The most advanced AIs today can perform select tasks with superhuman-like efficiency, beating the best humans have to offer at intricate games like Starcraft II and Go. But ask those same AIs to perform something outside of their area of expertise, and they’ll struggle. Creating an AI that’s a generalist is one of the next major challenges of AI research. And it’s something a team of researchers at Facebook is attempting to do by teaching an AI how to play a game.

This time around, however, the game of choice is Minecraft. According to Facebook, the simplicity and sandbox nature of Microsoft’s popular title make it the perfect training ground for a generalist assistant AI. In Minecraft‘s ‘Creative’ mode, players have been able to recreate complex structures like Star Trek’s Enterprise D with just a few simple building blocks. It’s that potential for almost infinite creativity with a small set of easy-to-understand tools, in conjunction with the difficulty of teaching an AI to understand natural language, that has Facebook spending countless hours on a private Minecraft server. The hope is to eventually create an AI assistant that can help people with their day-to-day tasks, which is something Facebook has been trying to do for a couple of years now.

In 2015, Facebook launched M, an AI-powered personal assistant within the company’s Messenger app, only to shut down the platform after two-and-a-half years. One of the limitations of M was that it frequently required human oversight to complete tasks. Its other issue was that, outside of a small handful of tasks, Messenger users didn’t use M a lot, limiting the AI’s ability to learn. With enough time and some tweaks, the company’s Minecraft AI could form the basis of a future version of M. In the meantime, if you’d like to check out Facebook’s Minecraft AI, it’s available to download.

Nvidia has revealed Minecraft awash in a coat of new pretty paint, with a new trailer on Monday that shows the before and after effects of Nvidia’s raytracing capabilities, with thoughts on the update by Minecraft’s development team.

Watch the trailer above to see all sorts of locales get the RTX treatment on Windows 10, including vibrant homes, glistening lakes, darkened tunnels full of glowing lava, and expansive caves with light filtering in from cracks above. We went hands-on to experience the improvements with Minecraft using RTX, and felt that it looks like an entirely new game. You can hear more of IGN’s thoughts in the video below.

The raytracing will include enhanced lighting, reflections, and shadows across the world, putting more depth and quality into the classic blocks that retain the same assets, but with better looking textures all around. Nvidia also mentioned that everything will be moddable to benefit players, which is a spot of good news after it was announced that the Super Duper Graphics Pack has been cancelled.

The development team has still been hard at work this year, celebrating Minecraft’s 10th anniversary and the recently revealed Minecraft Earth.

The RTX update from Nvidia doesn’t have an exact release date yet, but when it lands you can expect a free update that’s available to anyone using Nvidia cards in the 2060, 2070, or 2080 range (including the Super and Ti variants).For more on Gamescom, be sure to check out our Gamescom 2019 hub, and check out the whole show’s schedule for a clue as to what else we might be hearing about this week.

The latest update for Minecraft: Java Edition adds what Mojang calls “a large bug” – but don’t worry, it’s just an adorable honey bee. The new mobs are spawning as of the 19W34A snapshot, and they open up a whole bunch of possibilities for collecting honey and building a bee-powered farm.

Bees are neutral mobs that will keep to themselves unless you mess with them or their nests – if you get stung, the bee will lose its stinger and eventually die. Bee nests will naturally spawn in flower forests, plains, and sunflower plains biomes, and bees will seek out flowers, grab some pollen, and add a level of honey to the nest every time they return.

You can use a bottle on a nest to get honey, or you can construct your own bee hives using honeycombs and wood planks to build a honey farm wherever you want it. You can keep bees calm with smoke by placing a campfire near a nest or hive.BEST PC GAMING HARDWARE DEALS TODAYLogitech G502 HERO High Performance Gaming Mouse

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Also, these bees are adorable. And giant. Just look at them!

Minecraft✔@Minecraft

Today, Java Snapshots return, with an exciting new bug! Wait, come back, it’s not that type of bug! Meet Minecraft’s latest mob: the bee!

