeed, not all of us are as careful with our teardowns as the experts at iFixit.

In all, iFixit gave the Nook Tablet a 6 out of 10 repairability score, only slightly above average and two full notches below its big competitor, the Kindle Fire. Keep in mind, however, that the Nook Tablet has 3.5 more hours of battery life, twice the RAM and more on-board storage. Granted, you’re paying $50 more than you would for a Fire, but it may be worth it if you’re into beefier specs.

Check out the full teardown at iFixit’s web site.

Photos courtesy of iFixit

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Steve Jobs Bio: Its 6 Most Surprising Reveals

Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs doesn’t go on sale until Monday, but advanced copies have been delivered to the New York Times, Associated Press and Huffington Post, all of which have been dribbling out telling insights and factoids about Apple’s former CEO.

We’ll be getting our own copy of the book — simply titled Steve Jobs — on Monday. Until then, enjoy these surprising peeks into the life and psyche of the 21st century’s most famous, if not celebrated, CEO.

Steve Wanted to go ‘Thermonuclear’ on Android
Jobs was livid when HTC introduced an Android phone that shared a number of iPhone features in early 2010. An excerpt from the book:

“I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong,” Jobs said. “I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.” He told Google’s Eric Schmidt, “I don’t want your money. If you offer me $5 billion, I won’t want it. I’ve got plenty of money. I want you to stop using our ideas in Android, that’s all I want.’’ [AP]

Interesting to note: Jobs’ vendetta is still going on full force — just look at litigation battles between Apple and Samsung over patents owned by Apple. One of the most recent developments could be seriously detrimental to the Android platform. An Australian judge issued a temporary injunction banning the sale of the Samsung Galaxy Tab in Australia because it infringes on two patents held by Apple relating to multitouch. Because multitouch is such a broadly defined technology, the injunction could impede any Android product release in Australia.

Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs. Image: Barnes and Noble

Steve Expected to Die Young

Jobs confided to former Apple CEO John Sculley that he believed he would die young, and therefore needed to accomplish very much very quickly in order to make his mark on Silicon Valley history.

“We all have a short period of time on this earth,” he told the Sculleys. “We probably only have the opportunity to do a few things really great and do them well. None of us has any idea how long we’re going to be here nor do I, but my feeling is I’ve got to accomplish a lot of these things while I’m young.” [Huffington Post]

Jobs’ now famous 2005 Stanford commencement speech expanded on his views of life, death and our limited time on earth. At that event, he said, “Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.”

Steve Became an Expert on Cancer Treatment — If Only Too Late
Despite pleas from friends and family, Jobs initially declined surgery to treat his cancer, waiting nine months before going under the knife. As the book reports: “The big thing was that he really was not ready to open his body,” Jobs’ wife, Laurene Powell, said. “It’s hard to push someone to do that.”

However, when Jobs finally did come around to traditional medical treatments, he did so with all the intellectual penetration of Apple product development. Or so reports the book:

“When he did take the path of surgery and science, Mr. Jobs did so with passion and curiosity, sparing no expense, pushing the frontiers of new treatments. According to Mr. Isaacson, once Mr. Jobs decided on the surgery and medical science, he became an expert — studying, guiding and deciding on each treatment. Mr. Isaacson said Mr. Jobs made the final decision on each new treatment regimen.” [NYT]

Jobs became one of only 20 people in the world to have all the genes of both his cancer tumor and normal DNA sequenced — a project that cost $100,000 at the time. The innovative treatments Jobs received would soon turn cancer into a “manageable chronic disease,” a doctor told him. Jobs told Isaacson that he felt that he was either going to be one of the first “to outrun a cancer like this” or be among the last “to die from it.”

Steve Was Intent on Setting Up Apple For Future Success
Acutely aware of his own mortality, Jobs wanted to ensure Apple remained strong in his absence.

“Hewlett and Packard built a great company, and they thought they had left it in good hands,” Jobs told Isaacson. “But now it’s being dismembered and destroyed. I hope I’ve left a stronger legacy so that will never happen at Apple.” [AP]

Jobs worked diligently to groom top talent, according to The Wall Street Journal, after his initial cancer diagnosis. Indeed, Apple reportedly has a program called “Apple University” that began in 2008 and acts like an MBA program to pass on Apple culture and business ethos to top executives — ensuring that Jobs’ ideals will live on long after he’s gone.

Steve Didn’t Think Apple Was Ready For Apps
The book shares that Jobs at first “quashed the discussion” when Apple board member Art Levinson attempted to persuade him that mobile apps would be the next big thing.

Apple board member Art Levinson told Isaacson that he phoned Jobs “half a dozen times to lobby for the potential of the apps,” but, according to Isaacson, “Jobs at first quashed the discussion, partly because he felt his team did not have the bandwidth to figure out all the complexities that would be involved in policing third-party app developers.” [Huffington Post]

Steve Was, Yeah, Sort of a Hippie
Jobs’ early experiences with LSD in the 1960s, along with a character-forming trip to India, are well documented. And it seems the effects of these experiences reverberated through the rest of his life decisions.

Jobs said that he tried a number of different diets, including solely of fruits and vegetables. When he named Apple, he told Isaacson he was “on one of my fruitarian diets.” Jobs had just returned from an apple farm. He believed the name sounded “fun, spirited and not intimidating.”

