A little over a year after bringing Minecraft Earth in the US, Microsoft announced this week it will shut down the game later this year. Engadget reports: Minecraft Earth players have until June 30th, 2021, to play the augmented reality title before Microsoft shuts down its servers and it’s no longer available to download from app marketplaces. Developer Mojang Studios blamed…
Tag: Minecraft
Is Microsoft’s ‘Find Your Joy’ Holiday Ad Sad?
There’s a zany twist at the end, because “This year more than ever, we felt that it was important to give people a little lift, to remind them that while we are facing a lot of challenges, there are many ways we can connect, be productive and enjoy the time we have at home,” Microsoft’s VP of brand, advertising, and research…
Microsoft’s 2020 Hour of Code Lesson Doubles As Unconscious Bias Training
theodp writes: What if we could build a better world through code?”, begins the just-released teaser video for Microsoft’s 2020 Hour of Code: A Minecraft Tale of Two Villages . “Help us bring two villages together through the power of code! […] You will experience empathy and compassion for your neighbor while embracing the diversity that makes us all uniquely special.”…
Microsoft: Make 11-Year-Olds ‘Future Ready’ With Minecraft Python Hour of Code
theodp writes: The upcoming “Hack the Classroom: STEM Edition,” Microsoft explains, “is a [3-day] free virtual event series designed for K-12 educators, parents, and guardians. The sessions will feature resources and tutorials to help educators support students in learning future-ready skills. These lessons can be easily incorporated into classroom curriculum while preparing for this year’s Hour of Code event — a…
Could Our Entire Reality Be Part of a Simulation Created by Some Other Beings?
Sam Baron, associate professor at Australian Catholic University, focuses on the connection between key topics in the philosophy of mathematics and the philosophy of time concerning temporal ontology. In a recent article in Gizmodo, he answers the ultimate question: Could our entire reality be part of a simulation created by some other beings? Let’s assume these extraterrestrial beings have a computer…
A 17-Year-Old’s Journey: Minecraft, SIM-Swapping Bitcoin Heists, Breaching Twitter
The New York Times tells the story of the 17-year-old “mastermind” arrested Friday for the takeover of dozens of high-profile Twitter accounts. They report that Graham Ivan Clark “had a difficult family life” and “poured his energy into video games and cryptocurrency” after his parents divorced when he was 7, and he grew up in Tampa, Florida with his mother, “a…
Microsoft’s Livestreaming Service Mixer Shuts Down Today
Microsoft’s livestreaming platform Mixer will shut down later today and encourage users to migrate over to Facebook Gaming’s livestreaming service, with treasured Mixer Partners getting partner status over there too. Rock Paper Shotgun reports: From what I’ve seen on my stroll through Mixer on this final day, a whole lot of folks are planning to switch to Twitch. The shutdown comes…
Microsoft-Owned Minecraft Will Stop Using Amazon’s Cloud
Microsoft will stop relying on Amazon to help it run the popular Minecraft video game. CNBC reports: The shift represents an obvious way for Microsoft to cut back on payments to one of its toughest competitors and promote its own product. Amazon Web Services rules the market for public cloud infrastructure for running software from afar through vast data centers, and…
Oracle Celebrates ‘The 25 Greatest Java Apps Ever Written’
Oracle’s Java magazine is celebrating the 25th anniversary of the programming language with a list of the 25 greatest Java apps ever written:
From space exploration to genomics, from reverse compilers to robotic controllers, Java is at the heart of today’s world. Here are a few of the countless Java apps that stand out from the crowd. The story of Java began…
Minecraft Play Spikes, Tops 126M Builders a Month Amid COVID-19
Minecraft has already become an international phenomenon, but it keeps getting bigger. Microsoft said its 11-year-old world-building game crossed 200 million copies sold, with more than 126 million people playing each month. From a report: Much of the game’s recent success has come during the coronavirus pandemic. Microsoft said that in April, it tallied a 25% increase in the number of…