↣ http://redsto.ne/bees  ↢

116K23:37 – 22 Aug 2019Twitter Ads information and privacy33.6K people are talking about this

You can get the full rundown of the new update on the official site.

• Minecraft bees already have Adventure Time and Bee Movie mods
• Minecraft banners: how to create and customise Minecraft shields
• Minecraft brewing guide: how to make potions in Minecraft

Those bees will look even better with the official addition of ray tracing to Minecraft – not a bad trade for that cancelled graphics pack, all things considered.

In July the first closed beta for Minecraft Earth was released to select residents in London, Seattle, Stockholm, and Tokyo. Today Mojang’s augmented reality version of Minecraft has finally arrived on the Play Store as a pre-registration listing, and it would appear that another beta wave is going to take place next week. While Mojang hasn’t stipulated whether this will be an open or closed beta, a recent tweet from the official Minecraft Earth account points towards a sign-up page, so I’m guessing invites will still be necessary to get in, just like the previous wave.Now here’s the thing. It would appear that today’s pre-reg listing has little to do with today’s announcement of another beta round. So if you’d like to get into the next wave, you’ll want to sign up on Mojang’s official website, and if you’d like to receive a notification whenever the game is officially released on Android, you’ll want to click the pre-reg button in the Play Store widget below this article.

We still don’t know when Minecraft Earth will officially debut, though the numerous beta waves and today’s pre-reg listing should be a sign that we are inching ever-closer to that date, whatever it may be. Currently, the new Play Store listing states that in-app purchases will be included with the release, but since the title isn’t available yet, no prices are offered. Clearly, this leaves many of us with a lot of unanswered questions, so it’s my hope that the next beta brings along a few more clues. Finger’s crossed, maybe this time I’ll get in. If you’d like to try your luck, feel free to sign up for beta access on Mojang’s site.

We’ve been following the evolution of hardware-accelerated real-time ray tracing for some time now here at Digital Foundry – and one of the most spectacular demos we’ve seen actually took the form of Sonic Ether’s RT shader mod for Minecraft, which brute-forced full path-tracing into the Java version of the classic Mojang title. It’s brilliant stuff, and although slow, it will work on any modern GPU.

But as good as it is, we had to wonder – what kind of improvement would we see with full hardware acceleration? What if Mojang itself incorporated full path tracing into the engine itself? The developer duly delivered at Gamescom 2019 and my colleagues John Linneman and Alex Battaglia played the early code, handing in the extensive deep dive into the demo found on this page.

Similar to our own work with the mod, the developers put together their own custom maps to showcase the effects of full path tracing within the Minecraft engine. In our video, you’ll get to see both of these creations. One of them showcases how the new technology interacts with the existing, older-style textures – which are typically based on 64×64 textures – but the video kicks off with a look at path tracing combined with higher resolution block art, reaching a maximum of 1024×1024.

In all cases, light interacts accurately with the materials and conditions in place, to the point where the developers accidentally discovered that the classic camera obscura pinhole effect could be replicated in-game. But this is just one of many remarkable phenomena path tracing brings to the table – and in the embedded video below, you’ll see John and Alex run the gamut of the demo, experimenting with its various effects, and even pushing the implementation beyond its current limits.

And hitting those limits is easily possible right now, most because Mojang has only been working on Minecraft’s official path tracing implementation since April (coincidentally (?) when Sonic Ether’s Minecraft mod first appeared), so there’s still a long way to go before the RTX support rolls out generally. However, as a taste of how transformative full path tracing is, this is the most impressive demo we’ve seen – it’s a more total, more complete implementation in a game than anything else out there, even more so than the impressive Quake 2 RTX.

All of which is to say that checking out the video above is highly recommended! The DF Gamescom team sat down to talk with the developers in more depth, and we’ll be bringing you that interview soon, along the more coverage from the show.

What you need to know

• Microsoft has announced plans to expand its Minecraft Earth beta test to Android.
• The test will bring the AR-powered mobile game Android 7+ devices across five cities.
• Budding Minecraft Earth players can sign up via the Minecraft website.

