Here are seven things, with a focus on videogames and related things this time around:

• Minecraft RTX is now out in beta, along with a tech talk about it. There’s also a FAQ and known issues list. There are custom worlds that show off effects, but yes, you can convert your Java worlds to Bedrock format. I tried it on our old world and made one on/off video and five separate location videos, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Fun! Free! If you have an RTX card and a child, you’ll be guaranteed to not be able to use your computer for a month. Oh, and two pro tips: “;” toggles RTX on/off, and if you have a great GPU, go to Advanced Video settings and crank the Ray Tracing Render Distance up (you’ll need to do this each time you play).
• No RTX or home schooling? Try Minecraft Hour of Code instead, for students in grades 2 and up.
• There’s now a minigame in Borderlands 3 where you solve little DNA alignment puzzles for in-game bonuses. The loot earned is absurdly good at higher levels. Gearbox finally explained, with particularly poorly chosen dark-gray-on-black link text colors, what (the heck) the game does for science. It seems players are generating training sets for deep learning algorithms, though I can’t say I truly grok it.
• Beat Saber with a staff is hypnotic. You can also use your skills outside to maintain social distancing.
• A few Grand Theft Auto V players now shoot bullets to make art. Artists have to be careful to not scare the NPCs while drawing with their guns, as any nearby injuries or deaths can affect the memory pool and so might erase the image being produced.
• Unreal Engine’s StageCraft tech was used to develop The Mandalorian. I’m amazed that a semicircular wall of LED displayscould give realistic backgrounds at high enough resolution, range, and quality in real time. It has only 28 million pixels for a 270 degree display, according to the article – sounds like a lot, but note a single 4K display is 3840 * 2160 = 8.3 million pixels.
• Stuck inside and want to make your housing situation an infernal hellscape, or at least more of one? Doomba‘s the solution. It takes your Roomba’s movement information and turns it into a level of classic Doom.

Made it this far? Bonus link, since it’s the day after U.S. taxes were due, but now deferred until July 15th: Fortnite virtual currency is not taxable.