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What you need to know about Minecraft What is it? Minecraft is a video game in which players create and break apart various kinds of blocks in three-dimensional worlds. The game's two main modes are Survival and Creative. In Survival, players must find their own building supplies and food. They also interact with blocklike mobs, or moving creatures. (Creepers and zombies are some of the dangerous ones.) In Creative, players are given supplies and do not have to eat to survive.

SAN FRANCISCO — Google Inc. unveiled a streaming music service called All Access that blends songs users have already uploaded to their online libraries with millions of other tracks. Google made it available in the U.S. Wednesday for $8 a month to early birds who sign up for service before June 30. In addition to a 30-day free trial, the offer shaves $2 off the price of popular paid subscription plans from Spotify and Rhapsody. The service is an attempt by the world's dominant Internet...

Google announced a new look for its Play app marketplace, featuring bigger pictures and a simplified checkout system. The company said in a blog post that the new format is rolling out Tuesday in the U.S. to Android smartphone and tablets running Android 2.2 (Froyo). International users should see the changes in coming weeks. Apps, books and videos will be grouped by subject and feature more curated lists to suggest content specifically aimed at a given Google Play user. On the company's developers blog, Google explained how checkout...

Google's rumored to be launching a new music service to compete with online music provider Spotify at its developers conference this week, according to a report from The Verge — an announcement that could drop as soon as Wednesday. Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report. Much like the online video space, the online music world has become increasingly fractured , and Google's rumored service further complicates that picture. The company already sells...

Google Play is celebrating its first birthday by offering a week of deals on apps, games, books and music. "It was just a year ago today that we launched this amazing shop on the interwebs to offer the best in digital content," reads a company message on the sale's landing page . "Since the best parties are the ones that send you home with a present, today we celebrate our birthday with a festive goodie bag full of gifts. " Deals on Tuesday included a free download for the pilot of "Breaking Bad," exclusive characters in the...

Google has sold out of the 16GB version of its Galaxy Nexus 7 tablet. As of this weekend, the tablet is not available for order on the Google Play store. Users looking to buy the tablet are encouraged to enter their e-mail addresses in order to be notified when the company gets more in stock. The tablet started shipping last week, a little under a month after Google announced that it was getting back into the direct hardware game (sort of) by partnering with Asus on a Google-branded tablet.

Google's 16GB Nexus 7 tablet is back in stock online a week after it sold out in the Google Play store. The Nexus 7 has seen much interest since it was introduced about a month ago at Google's I/O conference. It's a stunning 7-inch tablet that re-writes the rules on what a $200 slate can offer. The tablet runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, has access to the Google Play store for music, movies, and TV shows, and features a quad-core Tegra 3 processor, 1GB of RAM, and a 1,280-by-800 display.

Google has stopped taking new orders for the 16GB model of the Nexus 7 tablet in the Google Play store , a sign Google did not prepare for the tremendous demand the device has attracted thus far. The Nexus 7 has seen much interest since it was introduced about a month ago at Google's I/O conference. Since then, Google has clarified the timing on when preordered Nexus 7 units would arrive on people's doorsteps. Google had said 16GB model could take one to two weeks to arrive,...

In late October, researchers at North Carolina State University alerted Google to a security flaw that could let scam artists send phony text messages to Android phones — a practice called "smishing" that can ensnare consumers in fraud. Google's security officials replied in minutes, confirming the flaw and promising to correct it. Within days they had incorporated a fix into the latest version of the Android operating system, Jelly Bean 4.2 , and made available a security...

Google's rumored to be launching a new music service to compete with online music provider Spotify at its developers conference this week, according to a report from The Verge — an announcement that could drop as soon as Wednesday. Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report. Much like the online video space, the online music world has become increasingly fractured , and Google's rumored service further complicates that picture. The company...

Facebook will be bringing a piece of the Facebook Home suite to Apple devices through an update to its social networking app, but iPhones won't have anything like the deep integration that Android users using Facebook Home have. The social networking company said that just one piece of the changes — the newly designed chat layout called "Chat Heads" — will be coming to the iPhone. Chat heads changes the way Facebook messaging looks, popping up a small image of your conversation partner's face on the screen over whatever else...

Google announced a new look for its Play app marketplace, featuring bigger pictures and a simplified checkout system. The company said in a blog post that the new format is rolling out Tuesday in the U.S. to Android smartphone and tablets running Android 2.2 (Froyo). International users should see the changes in coming weeks. Apps, books and videos will be grouped by subject and feature more curated lists to suggest content specifically aimed at a given Google Play user. On the company's developers blog, Google...

What you need to know about Minecraft What is it? Minecraft is a video game in which players create and break apart various kinds of blocks in three-dimensional worlds. The game's two main modes are Survival and Creative. In Survival, players must find their own building supplies and food. They also interact with blocklike mobs, or moving creatures. (Creepers and zombies are some of the dangerous ones.) In Creative, players are given supplies and do not have to eat to survive.

Google Play is celebrating its first birthday by offering a week of deals on apps, games, books and music. "It was just a year ago today that we launched this amazing shop on the interwebs to offer the best in digital content," reads a company message on the sale's landing page . "Since the best parties are the ones that send you home with a present, today we celebrate our birthday with a festive goodie bag full of gifts. " Deals on Tuesday included a free download for the pilot of "Breaking Bad," exclusive characters in the...

In late October, researchers at North Carolina State University alerted Google to a security flaw that could let scam artists send phony text messages to Android phones — a practice called "smishing" that can ensnare consumers in fraud. Google's security officials replied in minutes, confirming the flaw and promising to correct it. Within days they had incorporated a fix into the latest version of the Android operating system, Jelly Bean 4.2 , and made available a security...

Hundreds of popular smartphone and tablet apps aimed at children are collecting personal data and sharing it without informing parents, a new federal study said Monday. Developers of these software programs offered misleading privacy policies or buried their practices in fine print, the Federal Trade Commission found after testing 400 leading apps sold in the mobile stores run by Apple and Google. The findings come ahead of a landmark vote at the FTC on new online child privacy rules ...

Google's developers conference kicks off Wednesday, illuminating what it sees as its greatest growth areas and the sections of its company where it wants the developer community to be paying the most attention. Two big announcements are expected out of the day's talks. Tablet: The news of the keynote is expected to be a Nexus 7-inch tablet that most analysts say they expect to be competitive with Amazon's Kindle Fire. A report from Reuters has cited an unnamed Asus executive who claims that the tablet will be launched to...

Facebook will be bringing a piece of the Facebook Home suite to Apple devices through an update to its social networking app, but iPhones won't have anything like the deep integration that Android users using Facebook Home have. The social networking company said that just one piece of the changes — the newly designed chat layout called "Chat Heads" — will be coming to the iPhone. Chat heads changes the way Facebook messaging looks, popping up a small image of your conversation partner's face on the screen...

If you're hoping for a Kindle or iPod Touch this holiday season, it pays to think ahead. Which apps will you buy? For $10 you could get a half-dozen new games. But with thousands of choices at the App Store, Amazon and Google Play, how do you know which ones are fun and which are a waste of a dollar? KidsPost tried out new apps for 7-to-12-year-olds — games, puzzles, arts and crafts, and even a few your parents would call educational — and picked some to entertain you over the holidays.

When the iTunes store began offering apps that used cellphone light to cure acne, federal investigators knew that hucksters had found a new spot in cyberspace. "We realized this could be a medium for mischief," said James Prunty, a Federal Trade Commission attorney who helped pursue the government's only cases against health-app developers last year, shutting down two acne apps. Since then, the Food and Drug Administration has been mired in a debate over how to...