Minecraft Earth is scheduled to make its Android debut next week, expanding the closed beta test that kicked off back in July. Microsoft’s upcoming augmented reality (AR) spin on its best-selling blockbuster has garnered notable attention, merging its creative sandbox with the real world. The upcoming Android release brings the app to more beta registrants, ahead of a broader public release going forward.

The upcoming change will provide a chance of playing to those registered via the Minecraft Earth website. As with prior Minecraft Earth tests, developer Mojang has committed to five cities: Seattle, London, Stockholm, Tokyo, and Mexico City. While the final launch sets sights worldwide, early beta testing locks the experience down to a pool of hotspots with no plans to increase. As a result, Android tests will see similar restrictions, fixated on the same five regions.

Minecraft Earth also requires an Android device running Android 7 Nougat or later, alongside support for Android’s ARCore augmented reality platform. Android’s open nature makes it harder to identify all Android 7+ phones compatible, although most released in recent are covered. You can check if your Android phone meets Minecraft Earth’s requirements using our handy guide.

Invited iOS beta applicants experienced up to a month of trials, with August 26 bringing a full server reset, wiping player progress ahead of the Android launch. Tapping into real-world map data, the game sees players collecting nearby virtual blocks, before scaling AR creations. With Pokemon GO changing mobile gaming back in 2016, Microsoft has high hopes for its AR adventure.

A Valley High School student has recreated downtown Des Moines in stunningly exact detail within the realm of a popular video game. 

Sean Eddy, 16, is a resident of Beaverdale. Over the past two and a half years, mostly during summer breaks from school, he has worked on meticulously recreating the downtown Des Moines area within the open-ended, world-building video game Minecraft. 

The 801 Grand building in downtown Des Moines recreated in Minecraft by Sean Eddy. (Photo: ProjectDSM/ Special to the Register)

After recreating Stillwell Junior High School when he was in seventh grade for a school project, Eddy decided he would get more ambitious with his Minecraft projects. He started what would become the downtown project by recreating the 801 Grand building. 

After opening up a server that would allow people to publicly see his downtown Des Moines recreation project in 2017, Eddy has spent the majority of the time since working on the project, spending the past summer, in particular, going back over previously built buildings and adding more specific details. 

In order to faithfully recreate intricate details and the interiors of buildings, Eddy has looked to Des Moines Register photos of areas like the Tea Room at Wilkins, Cowles Commons redesign and even those of the Younkers fire in order to capture downtown as precisely as possible. 

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In a video posted to the ProjectDSM YouTube channel, Eddy has shown exactly how meticulously he’s recreated the downtown landscape.

Though Eddy does all of the exterior detailing himself, his friends Henry Shires and Luke Okland have contributed with designing interiors and managing the technicalities of running a server for the public. 

Though he’s about to embark on a particularly challenging year of high school, Eddy is looking ahead to eventually expanding east and west in his downtown project to work on the Court Avenue District and Pappajohn Sculpture Park areas. 

The sever the downtown area is stored on is entirely public and accessible to anyone with a Minecraft client for PC compatible with the server. The ProjectDSM website has more information for those interested in exploring the recreation. 

Screenshot from the ProjectDSM Minecraft recreation of downtown Des Moines, Iowa. (Photo: Project DSM/ Special to the Register)

The latest AR game that’s set to hit smartphones is Microsoft’s Minecraft Earth. Today, Minecraft Earth has finally arrived on the Google Play Store for Android, but it’s only in beta for the time being.

Just like with other apps and games that have used the functionality, pre-registering for Minecraft Earth on the Google Play Store will send you a notification as soon as the game has been released for download. There’s no date just yet as to when Minecraft Earth will debut on Android, but now that the game is listed in the Play Store probably means it will be sooner rather than later.

If you want to give it a shot even sooner, Minecraft Earth is available now in beta for Android. You’ll need to sign up for the closed beta and have a Microsoft or Xbox Live account to participate. Sign-ups are now available on the official Minecraft website.

