Now available in Europe and Japan, with a North American release likely happening later today,Minecraftupdate 1.31 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation Vita adds support for the latest DLC, fixes Battle Mini Game issues, and fixes other issues with the game.
Here’s the full list of patch notes for today’s new update:
Added Battle Map Pack 2 (Atlantis, Ruin and Siege).
Added the Redstone Specialists Skin Pack.
Made changes to some item textures in the City Texture Pack, Fantasy Texture Pack and Greek Mythology Mash-up Pack, so that they are more easily identifiable in Battle mini games.
Battle Mini Game: Fix to display player names above crouching players when in Showdown mode in a Battle mini game.
Battle Mini Game: Fix to allow thrown potions to go through non-solid blocks (e.g. Vines, Tall Grass).
Battle Mini Game: Fix to stop non-solid blocks obstructing player attacks.
Battle Mini Game: Fixed a couple of holes in the Cove Battle mini game map.
Battle Mini Game: Fix to remove all Mob heads from the player’s inventory, except any that are currently being worn, when transitioning from the Lobby to a Battle mini game map.
Battle Mini Game: Fix to automatically replace Mob heads in the armour slot, when a Helmet is collected in a Battle mini game.
Battle Mini Game: Disabled “Take Everything” in the Lobby.
Battle Mini Game: Added Select All / Deselect All tooltip(s) to the Select Maps menu.
Fix for an issue with hills generation.
Fix for an issue causing some Blazes to not perform their attacks after becoming aggressive towards the player.
Fix to allow renamed items to be traded with a Villager.
Fixed a duplication bug.
Fix to remove the redundant option for creating White Wool within the crafting menu using 1x White Wool to create.
Fix for an issue where a Pig struck by a lightning turns into a Zombie Pigman without a Golden Sword.
Fix for an incorrect death message when the player is killed by lightning.
Fix for some issues with trophies (including Passing The Time trophy).
The latest update is also available for Xbox One and Xbox 360, with a Wii U release happening later this week.
Looking at the new DLC,Battle Map Pack 2for the Battle Mini Game includes the three maps – Atlantis, Ruin, and Siege – and is priced at $2.99 USD, “and comes with guaranteed good times.”
TheRedstone Specialistsskin pack is also priced at $2.99 USD. “As always, everyone gets a few of these skins for free,” Mojang adds.
The same hacking group thattook overMark Zuckerberg’s Twitter account has now found a way to break into accounts connected to the hit game Minecraft.
The group, OurMine, made the claim on Tuesday in a videodemonstrating its hack. The attack is aimed at theuser login pagerun by Minecraft’s developer, Mojang.
OurMine isn’t revealing all the details behind the hack. The group said it works by stealing the Internet cookies from the site, which can be used to hijack any account. All that OurMine needs is the victim’s email address.
To test the hack, IDG News Service created a user account on Mojang, emailed OurMine and asked the group to break into it, which the group did. To show proof, the group renamed the user profile to “OurMine Team.”
The hack could allow the group to change the account’s password, too, OurMine claimed. But the hacking team says it has no malicious purpose in exposing the vulnerability.
“We found this exploit because we don’t want other hackers to know it,” the group said.
Mojang hasn’t responded to a request for comment.
The hack specifically targets the user account system that customers rely on to access the PC and Mac versions of the game. OurMine said it will reveal the entire hack to Mojang once the developer contacts the group.
The hackers have offered little information about themselves, but they’ve become best known fortaking overthe social media accounts of high-profile tech executives, including Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai.
In emails, the group has said it merely wants to help the public become aware of today’s cybersecurity problems, including the use of weak passwords.
The group’s recent hack of Mojang highlights the vulnerabilities with Internet cookies, which can store information like site preferences or user account credentials for site authentication.
If those are stolen, a hacker can use the cookies to impersonate the victim’s online identities. Security flaws found in browsers and credit-card sites in the past could expose cookies to easy theft.
Some securityflawsfound in the past in browsers and credit card sites also have made it easy to steal cookies.
In OurMine’s case, the hackers somehow cloned Mojang’s user account site as a way to extract the stolen cookies. OurMine says on its website that it sells services where it will examine a user’s Internet accounts and websites for weaknesses.
Thelearn to code space is packed with ideas. But when it comes to what children want to do online, towering over everything else is the build-it-yourself Microsoft-owned Minecraft platform. All lesser virtual, creative playgrounds are doomed to be overshadowed by this pixellated silhouette.
