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Where am I? Begginings  | benspc.com a place of answers Here at benspc.com we try to come up with redundant, yet pointless solutions to help solve your everday problems. Too many people out there ask themselves everyday "should I have the white cake? or the chocolate cake?" No longer will such questions plague the minds of our readers. We aim to provide them with hopeless, gratifying answers so that they can worry about more important things. | /Documents/Copy of setup.xls
Woman dies trying to win a Wii Posted Jan 14th 2007 4:05PM by Evan Blass
Filed under: Gaming  With all the hysteria and violence surrounding the PlayStation 3 launch, we were almost positive that it would be the pursuit of Sony's hard-to-find console which would lead to the tragic death of a hopeful gamer. But even though there were numerous scuffles and injuries in the race to secure a PS3, the first and only casualty in the next-gen wars turned out to be a woman trying to win a Wii for her children -- and she lost her life in much more bizarre circumstances than the retail madness we witnessed in late November. 28-year-old Jennifer Strange of Rancho Cardova, CA was found dead inside her home on Friday afternoon after competing in a radio station-sponsored competition which pitted hopefuls against one another for the prize of Nintendo's latest and greatest. Instead of competing on the playing fields of Wii sports or the Japanese streets of Red Steel, however, contestants gathered inside the studios of Sacramento's KDND The End to see who could drink the most water without urinating. The ridiculously-titled "Hold Your Wee for a Wii" contest had entrants imbibe eight ounces of water every fifteen minutes for 90 minutes, after which they were given larger portions until a winner emerged. Ms. Strange -- who did not win -- left the studio in tears, and she was last heard from by her employers at Radiological Associates of Sacramento complaining of a terrible headache. Autopsy results released yesterday showed signs of water intoxication, wherein the body's electrolyte levels are dangerously unbalanced due to a rapid intake of the seemingly harmless liquid. A spokesperson from The End came out with the usual sob story following news of Strange's death, but at least one of her coworkers thinks the station should have done more to prevent this tragedy; it's probably a pretty safe bet that a lawsuit is forthcoming.
Posted Nov 16th 2006 4:38AM by Ryan Block
Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video Well lookie here; you could go get yourself an AIDS-fighting nano, sure, but it's still just a red nano. Or you could snag something with about as much flash memory, but a huge dose of panache. Looks like iriver's finally ready to launch their 4GB clix (or so their site would have us believe), and at the totally doable price of two hundred clams. Unfortunately, you can't actually transact the purchase just yet (we think they might have jumped the gun posting the page), but it's around the corner people, we're serious.
Xbox 360 Wireless Headset Communicator
Other products by Microsoft Platform: Xbox 360  (13 customer reviews)
| Price: | $49.99 & this item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. Details |
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Topic: Gaming  If you’re the type of gamer that likes to taunt and talk smack when your frag your opponent on XBOX 360 Live here is a little device that can make the smack talking easier.
With the GameDR Smack Talk you can record your taunts and play them back, saving your precious vocal cords for more important things, like claiming the guy who beats you is cheating to your pals playing with you at home. Read more
Posted Sep 28th 2006 9:01AM by Ryan Block
Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video It's only fair and wise for Microsoft wait until the dust settles before coming to some hard and fast decisions on the release and pricing of a device being posed to take out the iPod. Now that everyone's reacted to the many posts on prospective and vaugely officious prices and theories, it would appear they've settled on $249.99 (not to be undercut by Apple after all), and will be launching the device in the US market on November 14th. Other pricing includes individual tracks for 79 Microsoft points apiece, and your standard $14.99 monthly fee for the Zune Pass service; Microsoft's also released some details on the Zune accessory line, which will run between $19.99 and a hundred bucks for:
- Zune Home A/V Pack ($100 - dock, remote, AV cables, extra battery, sync cable, adapter)
- Zune Travel Pack ($100 - Dual Connect remote, premium headphones, bag, cable, and adapter)
- Zune Car Pack ($80 - FM tuner, car charger)
- AV cable ($20)
- AC adapter ($30)
- sync cable ($20)
- car charger ($24)
- dock (with AV output, but no AV cable for $40)
- wireless remote (for control of zune dock, $30)
- Dual Connect remote (for inline control and splitting the audio out for two people, $30)
- Zune FM Tuner (with autoseek, which finds the optimal station and, at $70, the optimal way to sap your cash),
- gear bag (which, um, contains all these friggin' expensive accessories, itself $30)
- ... and premium earphones (sound isolating canalphones for $40)
It'll also, as you may have heard, come with a ton of preloaded content from such bands as CSS (Cansei de Ser Sexy, not cascading style sheets), Band of Horses, The Rakes, The Thermals, etc., and videos from Serena-Maneesh, The Fruit Bats, and even some shorts and images.
