Prahlad Wulf’s eyes are locked on his laptop screen and his fingers tap the keyboard in complete absorption, his focus broken only by the time taken to grab a few corn chips to eat.
Six boys sit next to him, each similarly focused.
They are all playing Minecraft, the massively popular game where blocky-pixelated characters explore, build, and live in a limitless blocky-pixelated world.
But unlike the other boys, Prahlad has type 1 diabetes.
He was diagnosed at the age of eight, and spent two weeks in hospital learning how to manage the condition via the rituals of daily injections, blood glucose checks and watching what he eats.
“I was really young then so I didn’t really understand most of it, it was a little bit scary,” Prahlad said.
For his father Josh Wulf, the experience was tough to handle.
“If anything happens to your children it really hits you, you know?” Mr Wulf said.
The experience stuck with Mr Wulf, who now runs programs helping children learn coding through Minecraft.
“I realised we could make a difference for children and families living with type 1 diabetes in terms of learning how to manage their condition in a safe way, and a fun way,” he said.
With a group of volunteers, he has been building a modified version of Minecraft and they have been spending weekends together fine-tuning and testing the game.
GIF: A modified version of Minecraft helps children manage their diabetes
In the modified version of Minecraft, players walk around the world and play through stories, with the added challenge of monitoring their blood glucose and insulin.
“They focus on playing, they focus on the story, they focus on the magic, and they just learn how to manage diabetes in the course of that,” Mr Wulf said.
He hopes the finished game will help children with type 1 diabetes connect online, as well as help their friends without diabetes better understand the condition.
QUT associate professor Michael Dezuanni studies how kids learn playing games and he would like to trial the game with newly diagnosed kids in hospital.
“They would be able to play the game, and it would be able to become one part of their education around type 1 diabetes,” he said.
The project has also attracted international attention.
Mr Wulf said a Danish pharmaceutical company that manufactures insulin approached him after hearing about the project.
“We’re working with their scientists on the modelling of the metabolism in the game, and we’re going to visit them in Denmark in June to talk further about that,” he said.
It could be “game over” for Minecraft fans who downloaded unauthorized mods (modifications) for their Android smartphone or tablet.
Instead of finding new content or tools to tweak the wildly popular Minecraft: Pocket Edition mobile game, more than 80 malicious apps — disguised as Minecraft mods — contained Trojans that bombarded users with advertisements or redirected them to scam websites, says ESET, a Slovakia-based cybersecurity company.
Lukas Stefanko, the malware researcher who discovered the fake mods, says there have been nearly 1 million downloads of the malicious apps from the Google Play store. “Users often fall for phony apps because they’re promising to deliver something new for a famous game like Minecraft, plus many have positive — but fabricated — ratings,” Stefanko says in an interview with USA TODAY.
Once launched, the apps displayed a screen with a download button, which didn’t install a mod but took users to a Web browser with “scareware” messages falsely notifying users of a found virus on their device and promoting them to download a new app.
Other apps displayed numerous advertisements.
ESET says it reported these two groups of apps to Google on March 16 and 21, respectively. If anyone suspects any of these apps are installed, the company offers step-by-step instructions on how to properly remove them at welivesecurity.com.
Along with running a mobile security solution, Stefanko says, ESET suggests Android users download apps only from trustworthy developers or official stores and be cautious when giving app permissions.
Microsoft did not comment on the ESET findings but said in a statement, “Customers should use caution when dealing with publishers who aren’t known or reputable. We recommend downloading games and apps from trusted sources, such as Microsoft and Mojang.”
Google had no comment.
This isn’t the first time unauthorized Minecraft-related malware has been found on Google Play. In May 2015, ESET discovered and reported 30 applications that pretended to be cheats for the popular game, installed by more than 600,000 Android users.
Minecraft was developed and published by Mojang in 2011, originally for personal computers, and agreed to a purchase by Microsoft for roughly $2.5 billion in the fall of 2014.
The original Mighty Morphing Power Rangers at that. Retro!
Minecraft on consoles is never one to miss out on skin packs for recent pop culture trends. This time, they’ve jumped on board with Mighty Morphing Power Rangers. The original Power Rangers that is!