Minecraft Earth should work on most Android devices, so long as they support ARCore and running Android 7.0 Nougat and above.

Discover a new dimension of Minecraft as you create, explore, and survive in the real world. Join a community of builders and explorers spanning the planet, collect resources for your builds, craft in augmented reality and then place them at life-size. You can even team up with others for mini-adventures!

You can head to the Play Store to pre-register for Minecraft Earth.

Minecraft Earth has now opened up its beta to Android users. The beta was released to iPhone users running at least iOS 10 last month, as reported earlier Thursday by The Verge. Your device needs to be running Android 7 or higher to play, and you also have to be 18 or older.

Like Pokemon Go, Minecraft Earth is an augmented reality mobile game where players can explore the real world and build within it using Minecraft blocks. It was officially revealed in May, with Microsoft showing off gameplay in a trailer.

To sign up, you’ll also need a Microsoft or Xbox Live account and app store login. By signing up for the beta, you can get a free skin for Minecraft Earth and Minecraft Bedrock.

According to CNET sister site GameSpot, you can explore the Minecraft Earth world to find treasure chests, block clusters and mobs called “Toppables.” You can build permanent structures on Build Plates, and, by coming across an Adventure, you can also experience a full Minecraft overlay where you can collect resources and dispatch mobs.

Multiplayer capabilities are also expected in the future.

Pokémon Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee bring some major changes to the traditional Pokémon experience, but they also shake up some of the little things on your return to the Kanto region of generation one, from what items are available and where, to the trainers you battle and the Pokémon that can be found along the way.

Here in our Pokémon Let’s Go walkthrough and guidehub, we assemble all our individual Let’s Go guides in one place for you to quickly flick through them, on top of our list of every page of our complete walkthrough to Pokémon Let’s Go, from Pallet Town to the Elite Four and beyond. Enjoy your adventure!

On this page:

• Pokémon Let’s Go walkthrough for Let’s Go Pikachu and Let’s Go Eevee
• Pokémon Let’s Go guide list – all our Pokémon Let’s Go guides listed

Pokémon Let’s Go walkthrough for Let’s Go Pikachu and Let’s Go Eevee

Each walkthrough page in our guide covers all the Pokémon, Items, and battles or Trainers that we’ve discovered on every route or location along the way.

Our walkthrough is now complete, but we’ll be doubling back and adding any additional finds along the way if we spot them. With that in mind, here’s our walkthrough of every location you’ll encounter in your quest, in order:

Pokémon Let’s Go walkthrough

Pokémon Let’s Go walkthrough part 1: the Boulder Badge

• Pokémon Let’s Go – Pallet Town
• Pokémon Let’s Go – Route 1
• Pokémon Let’s Go – Viridian City and Viridian City Gym
• Pokémon Let’s Go – Route 22
• Pokémon Let’s Go – Route 2
• Pokémon Let’s Go – Viridian Forest
• Pokémon Let’s Go – Pewter City, Brock Gym Battle and the Museum

Pokémon Let’s Go walkthrough part 2: the Cascade Badge

• Pokémon Let’s Go – Route 3
• Pokémon Let’s Go – Route 4 west and Route 4 east
• Pokémon Let’s Go – Mt. Moon, Helix and Dome fossils
• Pokémon Let’s Go – Cerulean City and Misty Gym Battle

Pokémon Let’s Go walkthrough part 3: the Thunder Badge

• Pokémon Let’s Go – Route 24 and Nugget Bridge
• Pokémon Let’s Go – Route 25 and Bill’s House
• Pokémon Let’s Go – Route 5 and Day Care Center
• Pokémon Let’s Go – Underground Path one and two
• Pokémon Let’s Go – Route 6
• Pokémon Let’s Go – Vermilion City and Lt. Surge Gym puzzle solution
• Pokémon Let’s Go – S.S. Anne and where to find the Captain