Minecraft is clearly great fun for kids, but less great if you’re a startup trying to build your own learn-to-code gaming environment… But, as the saying goes, if you can’t beat them, join them. So that’s exactly what London-based Code Kingdoms has been doing.
The startup launched its own learn-to-code game out of beta back in April 2015. And while it’s still working on that platform, it’s also since shifted efforts to focus on serving the Minecraft modding community with a subscription service to help kids learn JavaScript.
It’s also placing its eggs in theBBC micro:bitbasket — aka the programmable single board computer gifted to one million UK schoolkids by public service broadcaster the BBC earlier this year.
At this point Code Kingdoms estimates some 4,900 UK schools are using its micro:bit software, and a further 30 are using its software for Minecraft modding. While the original Code Kingdoms game is being used by around 1,200 schools.
“Making an entertaining game alongside offering an intensive coding environment for kids and making strong video content was/is a real challenge,” admits co-founder and CEO Ross Targett. “Now we focus on teaching kids to design and code things using existing IP i.e. Minecraft, micro:bit, rather than making our own from scratch. It has made the business easier to manage and allowed us to focus on our strengths.”
Targett says the startup sees its core strength as being its educational content along with the code editor it’s designed to get kids writing code. This JavaScript teaching platform targets the six- to 13-year-old age-range.
“We place great emphasis on educational value and this is what we’re good at,” he adds.
Code Kingdoms closed a $1.4 million seed round at the end of 2015, led by Initial Capital and Blenheim Chalcot — which it’s only just announcing now, having been focused on stealthy product dev, according to Targett.
It had previously raised around $410,000 in pre-seed funding, including from U.S.-based seed fund SparkLabs Global Ventures. As part of the most recent funding round Initial partner Tarek Abuzayyad has joined its board.
The seed is primarily for growing the team and focusing on “product/market fit within our current model”, says Targett.
Code Kingdom’s newest product — CK for Modding — is a Minecraft-popularity-piggybacking subscription service that teaches Java through interactive videos and its online code editor.Pricing is £9.99 ($14.99) a month, for which kids get access to 40+ hours of coding course materials, a fully customisable Minecraft server and access to the web based code editor.
“We’re already close to achieving [product/market fit] and thus the focus has shifted into expanding into new regions, offering B2B services to expand revenue and soon offer a wider product range,” adds Targett.
Despite its London base and an initial focus on UK schools, Targett says the majority of Code Kingdom’s business is outside the UK, with the US and Canada being its biggest markets — so it’s planning a rapid expansion of its direct to consumer subscription modding product there.
For its b2bcamps product, Targett says it’s been seeing “significantly more traction” in Asia, including in Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong.
“Our assumptions are on these economies are investing heavily both financially and culturally into STEM subjects and particularly Computer Science in order to transition their economies as modern and highly productive service exporters. This coupled with a highly competitive generation amongst parents when it comes to education has meant the opportunity is both highly lucrative and growing,” he adds.
The latest initiative, coming courtesy of the Museum of London, is a reinterpretation of the Great Fire of 1666 that lets players wander through the streets of 17th century London, chat to local civilians, combat the fire itself and latterly rebuild their own conceptualisations of the English capital. Three interactive maps will be made available for free from July 29, all of which will look something like this:
Map one, launching next week, features London Bridge, Pudding Lane, and the old Saint Paul’s Cathedral. A treasure hunt is designed to encourage exploration and will also give players the chance to uncover audio clips relevant to the events that led to the blaze.
To mark the disaster’s 350th anniversary, the second phase will arrive in September and will guide players through the start and spread of the Great Fire; while the third and final instalment is due to launch in February of next year—which is when players can set about rebuilding their own visions of the city.
“Minecraft is an incredible game that captivates and inspires users of all ages around the world,” says project lead Joshua Blair in a statement. “Its reach and versatility offers museums a fantastic platform to share our knowledge and collections, and create engaging experiences.”
Grab the first Great Fire 1666 Minecraft map when it becomes available next week, July 29, via theMuseum of London website.
The new Minecraft Pocket Edition v0.15.3 update is almost here for Google Play users but Mojang has revealed that the update has been delayed for Windows 10; the development team is apparently too busy playing Pokemon Go to update their game. Mojang has not yet give a release date or time period for this update.
