Light Start – Musk past Mars, hissing iPhones, mini-Donkey Kong, and the Deathstar

Elon Musk plans to go well past Mars, might be an actual galactic overlord

We’re starting to think that Elon Musk might have designs on taking control of his own (solar-and-battery powered) planet at some point. It’s no secret that he has had his sights set on Mars for some time but now he’s apparently looking at other planets as well. Elon Musk is going to  be detailing his plans for colonising Mars later this month but, according to a recent Twitter post from the man himself, the Mars Colonial Transporter (or MCT) that is supposed to drop supplies or people for a potential Mars mission can go a lot further than Mars… so much so that Elon Musk was soliciting new names for the craft on Twitter. The eventual title? The Interplanetary Transport System. Now we’re just waiting for 27 September and the International Astronautical Congress, where hopefully we’ll get a lot more details on mankind’s travels into space.

Source: Elon Musk (Twitter) via Ars Technica

Some iPhone 7 handsets are making a hissing noise under load

Got an iPhone 7 Plus yet? Have you put it to your ear yet? That’s technically the point of a smartphone but we’re not certain that everyone gets that message. If you did answer ‘yes’ to both questions above then you might have heard what some iPhone 7 Plus users are complaining (if you can use that term to explain ‘Hey, I can hear it too’) about — a hissing noise coming from the phone’s internals under load. The noise has been reported from several locations and is likely nothing to be concerned about (it’s probably something called coil whine and there’s not much you can do about it besides change the phone) but it’s also loud enough for the sound to be recorded. Recall-level event? Er… no, but if it’s really annoying you then Apple will probably replace it. If you ask nicely.

Source: 512 Pixels (YouTube)

Donkey Kong doesn’t get much smaller than this – Well, he does, but shouldn’t

How small do you like your old-school arcade games? If you said ‘teeny-tiny’ then we’ve got just the game of Donkey Kong for you. The result of a weekend hacking session, this is the world’s smallest MAME cabinet and in the video above you can totally see a game of Donkey Kong in progress. The most surprising thing is that whoever is using it is able to control the little critters on-screen. There’s barely enough space on the mini-cabinet for two fingers. If you want to build your very own, and are versed in the more arcane aspects of the Raspberry Pi (and have fingers like a surgeon, apparently) then you’ll be able to get a whole mess of tips at the link below.

Source: Adafruit

Star Wars: Battlefront will send you on a Death Star trench run this week

One of the highlights of the old LucasArts Star Wars game Rogue Squadron was the inclusion, once you finished the main story (or had the cheat codes), of the Death Star trench run. Well, get ready to run it again this month, as Electronic Arts are going to be bringing it to Star Wars: Battlefront this month. It’s not just Luke vs. Vader (but that does look epic in the video above) in their iconic ships coming to the DLC pack, which is called Death Star. There are a few new maps on the Death Star itself as well as a couple of new Hero characters to play with. There’s also a new game type, Battle Station, heading to the game. Look out for it on 20 September. Hey, that’s this week.

Source: Electronic Arts