Here’s the full list of what’s new, from the Android Market:

1. Major version 0.2.0 (first survival update)
2. New mode! Choose between Survival and Creative mode when creating a map
3. New blocks; most notably doors, fences and fence gates
4. Added flying to Creative mode (double tap jump)
5. Added mobs; sheep and zombies being the first
6. Day and night in Survival mode, with monsters coming at night…
7. Gather resources from nature!
8. Tools for different purposes (digging, attacking.. shearing )

While the update has only come to Android devices so far, it looks like iOS won’t be far behind, as it’s only waiting on Apple’s approval.

Minecraft designer Daniel Kaplan tweeted this morning:

That’s what the app description says. I guess having idiot friends is a prerequisite.

The description continues:

This app is a full-screen working replica of the iPhone 4 home screen. It even replaces your phone’s status bar, so there’s no hint of Android underneath.
NEW: Swipe down for notifications! Now you can access notifications without having to leave the app.
NEW: Actual network operator shown in status bar – you’re no longer stuck with AT&T!
Most of the icons on the screen will open up the relevant Android app when clicked. If there’s no suitable app, or the app isn’t installed on your device, it’s replaced with a sponsored message. The advertising revenue helps support the future development of this app, so please bear this in mind

It’s apparently been available for a while, but this is the first we’ve heard it (hat tip: Redmond Pie). It looks like a few more obscure Android sites have noticed it before. Over 13,000 people have downloaded. I wonder how many people it’s fooled given that it does not physically change the design of your Android device.

Something tells me this app won’t be around very long as it gains more exposure. At least in the description, it says, “iPhone is a trademark of Apple Computer Inc. This app is not affiliated with or endorsed by Apple.”

A couple weeks ago, we saw a “Siri competitor” make its way to Android.

Here’s the full list:

iOS

Sonic CD – $2.99/£1.92 was $4.99/£3.20

Discounts can make a huge difference in app downloads, and there’s just something about the 99 cent price tag that is much more appealing than even $1.99.

Say hello to PaperKarma, a new app for iPhone, Android and Windows Phone that is here to “get rid of junk mail and save the earth – all from your phone.”

The app claims to work by a user taking a picture of the junk mail that they’ve been sent. The team behind it will send a request on your behalf to the offending companies so that you’ll be added to their block list.

The app claims that it’s able to stop magazines, catalogs, coupon books, fliers, credit card offers and the white/yellow pages.

I’ve downloaded the app to see how it works myself. The app first asks you to sign up either via an account with them or through Facebook. If you go through Facebook, you can “share your environmental good deeds” through the social media service. From there, you enter your address so they know which address to tell companies to stop sending mail to.

Now you’re ready to start taking pictures. Just take a picture of the offending mail and upload it to their servers. From there, the team will search for the company and send a message on your behalf to them. From there, you should stop receiving junk mail from the companies in question.

They list more detailed information on their blog about how the app works. They also list proof from companies that have stopped sending users junk mail.

I don’t really get annoyed by junk mail, but PaperKarma is all about cutting down on the amount of paper companies use. It’s a good cause and worthy of checking out.

Today, Path 2.0.6 for iOS went live in the App Store. In addition, Path emailed me the following statement from Morin about the situation:

We are sorry.

We made a mistake. Over the last couple of days users brought to light an issue concerning how we handle your personal information on Path, specifically the transmission and storage of your phone contacts.

As our mission is to build the world’s first personal network, a trusted place for you to journal and share life with close friends and family, we take the storage and transmission of your personal information very very seriously.

Through the feedback we’ve received from all of you, we now understand that the way we had designed our ‘Add Friends’ feature was wrong. We are deeply sorry if you were uncomfortable with how our application used your phone contacts.

In the interest of complete transparency we want to clarify that the use of this information is limited to improving the quality of friend suggestions when you use the ‘Add Friends’ feature and to notify you when one of your contacts joins Path––nothing else. We always transmit this and any other information you share on Path to our servers over an encrypted connection. It is also stored securely on our servers using industry standard firewall technology.

We believe you should have control when it comes to sharing your personal information. We also believe that actions speak louder than words. So, as a clear signal of our commitment to your privacy, we’ve deleted the entire collection of user uploaded contact information from our servers. Your trust matters to us and we want you to feel completely in control of your information on Path.

In Path 2.0.6, released to the App Store today, you are prompted to opt in or out of sharing your phone’s contacts with our servers in order to find your friends and family on Path. If you accept and later decide you would like to revoke this access, please send an email to service@path.com and we will promptly see to it that your contact information are removed.

We care deeply about your privacy and about creating a trusted place for you to share life with your close friends and family. As we continue to expand and grow we will make some mistakes along the way. We commit to you that we will continue to be transparent and always serve you first, our users.

We hope this update clears up any confusion. You can find Path 2.0.6 in the App Store here:http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/path/id403639508?mt=8

The statement was also posted on Path’s blog.

What do you think? Does the update make amends for Path’s misstep? Sound off in the comments.

When you launch the app you’re prompted to enter your mobile phone number and email address. The first so Vonage can use your mobile number for outgoing calls, and the second for account management purposes. Also, Vonage uploads your phone’s address book to their servers. Unlike some other apps I could mention, Vonage Mobile is kind enough to warn you that it’s doing so.

Vonage Mobile allows users to make app-to-app calls over 3G, 4G, and Wi-Fi. Calls to other Vonage Mobile app users are free, as are calls to any Vonage number. Interestingly, the app does not require you to be a Vonage customer to make calls. Credit for international calls can be added via in-app purchase.

