Elon Musk Reveals SpaceX's Mars Colonization Plans

On September 27th 2016, at the 67th annual International Astronomical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico, Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX announced his company's ambitious plan for the colonization of Mars. The plan calls for the creation of what Mr. Musk is calling the Interplanetary Transport System (ITS). This system involves the combination of a rocket more powerful than the Saturn 5 and a spaceship that can hold 100 people.

At the heart of the ITS (Interplanetary Transport System) is a scaled up version of SpaceX's Falcon 9 booster that will feature 42 Raptor engines. When the crewed spaceship is place on top of the ITS it will stand a whopping 400 feet tall, making it the largest space flight system that's ever been built. It will be a potent machine that's capable of lifting 300 tons into low earth orbit.

The spaceship by it self will be 162 feet tall by 57 feet wide. It will have its own set of nine Raptor engines. The booster will carry the spaceship to orbit and return for a soft landing back on Earth. A second ITS will then be launched carrying fuel. It will rendezvous with the orbiting spaceship in order to fill its tank. The spaceship will blast off for a mission once Earth and Mars are aligned.

The spaceship will be able to carry from 100 to 200 hundred people at one time. The craft will be large enough to contain movie theaters, lecture halls, and a restaurant. The Raptor engines will allow the flight to take only 80 days at the outset. When the ITS is up and running, Mr Musk envisions a fleet of 1,000 ships heading off on the journey to the Red Planet.

HDR TV: The Next Big Thing?

One of the tech standouts at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) that took place in January of 2016, was the introduction of HDR TV. While OLED, 4K, and Quantum Dot TV have already made their mark on the flat screen tech market, HDR TV is now about to come into its own. But while those technologies are about more pixels, HDR TV is more about the quality of the images, which are comprised of those pixels.

HDR stands for High Dynamic Range and it is responsible for making widely varying lights and darks look better on your screen. HDR used in still cameras combine multiple images that may have different exposures. However, HDR in video uses a wider color pallet with greater depth of range to create greater contrast between light and dark areas of a scene. The result is a more realistic image.

HDR TV also involves a technology called Electro-Optical Transfer Funtion (EOTF) which is the process by which an electronic value is assigned to the real world brightness of your TV. EOTF allows a TV to brighten or darken a scene according to the brightness value it receives from the broadcast or playback source. This can give content producers more control of how an image will appear on your screen.

To watch HDR you'll need an HDR TV and HDR encoded content. Currently all 4K Blu Ray discs come HDR 10 encoded. Dolby Vision and UHD premium discs are available as well.

Avid Releases Pro Tools 12.6

On September 9th 2016, at the International Broadcasting Conference (IBC) in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Avid announced the release of Pro Tools 12.6. The new version of Pro Tools features a large array of new editing features. This version will mark the first time that, Pro Tool HD software can be purchased or subscribed to as a stand alone item, freeing Pro Tools buyers from past hardware requirements.

One of the biggest new features (Pro Tools HD only) is Clip Effects. This is a new plugin format that allows users to apply effects on a clip by clip basis. This is handled via a dedicated plugin that is based on the Avid Channel Strip and is accessed from the universe window. Also in Pro Tools 12.6, an indicator light now shows you when a track has more than one playlist, making them easier to manage.

Pro Tools 12.6 has many other features including track freeze, real time fade manipulation, and Improved dubbing (Pro Tools HD only). A new lower pricing model will now make going from the standard Pro Tools package to an HD upgrade. A Pro Tools Digilink I/O license can be purchased for $299, bring your own interface. Avid expect to make Pro Tools 12.6 available by late September 2016.

Apple Introduces The iPhone 7

On September 7th 2016, Apple announced the release of the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. Billed as the best iPhones ever, the new devices have an array of new features, but the one the tech world has been buzzing about, is most definitely missing. As promised, Apple has removed the analog headphone jack. Prospective iPhone 7 owners will have to use Apple's lightning port or wireless headphones for audio.

The new iPhone 7 comes water resistant, and in a wide variety of colors. Apple has revamped the the home button which now comes pressure sensitive, as a way to allow gesture control. The new devices now offer a new quad-core A10 fusion chip that improves the phones' performance by 120 times, giving them better efficiency and longer battery life. Also, the iPhone 7 Plus now features a rear facing, two camera system that offers a wide angle and a telephoto lens.

The iPhone 7 will give up its 16GB base model for a 32GB base model which will sell for $649. The iPhone 7 Plus will start at $769 for a 32GB model. Both phones will be available with storage sizes that go up to 256GB. For those interested in getting a new iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus, apple will begin taking pre-orders from its website on September 9th 2016. Actual delivery of the phones will begin on September 16th 2016.