Jobs also said LSD “reinforced my sense of what was important — creating great things instead of making money, putting things back into the stream of history and of human consciousness as much as I could.” [AP]

The Beatles were one of his favorite bands, and he always hoped to get the iconic group’s music on iTunes. This was eventually accomplished in late 2010.

New York Times, Huffington Post and Associated Press

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Brompton Reveals Mysterious ‘Project X’: The eBrompton

A pair of non-electric Bromptons, packed for a flight. Photo Todd Fahrner/Flickr

Oh, man. First Bob Dylan went electric, and now Brompton. The London-based folding bike maker has at last revealed the truth behind its long (and somewhat tedious) “Project X” teaser campaign: An eBrompton.

The information is still just dribbling from the company, though. Little more has been revealed than that the bike will have a small electric motor, and that this motor won’t interfere with the legendary “fold,” which makes the Brompton one of the smallest bikes around when packed down. The new e-bike will go on sale in the UK and Germany next year, and the rest of the world will follow in 2013.

One thing is pretty certain, though: a motor will add weight. When riding a Brompton, it’s 9-12.5kg (20-28 pound) weight is light enough, but when you have to carry the folded package up five flights of stairs (as I do most days) it starts to feel a little heavy. Then again, I guess anyone frail enough to be buying an electric bike probably lives in a building with an elevator.

Weight issues aside, I’m excited to find out how the eBrompton will work. The now classic status of the original often hides the innovation of its design. I hope the electric version is similarly clever.

eBrompton announced by West London biker maker [Road.cc]

See Also:

• Brompton
• Review: Brompton M6L Folding Bicycle

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Samsung Epic 4G Touch Reveals Repairable Guts

iFixit tears apart the Samsung Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch. Image: iFixit

It’s always a pleasure to find out what makes our favorite gadgets tick. And how difficult, and costly, it’ll be to repair them should they have an unfortunate run-in with a concrete driveway or a rambunctious, unintentionally destructive child*.

That’s why we love iFixit: They tear apart every new gadget they encounter.

iFixit’s latest teardown is of the Samsung Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch, Sprint’s CDMA/WiMAX sequel to the Samsung Galaxy S. So what sort of goodies are inside?

First and foremost, the Samsung-made glass display and AMOLED panel are fused together. So if you end up cracking your screen, a repair is going to cost you. However, the 1800 mAh Li-ion battery — which should provide 8.7 hours of talk time or over 10 days in standby mode — is easy to replace. All you have to do is pop off the back plate. Once you’ve done that, you’ll also find a microSD card slot which you can use to bump up the device’s internal memory specs if 16 GB isn’t enough for you.

The Epic 4G Touch is .04 inches thicker and .49 ounces heavier than its European counterpart, bringing it to a practically obese .38 inches and 4.52 ounces (blame the french fries). It also doesn’t support NFC like its fancy skinny Euro cousin (C’est la vie, Google Wallet).

The front-facing camera shares a ribbon cable with the LED and ambient light sensor, so if one of those craps out on you, repair will be a bit more expensive.

iFixit’s Miroslav Djuric said the Epic 4G “was not too challenging” to take apart — you can use pretty basic tools to disassemble the smartphone, like a Phillips #00 screwdriver. The iFixit team gave it a 7 out of 10 for repairability.

*Full disclosure: I once destroyed my dad’s watch by slamming it repeatedly on our driveway. You probably shouldn’t give electronics to babies.

Samsung Epic 4G Touch Teardown [iFixit]

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Fusion Garage Reveals ‘Grid’-Branded Tablet, Smartphone

Fusion Garage said they’d be back, and here they are.

Fusion Garage recently announced a tablet and smartphone, dubbed Grid 10 and Grid 4, respectively. They’re both powered by Fusion Garage’s signature GridOS based on the Android kernel.

The OS “reinvents touch computing from the ground up,” according to the Grid 10 product page and is completely gesture based as opposed to the four-button design of straight Android tablets. In a further step away from other Android devices, Bing is GridOS’s default search engine because it is “the better of the two search engines,” according to company head Chandra Rathakrishnan.

Fusion Garage is perhaps best known for its floptastic JooJoo Tablet, which debuted shortly before the iPad shook the table universe. Although innovative and sleekly designed, it lacked battery life, an app library and was generally buggy. It was so thoroughly lame it earned a spot in our Worst Gear of the Year 2010 roundup.

But the Grid devices’ specs sound pretty good, at least on paper.

The Grid 10 is, not surprisingly, a 10-inch tablet. Its claim to fame is having the highest resolution of any tablet on the market, 1366 x 768. It’s got an Nvidia Tegra 2 chip and 16 gigs of storage, with a 1.3-megapixel front-facing cam and baked-in video chatting software. It’s also Bluetooth enabled. It ships with Fusion Garage’s own app store, but will support Android apps.

The Grid 10 will run you $499 for a WiFi only model and $599 for WiFi/3G. It begins shipping September 15.

The Grid 4 has a 4-inch 800 x 480 display and is powered by a dual-core Qualcomm processor. For $399, unlocked, it comes with 16 gigs of memory, a 0.3 megapixel front-facing camera and a 5-megapixel rear-facing autofocus camera. The shipping date is TBD, but the company says we’ll see it sometime in Q4. Carrier info will come as we get closer to the release date.

Photo: Fusion Garage. Hopefully, the Grid 10 will fare better than the company’s previous tablet, the atrociously bad JooJoo.

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