Xbox 360 adds 1080p, HD DVD drive is $170 US for November 17th in Japan Posted Sep 20th 2006 3:01AM by Ryan Block
Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, Peripherals, Storage Xbox wasn't showing up to TGS empty-handed, nosiree. They've finally stepped up with a couple of interesting, albeit expected, announcements. First up: the Xbox 360 HD DVD drive finally has a price and date of launch -- for Japan. The land that forgot the Xbox are first to have their HD DVD add-on announced, due to hit overseas streets on November 17th for 19,800. That's about $170 US, which is not only an awesomely and unexepectedly low price for an HD DVD device (especially when bundled with a Xbox 360 Universal Media Remote), but it's also a good indication that the US version of the device should be around the $200 range when released in the US, as we've been predicting. Part two: a software update this year will enable 1080p output on the friggin' Xbox 360! Your rig will finally benefit by pushing the full 60 megapixels per second of visuals to your compatible HDTV. Sorry, no HDMI cable yet (or ever?), though, this is only over component and VGA. Users can expect 1080p upscaling immediately on current games and DVDs and native 1080p on compatible HD DVD titles, but Microsoft hasn't yet announced future games that will rock 1080p natively. Watch out Sony, that whole 1080p song and dance isn't such a marketing edge for you guys anymore.
P.S. -Just to sate your curiosity, we were chatting with Shane Kim about this stuff and asked specifically about 360s with an internal HD DVD. Microsoft's answer is and continues to be a staunch no. That whole thing about paying only for what you need, etc.
Update: It would appear there's some contradictory information already -- Reuters is reporting that it'll be November 22nd for 20,790 (about $180 US). Our press release and conversation with Shane Kim are both pretty straight up about November 17th for 19,800, so we'll see how it unfurls. Ultimately it shouldn't matter too much to those reading this post, we're still talking about the Japanese release of the device.
Posted Sep 5th 2006 10:52PM by Paul Miller
Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment, Wireless Some buzzwords just sound good together. Like robots and flamethrowers -- those two just hit it off right from the start. Now Tzero Technologies and Analog Devices are teaming up for a new standards-based wireless HDMI tech that marries UWB with everybody's favorite home theater plug. Tzero is bringing the UWB to the table, while Analog Devices' is sharing their JPEG2000 video codec. A UWB transmitter compresses all the HDMI data on the way out of a video device and a receiver converts it back to HDMI on the way back into your display. With a range of 30 meters, and no line of sight requirements, all sorts of diabolical home theater configurations become possible. For instance, we can envision a ceiling mounted projector without all the wiring, or a noisy HTPC hidden away without similar hassles. According to Tzero, the first adapters should be out in a couple of weeks, and the price should be "similar to other WiFi devices." We'll be sure to test out the performance before we jump in with two feet, but if the price is right we're liking where this wireless HDMI thing is headed.
Posted Sep 1st 2006 10:41PM by Cyrus Farivar
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets  There aren't that many places (yet) where you have to provide biometric data to gain access. Usually they're limited to high-security areas, you know, places like nuclear research facilities, airports, libraries (!) and by the end of this month, Walt Disney World. Oh yes, the Magic Kingdom will soon be taking fingerprints of its visitors at all four Orlando-area theme parks, and is well on its way becoming a real nation-state, given that it already issues passports and has a standing army of costumed characters (and let's not even speak of their monstrous robot dominion). Disney says that this is to prevent ticket fraud and officials claim that the company is not actually taking "fingerprints," but rather, mathematical representations of fingerprints, as calculated by series of points measured on a fingerprint. A little math never hurt anymore, right? Except when it can be tied to an individual's identity, a record of their whereabouts, and corresponding physical traits. It's a world of hopes and a world of fears, indeed.