Vonage Mobile is a free download from the Android App Market and the iOS App Store. The iOS app is compatible with the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. It is not, however, a universal app, which means it isn’t optimized for iPad, only compatible. Check it out and let us know what you think in the comments.

TechNet sponsored a study to show the growth of what they call the “app economy.” There are now 466,000 jobs in the area of creating apps for smart devices. That’s a huge number for an industry that’s only 5-years-old.

The study was conducted by Dr. Michael Mandel of South Mountain Economics. He found that jobs in app development were spreading throughout the nation. The top metro area for app jobs is New York City, while California is the top state for app jobs. While California and New York make up a large portion of app development, two-thirds of all app jobs are outside of those two states. The study also suggests the app economy is growing quickly and the number of app-related jobs are expected to increase exponentially in the coming years.

“America’s App Economy – which had zero jobs just 5 years ago before the iPhone was introduced – demonstrates that we can quickly create economic value and jobs through cutting-edge innovation,” Rey Ramsey, President and CEO of TechNet, said. “Today, the App Economy is creating jobs in every part of America, employing hundreds of thousands of U.S. workers today and even more in the years to come.”

The full study, which can be found here, has some more interesting details on the growth of this new sector. The key platforms in app development are revealed to be Android, iOS, BlackBerry, Facebook and Windows Phone.

The study goes on to say that the app is the new front door for consumer-focused companies. It allows them to directly interact with consumers in a way that was never imaginable before.

An interesting detail in the section “Sizing the App Economy,” it’s revealed that all third-party app developers for Facebook have created 182,744 full-time jobs in the U.S. alone.

App developers employ the second largest number of people in the IT sector. They are only behind custom computer programming which employed over 600,000 people as of November 2011.

The overall growth of the app market has been strong with job ads looking for app developers increasing by 45 percent in the past year.

This app economy continues to grow and will be a viable economy as long as wireless and social networking platforms grow.

So how did it all get to be this way? App watchers and wizards at ShoutEm have put together a nice infographic to recount the brief albeit bustling history of the mobile app store. One interesting fact: I had no idea that Android Market launched only three months after iTunes App Store. Who knew!

Brought to you by ShoutEm – App Creator

For you of poorly sight, you can view a larger version here.

Thampi broke the news in a post on his blog earlier today, where he also posted screenshots and a detailed explanation of the process he used to make his discovery. While Thampi is quick to say that he isn’t accusing Path of anything insidious, he also calls the fact that the app uploads his entire address book “a little creepy.” Path users are not asked to opt-in in order to allow their address book to be uploaded, nor are they even informed that the app does so.

Not long after the post went up on Thampi’s blog, Dave Morin, CEO and Co-Founder of Path, posted a comment to explain the situation. He assured Thampi (and all his readers) that Path takes this issue very seriously. He said that Paul uploads users’ address books “in order to help the user find and connect to their friends and family on Path quickly and effeciently [sic].” He insists that the kind of matching Path uses the address book for is important, but also acknowledges that users ought to understand what’s going on. It seems the update to Path for Android released a few weeks ago gives users the opportunity to opt in, and the forthcoming Path 2.0.6 for iOS will do the same.

Thampi’s readers, however, have not been inclined to let Morin off the hook quite so easily. When asked by iOS developer Matt Gemmell why the address book uploading wasn’t opt-in from the beginning, Morin insisted that it is “currently the industry best practice and the App Store guidelines do not specifically discuss contact information.” When asked how users can get their contact information removed from Path’s servers, Morin says that the data of users who opt out (once the functionality is available) will be deleted. In the meanwhile, users can email Path directly to request deletion of their address book data.

It’s a start though. This represents more than just allowing Chrome users to use the browser on their mobile devices. It could very well mean the beginning of a more integrated Google experience, somewhat parallel to what Google is doing by integrating Google+ into everything and consolidating its privacy policies.

Chrome is a browser, but it’s also an operating system in the form of Chrome OS. Android, of course, is also an operating system, and questions have been circulating around how Google would proceed in the future with two separate operating systems pretty much since Chrome OS was revealed.

Co-founder Sergey Brin has actually said that Android and Chrome OS would likely converge over time. I’d consider getting the Chrome browser on Android a first step in that direction.

Last year, we already saw some early stages of Chrome OS-based tablets.

There’s even a rumor that LG may be working on a Chrome OS tablet.

A merger of operating systems would likely also mean a merger of app markets – Android Market meets Chrome App Store.

But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. So far, all we’ve really got is a beta version of the Chrome browser for Ice Cream Sandwich. There’s a developer site for it here.

“Chrome for Android brings support for many of the latest HTML5 features to the Android platform,” says Chrome engineering manager Arnaud Weber. “With hardware-accelerated canvas, overflow scroll support, strong HTML5 video support, and new capabilities such as Indexed DB, WebWorkers and Web Sockets, Chrome for Android is a solid platform for developing web content on mobile devices.”

“In addition to support for the latest web technologies, we hope to make interactive web content super easy to develop,” adds Weber. “Chrome for Android introduces remote debugging through Chrome Developer Tools to make it simple for developers to debug web sites running live on their mobile devices.”

In the following video, Google engineer Boris Smus demonstrates remote debugging in it:

Features of Chrome For Android include fast browsing and searching with the beloved Omnibox functionality and instant page loading. There’s also tabbed browsing, with unlimited tabs, link previews, tab/bookmark syncing, and the ability to send pages from your computer to your phone or tablet with a click via the Chrome to Mobile extension. It also includes auto-sign in for Google services.

Here are some more details from Googlers:

It even comes with incognito mode, which lets you browse without leaving traces of your history, cache or local storage.

The browser can be downloaded from here.