Windows 10 Pocket Edition users will be seeing a few small game tweaks and bug fixes to improve the overall gameplay; none of the changes are particularly large but they will fix some minor annoyances that players have.
Bugs are the main focus of the update and a wide variety of small issues and assorted crash issues have been dealt with in this update.
While the gameplay tweaks are very small, they should make the gameplay more consistent and improve the overall player experience. Various screen layouts have been re-scaled and mouse controls should work better once the update has been released.
Minecraft Pocket Edition v0.15.3 will soon be available for all mobile platforms however Windows 10 users will need to wait a little while longer.
A near-death experience led Mark Pavlyukovskyy, cofounder ofPiper, to create a much-lauded DIY computer kit to teach children about technology.
Pavlyukovskyy was born in the Ukraine, and when he came to the US he began looking for ways to empower children in the ways that he and his friends in his home country were not empowered.
“I went down the biology medicine route for a while. I did this program in Africa where I was teaching kids about health, how to improve their health…I actually got sick myself doing it, and I almost died. That was a turning point where I realized the impact I want to have should be scalable and done through modern tools and involve programming or electronics,” Pavlyukovskyy said.
“I started building websites and different gadgets to help people, and I realized I could make an even bigger
impact if I gave kids the tools to build something themselves,” he said.
While Pavlyukovskyy was working on his Ph.D. at the University of Oxford, he was also busy building computer kits in his dorm room to send to children around the world. “The idea was to give kids all the parts to a computer, and they assemble it kind of like LEGO. The simple mechanics of assembling a computer could give them that feeling of empowerment that they can build a computer,” he said.
The eventual result of his work was the Piper DIY electronic kit with a Minecraft theme, since so many kids love Minecraft. The computer is housed in a wooden box, since wood is a cornerstone of the Minecraft experience. Once a child assembles the computer, using the blueprints that are included, they have a Minecraft game on the computer screen, with a storyline about a robot heading to Mars to try to stop an asteroid from hitting Earth. As children plug in wires and assemble the controller, they are able to move the robot in the game, he explained.
More than 3,000 kits have been sold, at $299 each, and the target audience is children ages 7 to 12, although children as young as 6 have successfully used it. It’s received rave reviews from everyone such as Elon Musk, who gave the kit to his children, to Steve Wozniak, who said, “I love Piper because it represents what enabled me to do all the great technology things in my life.”
Image: Piper
ThePiper computer kitcomes with everything needed to assemble a computer, including aRaspberry Pi 3microcomputer, an HD LCD display, a powerbank, a speaker, and a puzzle-like wooden case that is assembled and then houses the computer. Turning the computer on reveals the PiperCraft learning system that teaches kids engineering and programming through a combination of a storyline, physical building, and Minecraft gameplay. The core Piper experience seamlessly introduces engineering, electronics, and programming, allowing kids to create and program their own electronic gadgets through a custom Minecraft story mode.
Piper just received seed funding of $2.1 million to bring the product to more children and to provide it to classrooms. The funding came from investors including Princeton University, Reach Capital,500 Startups, FoundersXFund, Jaan Tallinn (cofounder of Skype), and Jay Silver (founder of Makey Makey).
“We found that teachers were purchasing it on their own,” Pavlyukovskyy said, which spurred him to realize that the product needed to tie it intoCommon Core standardsfor wider distribution.
The goal was to make Piper accessible for teachers and the classroom, and the new funding will make this possible through PiperEDU, which is what Piper has named the product they’re developing strictly for schools, and which gives a hands-on approach to STEM education.
“Thousands of kids are already playing and building with Piper all over the world and to make the product more accessible to more students, we are introducing Piper to schools. Dozens of schools all over the world have beta tested the product and we are excited to bring it to schools everywhere,” said Joel Sadler, cofounder of Piper. “The Piper Computer Kit is like a Trojan horse for learning—it combines a familiar video game with physical building. Ultimately we want to boost everyone’s creative confidence with technology, programming, and engineering in a playful way.”
Dave McClure, founding partner of 500 Startups, said, “Combining coding and Minecraft is genius. Great to see my kids turn into little nerds; maybe they can pay for my retirement some day.”
Pavlyukovskyy said, “All of us have a lot of great potential inside of us. If we’re just given the tool to transform those ideas into other things I believe there’d be a lot of great new products and inventions out there.”