Posted Aug 16th 2006 9:05AM by Darren Murph
Filed under: Transportation  It wasn't too long ago that Tesla Motors had its (admittedly glamorous) unveiling of the forthcoming Tesla Roadster -- you know, the 130-miles per hour battery powered whip that rolls 250 miles on a single charge. While it can't be too shocking to see a few celebrities here and there plop down unspeakable amounts of coin to get their hands on something new, don't tell Tesla that the reaction to its creation is surprising. Less than a month after this extra-green automobile hit the pre-order market, all 100 that were offered up are now claimed. Just doing simple calculations, we're seeing a company that went from next to nil in terms of sales to $10 million in capital quicker than a shipment of crude oil could hit the American shores. Martin Eberhard, the CEO of Tesla Motors, reported that "all 100 are gone," which means those hundred highfaluting individuals that have paid the $100,000 deposit have guaranteed themselves one of the first Roadsters off the production line in 2007. While the buyers may end up paying more than the deposit price when taking delivery, it's fairly unlikely they'll see any partial refunds if the MSRP somehow clocks in under 100 grand (considering the apparent popularity), and we've heard that both of Google's co-founders, as well as eBay's Jeff Skoll, have thrown down for the seemingly coveted ride. There's no word on when Tesla plans to re-open its bank account for the next wave of orders, but if such an opportunity does arise, you should probably call dibs with some level of haste if you plan on shunning those costly fuel pumps next year. Posted Aug 16th 2006 8:35AM by Darren Murph
Filed under: Displays, HDTV, Home Entertainment  America's favorite warehouse-club-brand of televisions is back with two more sets that, as expected, have impressively low price points and decent specs to boot. V Incorporated has took the wraps off a new pair of Vizio 42-inch LCD HDTVs that will presumably only be available to those who can produce a membership card at the front entrance of a Sam's Club or Costco. Gaining fame for offering up somewhat comparable (albeit much less expensive) alternatives to more recognizable brands like Sony and Samsung, Vizio is dropping its GV42 -- which sports a 1,366 x 768 resolution, 1,600:1 contrast ratio, and a 8ms response time -- for a below-average $1,599.99, but only at Costco. The L42, available in Sam's Club, is remarkably similar to its slightly more advanced sibling, but had its corners cut by getting just an 800:1 contrast ratio and a $1,499.99 pricetag. Both of these units come bundled with table stands, and while details concerning the assortment of inputs are MIA, these should handle all your 1080i-and-below needs with ease. Although Vizio isn't the most glamorous name in the industry, its products have historically offered fairly good bang for the buck, and these look to be solid offerings for those who haven't quite mustered up the coin for those wallet-wrenching 1080p sets.
Posted Aug 21st 2006 12:01AM by Evan Blass
Filed under: Digital Cameras, Portable Audio, Portable Video, Wireless Not too many surprises here -- after all, we've already seen a full review of one of these new models -- but now PMP pioneer Archos has officially taken the wraps off of all the so-called Generation 4 devices we initially spotted over two months ago. First out of the gate will be the 3.5-inch 404 and 4.3-inch 604 media players whose specs and performance have gradually been revealed over the last few weeks, and all we really had wrong about the two thirty giggers was their prices: the former will go for $300 while the latter will set you back $350 when they ship next month (though pre-orders are already being taken). Coming later in the year will be a version of the 404 with an integrated camcorder as well as a touchscreen, wireless-enabled iteration of the 604 (for downloading internet content), and like all the Gen4 models, these will require a separate DVR docking station in order to record content from and playback content to external sources and monitors. Last but certainly not least is the surprisingly capacious 160GB 504 (we originally thought it would sport only a 40GB HDD), although at this point Archos is keeping mum on such deets as screen size, pricing, and availability. All-in-all a very exciting new crop of PMPs, and like previous products from the company, these will likely continue to be the media players against which all other competitors are judged.
Posted Jul 13th 2006 4:24AM by Darren Murph
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets C'mon, everyone enjoyed seeing a Hasbro box on Chrismahannakwanzika morning; that usually meant you were in for some sort of top notch toy that'd long since purloined your fantasies. Although more commonly linked to their lineup of childhood gadgets, Hasbro is branching out and aiming to deliver a "radio controlled experience" with their new Nitro XRC lineup. Rather than relying on those dreadfully expensive, long charging, short-lived battery packs to get your ride movin', the Nitro XRC vehicles will be powered by nitro fuel -- the same fuel that powers professional racing R/C vehicles. With the ability to reach speeds of 25mph, Hasbro is being careful to market these speedsters to those 16 years and up; while you can find these in hobby huts and mass merchants, they'll be MIA from typical toy stores. Two models are currently being prepped for release, the Nitro XRC Ricochet and the Nitro XRC Revolution MT; the dirt starts flyin' when they drop this fall for $179.99 and $129.99, respectively.
 The Blackberry devices are not known for their media capabilities. Now a video player from Sona is trying to change all that.
