For the kids! (Thanks, Shi-n0-bi)

Glenn Fleishman writes, "Minecraft YouTube videos are fantastically popular, and a core group of producers of these videos have enjoyed a wild ride up the virtual charts. Diamond Minecart, a YouTube channel by 22-year-old Daniel Middleton of Northamptonshire, England, has almost 1.9 million subscribers, and people have watched his videos over 400 million times."

My daughter Jane (age 11) grew bored with World of Warcraft (at least for now), but her passion for Minecraft has not waned after a couple of years of playing it. She and her friends love to create towns with libraries, city halls, apartments, subway systems, farms, and jails. — Read the rest

Christopher Mitchell, a PhD candidate in NYU's Computer Science program, is building a 1:1 scale model of Manhattan in Minecraft, with faithful, handmade reproductions of each of the island's skyscrapers. He's relying on data from diverse sources, including Google Earth, and the model to date is 277m^2, with 71Bm^3 of volumetric detail, running on a 200 core cluster with 200GB of RAM. — Read the rest

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One year ago today

Minecraft torch torch: ThinkGeek's Minecraft Light-Up Torch is funnier if you speak one of the Commonwealth English variants where "torch" is a synonym for "flashlight" — but even in the rest of the world, it's still pretty awesome. — Read the rest

Derryl Murphy sez, "My son is home sick and found this video showing a 3D printer ItsJustJumby created for working inside the world of Minecraft. The engineering is way beyond the two of us, but we both still find it amazing and fascinating." — Read the rest

It's 85 minutes long, and it gets right into the meat of things. There are interviews with Notch, the Mojang crew, and game design luminaries, but the documentarians also capture the game's vibe in a way that few others do: that strange, expansive sense of place. — Read the rest

Minecraft, with its lush landscapes, do-anything possibilities and charming blocky visuals, has conquered all. But how was it born? The story begins with two similar games called Dwarf Fortress and Infiniminer. The former had the depth, but was practically unplayable. — Read the rest

Apps for Kids is sponsored by HuluPlus. HuluPlus lets you binge on thousands of hit shows – anytime, anywhere on your TV, PC, smart phone or tablet. Click here to support Apps for Kids and get an extended free trial of Hulu Plus. — Read the rest

Apps for Kids is sponsored by HuluPlus. HuluPlus lets you binge on thousands of hit shows – anytime, anywhere on your TV, PC, smart phone or tablet. Click here to support Apps for Kids and get an extended free trial of Hulu Plus. — Read the rest

Apps for Kids is Boing Boing's podcast about cool smartphone apps for kids and parents. My co-host is my 10-year-old daughter, Jane.

In this episode, we review Bean's Quest. It's $2.99 in the iTunes store and Google Play. — Read the rest

Minecraft's real star is its landscape, flowing psuedo-randomly from whatever name you give your world. But it also became a checkerboard of predictable components: rolling hills here, weirdly-shaped mountains there, and perhaps an abrupt patch of swamp or tropical jungle between them. — Read the rest

Lego announced two new Minecraft micro-worlds. The Village and The Nether measure 3”x3”x3” , and will be available September 1. If you can't wait, you can get the 480-piece Lego Minecraft building set now.

Overv cloned Minecraft using x86 assembly. You can boot your computer into it. Crazy: "Starting in assembly right away would be a bit too insane, so I first wrote a reference implementation in C". Instructions are provided to put it on a USB stick. — Read the rest

Here's a Time video about Jacob Granberry's effort to build Westeros, from Game of Thrones, in Minecraft. More at WesterosCraft. (Thanks, Ben Cosgrove!)

Have at it. My top score is 11 because I can't type.

You may now get carpet in Minecraft and get Minecraft carpet. Sort of.

This five-minute video takes you on a tour of the astounding Beetlejuice roller-coaster created by Nuropsych1 and friends.

As I predicted, the Minecraft Creeper hoodie I posted about a few months ago turned out to be a big hit. Jane loves it and her friends are asking their parents from them, too. I have a vision of all the kids at her school walking around campus with these on. — Read the rest