Pokémon Let’s Go walkthrough part 4: the Rainbow Badge

• Pokémon Let’s Go – Route 11
• Pokémon Let’s Go – Diglett’s Cave
• Pokémon Let’s Go – Route 9
• Pokémon Let’s Go – Route 10 north and south
• Pokémon Let’s Go – Rock Tunnel
• Pokémon Let’s Go – Lavender Town and Pokémon Tower
• Pokémon Let’s Go – Route 8
• Pokémon Let’s Go – Route 7
• Pokémon Let’s Go – Celadon City and Erika Gym Battle

Pokémon Let’s Go walkthrough part 5: the Marsh Badge

• Pokémon Let’s Go – Rocket Game Corner and Team Rocket Hideout
• Pokémon Let’s Go – Saffron City, Sabrina’s Gym and Fighting Dojo
• Pokémon Let’s Go – Silph Co. and Giovanni
• Pokémon Let’s Go – Route 12 upper and lower

Pokémon Let’s Go walkthrough part 6: the Soul Badge

• Pokémon Let’s Go – Route 13
• Pokémon Let’s Go – Route 14
• Pokémon Let’s Go – Route 15
• Pokémon Let’s Go – Route 16
• Pokémon Let’s Go – Route 17
• Pokémon Let’s Go – Route 18
• Pokémon Let’s Go – Fuchia City, Warden’s Teeth and Koga Gym battle

Pokémon Let’s Go walkthrough part 7: the Volcano Badge

• Pokémon Let’s Go – Route 19
• Pokémon Let’s Go – Route 20 east and west
• Pokémon Let’s Go – Seafoam Islands solution and Articuno
• Pokémon Let’s Go – Cinnabar Island Gym, Blaine quiz answers, Pokémon Mansion

Pokémon Let’s Go walkthrough part 8: the Earth Badge

• Pokémon Let’s Go – Route 21
• Pokémon Let’s Go – Viridian City Gym

Pokémon Let’s Go walkthrough part 9: the Elite Four

• Pokémon Let’s Go – Route 23
• Pokémon Let’s Go – Victory Road and Moltres
• Pokémon Let’s Go – Elite Four, Ingido Plateau, Pokémon League

Pokémon Let’s Go walkthrough part 10: post-game and optional areas

• Pokémon Let’s Go – Power Plant and how to find Zapdos
• Pokémon Let’s Go – Cerulean Cave and how to find Mewtwo

That’s the end of our now-complete walkthrough, but keep checking back for more standalone guides and explainers to the game’s systems and mechanics in the section just below!

Head back to our main Pokémon Let’s Go walkthrough and guide hub for all our pages in one place, including detailed, step-by-step help for tough spots like Cerulean Cave, and the Elite Four, plus tough dungeons like Silph Co., Seafoam Islands and Victory Road. Otherwise, take a peek(achu) at our Pokémon Let’s Go TM list and all TM locations, Let’s Go’s starter locations and how to get Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle, along with how to get Mew in Let’s Go, andhow to get Meltan in Let’s Go and Go too. Beyond that we also explain how connect Pokémon Go to Let’s Go on Nintendo Switch and transfer Pokémon, Catching, catch combos, and how to catch Pokémon, a quick collection of our best Pokémon Let’s Go tips and tricks to get you off to a great start, and finally what we know about the Pokémon Pass app distribution event too.

Pokémon Let’s Go guide list – all our Let’s Go guides in one place

Like our main walkthrough, our list of in-depth guides and explainers on specific topics will be expanding over the coming days.

Pokémon Let’s Go guides

• Pokémon Let’s Go TM list – all TM locations and where to find them
• Pokémon Let’s Go tips and tricks
• Pokémon Let’s Go catching, catch combo bonuses explained – how to catch Pokémon
• Pokémon Let’s Go Mew mystery gift – how to get Mew in Let’s Go
• Pokémon Let’s Go starter locations – how to get Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle early
• How to catch Meltan and Melmetal in Pokémon Let’s Go and Pokémon Go
• Pokémon Go to Let’s Go transfer steps explained

For now, that’s every standalone Pokémon Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee guide that we have so far – but again, expect much more to follow soon!