Screenshots of the Sona video player for Blackberry appeared in this discussion thread. The same poster also published this first look review of the video player running on a Blackberry 8700g. Read more
Posted Sep 28th 2006 3:57PM by Paul Miller
Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Audio, Portable Video  Today's discerning consumer can no longer be satisfied by a mere peel-and-win game on their box of fries, now it takes 10 flat-screen TVs and a sound system to keep those burger lovers coming back. McDonalds has started to roll out a new m-Venue system to franchisees, which provides music and videos to customers via text-messaging and WiFi. Users can select the video content they'd like burned into their retina by the in-store big screens via text message while they chow down on fries, and can purchase ringtones, video, wallpaper and games for download as well. This new effort definitely isn't the first attempt at getting customers into McDonalds for more than the meals, but positive reaction at pilot stores might mean this idea is a bit less ill-fated.
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Posted Jun 13th 2006 5:15PM by Evan Blass
Filed under: Laptops, Storage Far from being a niche technology that just happens to fully thrive in Windows Vista, it turns out that those hybrid hard drives we've been following for some time will actually be required equipment for laptops wishing to sport the Vista Premium logo. TG Daily caught up with Microsoft's Windows Client Performance program manager Matt Ayres at TechEd 2006 to pin him down about recent updates to the Windows Logo Device Program Requirements, and sure enough, Ayres confirmed that the new wording does indeed mean that hybrid drives will be part-and-parcel of Premium-labeled mobile systems released after June 1, 2007. As you may or may not recall, these so-called ReadyDrive HDDs manufactured by Samsung, Seagate, and unnamed others offer up to 256MB of on-board flash memory for faster boot times and better battery life thanks to buffering that reduces the amount of necessary drive spinning.
The Sling Media Store has The SlingBox, model no. SB100-100, for $199.99 before coupon code "DISH2006", $149.99 after. With about $5 for shipping, that's the lowest total price we've seen by $21. The SlingBox lets you watch TV (from your TiVo, cable box, etc.) on any networked computer anywhere in the world. The included virtual "SlingRemote" lets you change channels, fast-forward, and set up a season pass. slingbox.com has more. Deal ends June 18.
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Spring, TX
Updated Saturday, January 28, 2012 11:53 PM
Clear | 46°F | High: 65°F
Low: 40°F
Wind: 0 mph
Humidity: 53%
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Monday
70° / 56° |
Tuesday
74° / 57° | 
Wednesday
74° / 57° |
Thursday
74° / 52° |
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| Symbol | Price | Change | % Chg |
| EP | 26.54 | -0.16 | -0.60% |
| APC | 79.32 | 0.01 | 0.01% |
| XOM | 85.83 | -0.94 | -1.08% |
| LEXG | 0.82 | 0.17 | 26.15% |
Quotes are by IDC Comstock and are delayed 20 minutes.
Fund prices are from Morningstar. |
Samsung's Ultra Edition 9.9, 12.9, 6.9: World's slimmest cellphones launched Posted Jun 21st 2006 8:02AM by Thomas Ricker
Filed under: Cellphones 
Get ready Guinness 'cause Samsung just launched an entire series of "World's slimmest" handsets. Sure, we've seen the D830 clam, X820 candybar, and FCC approved D900 slider before, only now they've been turned-out onto that mean global scene official, spec'd, and rebadged with their ultra-slim, millimeter measurements right in the name: the Ultra Edition 9.9 (D830), 12.9 (D900), and 6.9 (X820) pictured left-to-right. The UE 9.9 brings tri-band (900/1800/1900MHz) GPRS/EDGE, a 2 megapixel cam with auto-focus and flash, a 2.3-inch 240x320 262k TFT main display (0.8-inch 92x16 grayscale external), Bluetooth, 80MB embedded memory with MicroSD expansion, MP3/AAC media player, and even an MPEG4 recorder with TV-out jack slammed into this world's slimmest flip. The UE 6.9 brings pretty much the same network coverage, cam, Bluetooth, media capabilities, and on-board memory as the 9.9 but had to forgo the microSD card and flash while dropping down to a 1.9-inch 176x220 262k TFT display in order to slip into that world's slimmest, 6.9-mm, 2.33-ounce dress. The relatively plump UE 12.9 takes advantage of all that, uh, roominess to squeeze in quad-band GPRS/EDGE, a 3.13 megapixel shooter, 2.1-inch 240x320 262k TFT, that good media lovin' we've already seen, Bluetooth with A2DP stereo audio support, and 80MB with microsSD expansion. Yeah, that makes it the world's slimmest slider, er, with 3 megapixel camera -- kind of a stretch, but that's how Sammy likes to roll. They didn't bother with drop dates, countries, or prices but the fact that the press release hit their English site gives us hope for this Samsung triptych to drop in the US sometime this year.
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