It was natural that the recent boom in video game adaptations would yield a new film based on the best-known virtual universe of the modern era. Minecraft, the Microsoft-owned digital sandbox that holds the record as the bestselling video game of all time, is finally taking its place in the annals of beloved gaming franchises--like Super Mario Bros. and Sonic the Hedgehog--that have earned the Hollywood studio treatment, celebrity stars and special effects and all. Helmed by Napoleon Dynamite director and friend of Slate Jared Hess, A Minecraft Movie throws Jack Black, Jason Momoa, Danielle Brooks, Emma Myers, and Jennifer Coolidge into the titular game's pixelated universe, subjecting their real-life bodies to the simplistic physics, creative engineering, and bizarre supernatural life forms that make up the expansive worlds of Minecraft. It took about a decade to get this flick off the ground, so the anticipation is high--especially among younger gamers addicted to the online playgrounds that gained such traction during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. Already, the film is breaking box-office records held by previous game adaptations, and if you have a child who spends a lot of time playing on the computer, chances are they're definitely ready and excited to catch A Minecraft Movie--even if you barely know what Minecraft is.

The robotic line cooks were deep in their recipe, toiling away in a room tightly packed with equipment. In one corner, an articulated arm selected and mixed ingredients, while another slid back and forth on a fixed track, working the ovens. A third was on plating duty, carefully shaking the contents of a crucible onto a dish. Gerbrand Ceder, a materials scientist at Lawrence Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley, nodded approvingly as a robotic arm delicately pinched and capped an empty plastic vial--an especially tricky task, and one of his favorites to observe. "These guys can work all night," Ceder said, giving two of his grad students a wry look.

Minecraft is turning 15 next year and we've been given insight into how popular it still is in the lead up: the game has now sold more than 300 million copies. To put that in perspective, Grand Theft Auto V is not even a close second, with over 185 million copies sold. Even its slightly later release (2013) doesn't do much to make up for the gap -- especially considering Minecraft surpassed the 200 million mark in 2020. Mojang Studios announced the achievement during a Minecraft Live event that shared new features coming to the game, like a trial chamber that has traps and mobs coming at you along a series of rooms and corridors. A new Star Wars: Path of the Jedi DLC and Planet Earth DLC are also in development and will be available on November 7 and early next year, respectively.

It has been purchased more than 200m times and after 10 years it's still one of the most played video games in the world – now the block building sim Minecraft has passed another milestone: YouTube videos of the game have passed one trillion views, making it the most watched game on the platform. Originally released in 2009, Minecraft has always been popular on the video sharing site, thanks to its open and highly creative nature. Players can build whatever they like in the blocky landscape, and talented modellers have flooded YouTube to show off their most impressive creations, from scale models of Hogwarts and the Starship Enterprise to working computers. The game also proved immensely popular with the first generation of superstar YouTube influencers – the likes of Stampy Cat, DanTDM and PewDiePie built vast audiences through playing Minecraft and creating their own narratives, events and challenges via the game's open design. According to Microsoft, there are are now more than 35,000 active Minecraft creator channels on YouTube, based in 150 different countries.

Medline Industries, a manufacturer and distributor of medical supplies, based in Northfield, Ill., is growing quickly, said Sarah Stokes, director of accounts payable at the company. That means double-digit sales growth year over year, she said, but it also means more paperwork. "Our biggest challenge is trying to keep up with the volume," Stokes said. To help tackle the 2,000 invoices the company receives each day, Medline has turned to optical character recognition (OCR) technology from vendor Abbyy, paired with platforms from several RPA vendors. The combination has gone a long way in automating accounts payable, Stokes said.

Hidden away somewhere in my attic is an old Xbox 360 that I'll never throw away. On its hard drive is a Minecraft save file that contains the first house my oldest son ever built in the game. He was seven and, coming from a boy on the autism spectrum with a limited vocabulary and no patience to draw and paint, his creation was a revelation. Sure, it is a monstrous carbuncle, a mess of wooden planks, cobblestone and dirt. But it is also the greatest building I ever saw.

Fashion retailer Hennes & Mauritz AB wants to get a better sense of what makes its customers tick. To help it, the Swedish company just hired a man best known for revealing a data privacy scandal that rocked Facebook Inc. and raised serious questions around how some corners of technology are shaping human existence. At H&M, 29-year-old Christopher Wylie will help the company use big data and artificial intelligence to make sure it actually designs things shoppers want. If successful, the Cambridge Analytica whistle-blower might be able to help fix some of H&M's most pressing issues, including getting its inventory under control and ultimately making the company more profitable. "If you better understand what people like to wear, and how they like to wear it, and how they want to feel when they're wearing it, you'll naturally start to create insights as to modernizing and updating your collection," Wylie said in an interview at H&M's Stockholm headquarters on Thursday.

If ever there was an event specifically designed to send the regular Sydney Opera House clientele into a near-fatal frenzy of monocle popping, it was this one: a video game festival hosted at Australia's most famous cultural icon. But whatever misgivings one may have about Minecraft at the Opera House, when I arrive the mood is buoyant. More still stand in line to meet the "celebrities of Minecraft" – a concept that would be impossible to even begin to explain to someone 10 years ago. Others are marshalled into groups, waiting side stage in the concert hall to take part in Australia's first Minecraft tournament. The parents take in the scene with an air of contented bafflement. Their confusion is understandable: on the surface, Minecraft as a popular game, let alone an international phenomenon, is hard to explain.

Google's artificial intelligence unit DeepMind is getting serious about healthcare - with ambitious plans to digitise the NHS - but first it needs to convince patients to hand over their medical records. Back in February, it began work with the Royal Free to create an app to help doctors spot patients who might be at risk of developing kidney disease. The first most knew of the partnership was when it emerged some months later that it would be accessing 1.6 million patient records as part of the deal. That led to some pretty negative headlines and questions from some of the patients involved as to why they had not been informed their data was being used in this way. The app - dubbed Streams - is now under investigation by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) while the National Data Guardian, which is tasked with safeguarding health data, is also looking at it. Newly determined to forge a better relationship with the public, Google hosted its first ever patient engagement forum this week at its new headquarters in King's Cross, pledging that it wanted, in future, to work in closer partnership with the public.

When Microsoft showed off Minecraft for the Oculus Rift last fall, the experience was quite realistic--and so was the nausea. On Monday, Microsoft said it's begun shipping the VR version of Minecraft to everyone, complete with two important tweaks that should help reduce VR vertigo. Microsoft began shipping a free update to Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition Beta on Monday that added VR support for the Oculus Rift. It's actually the second VR-specific update Microsoft and developer Mojang have released for Minecraft, following the Minecraft for Gear VR edition the company released in May. "Simulator sickness," one of the names given to the sort of nausea that can accompany virtual reality software, depends on a number of factors, all of which boil down to convincing your brain that what you're seeing is actually "real," rather than an illusion that should be dispelled.