Xperia Play first in line for mobile Minecraft port

If you want to be the first in your hood to take Minecraft with you wherever you go, you'll have to pick up an Xperia Play. The block-building game where cubed avatars hide from creepers and create virtual CPUs will land on the so-called PlayStation Phone before coming to other Android devices and iOS later this year. The Play version will have customized controls that take advantage of the gamepad and button layout found on the Sony Ericsson handheld, though when exactly it will launch or how much it will cost is still unknown. It's also unclear how long the title will be exclusive to the gamer-centric smartphone, but developer Mojang will be holding an event at E3 where, presumably, we'll be getting more details. Now is the time to wrap up any loose ends in your life before what little free time you have left gets buried beneath a pile of bricks and mobs -- even when your PC isn't handy.

Joystiq

Gamasutra, Minecraft (Facebook)

Microsoft's E3 briefing will air on Spike, Facebook and in HD VOD on Xbox Live

A few years ago we were happy just to get a few trailers in high definition from the E3 videogames conference on our Xbox 360s, but this year Microsoft and Spike TV have teamed up to bring the company's entire briefing in HD (via video on-demand) to the console. It will air live on Spike TV June 6th at 12:30 p.m. ET, with streams also available on GameTrailers.com (in high definition), Facebook, MTV.com, Spike.com and Xbox.com as well as being broadcast in Times Square. You can bet we'll be back to liveblog the proceedings yet again but if you want to get your own eyeful of Xbox 360: The Future Revealed (hint: Gears of War 3, Forza Motorsport 4 and Kinect) there will be plenty of ways to do it.

Joystiq

Spike

Apple patent application suggest iPod nano could become even more of a 'fashion accessory'

There's no guarantee that it will show up in the next iPod nano -- or any iPod nano at all, for that matter -- but a newly published patent application has now offered a few more hints about how Apple might make such a device even more wearable. Titled simply, "Environment Sensitive Display Tags," the patent application details how a small, wearable device could use a variety of sensors and inputs (including a camera, microphone, accelerometer -- even a thermometer) to obtain information about its surroundings and translate that into a visual element that's displayed on the screen. So, for instance, the camera could be used to create a background that matches your shirt or jacket, or the accelerometer could be used to make a screen saver react to your movements (like the rain drops illustrated above). All of which, the application suggests, could serve to make the device even more "aesthetically pleasing" as a "fashion accessory."

Incidentally, the patent application also noticeably features "Games" as a menu option in some of the illustrations -- which would be new to the current variety of iPod nano -- but there's no mention of it in the actual claims. And, given that it was filed back in November of 2009, the application's authors could well have simply been working on the assumption that games would simply carry over from the previous generation.

Apple Insider

USPTO