Minecraft has announced a new skin pack for Console, Pocket, and Windows 10 versions of the game. This skin pack includes all the rangers of course, but it also includes Rita Repulsa, Lord Zed, Goldar, Bulk, Skull, and even Alpha! If that’s not enough, even putties and the Megazord are included.
“As a teen I remember getting out of school, grabbing a snack and settling into the cartoon line-up,” explains Mike Fielder, one of the artists who worked on the skin pack. “Part of that routine was watching Power Rangers. When I found out we would be working on a Minecraft version of some of the character line-up I was pretty excited and even more so when I found out Bulk and Skull would be included since they were my favourite characters. I had a blast creating Minecraft versions of these characters. I hope everyone who uses these skins has as much fun playing them as I did creating them.”
These skins are available for free right now on Console, Pocket and Windows 10 versions of the game!
Children can become heroic architects working to rebuild the remnants of London after the Great Fire of 1666 with the third and final free map in the educational Minecraft series released by the Museum of London.
Great Fire 1666: The Rebuild challenges players to rebuild London after the fire and design their own version of the city. It follows the first and second maps in the series which were released in July and September last year.
Roam the ruined streets of the capital before meeting King Charles II at the Guildhall to hear his plea for a new London. Four architects who submitted rebuilding plans – Christopher Wren (who’s best known for later designing St Paul’s Cathedral), Valentine Knight, John Evelyn and Richard Newcourt – express their ideas for a new London to inspire the player, including wider streets, large open squares, public markets and fountains and charging a levy to use a new canal.
Some of the characters are voiced by well-known YouTubers BigBStaz, NinjaBob and Wizard Keen – with King Charles II played by Stampy’s dad.
The Museum of London mixed its historical expertise and rich resources with less reality-based know-how: digital producer Adam Clarke and Minecraft professionals BlockWorks and Dragnoz.
Adam works globally with institutions, museums and schools using Minecraft and other technologic games to educate and entertain. He plays Wizard Keen in children’s educational Minecraft show – Wonder Quest – alongside fellow YouTuber Stampy.
Dragnoz also worked on production design for Wonder Quest and other game design projects. As a YouTube personality himself, you can check out his education games on his website. The BlockWorks team is made up of 40 international builders, animators and artists – put together to produce Minecraft builds.
Great Fire 1666: The Rebuild is available to download for Minecraft on Mac and Windows here.
The series is part of the Museum of London’s various projects marking the 350th anniversary of the Great Fire of London. Find out more about the interactive exhibitions here.
The first map of the series was based on Wenceslaus Hollar’s map of burnt London from the museum’s collection. The second map puts the user as the hero – saving residents in mini-games, fighting the fire and chatting to famous figures from the time.
A new Power Rangers skin pack is available for Minecraft right now. The pack comes with skins for all the five main Power Rangers, as well as skins for Rita Repulsa, Bulk, and Skull.
The Power Rangers Pack is available now for Minecraft’s console, Windows 10, and mobile versions. It’s priced at $3, and is a very small download, coming in at just 10.09 MB.
Here’s what one of the artists who worked on the Power Rangers skin pack had to say, “I had a blast creating Minecraft versions of these characters. I hope everyone who uses these skins has as much fun playing them as I did creating them.”
The Power Rangers skin pack is just the latest for Minecraft. Others already available include those for The Simpsons, Star Wars, and Halo, among many others.
Microsoft has outed a temporary bundle deal that should make the prospect of picking up Minecraft on Xbox One a little more tempting. Now, when you pick up the Minecraft: Xbox One Edition Favorites Pack, you can snag the Battle Map Pack Season Pass for free.
In all, this bundle will save you a modest $10, or the price of the Battle Map Pack Season Pass. You’ll still have to shell out $30 to pick up the Favorites Pack, itself. For its part, the Favorites Pack includes the following:
Battle & Beasts Skin Pack
Battle & Beasts 2 Skin Pack
Natural Texture Pack
City Texture Pack
Fantasy Texture Pack
Festive Mash-up
Halo Mash-up
The free Battle Map Pack Season Pass will give you access to a total of four map packs that you can use with the Battle mini game. Interested? This deal is up for grabs through April 15 at the Microsoft Store, along with retailers like Gamestop and Walmart.
