For most teenagers Minecraft remains just a hobby, but one Ukrainian schoolboy’s love for the game has meant he can now afford to buy his homeless mother a house. Lomond School pupil Maksym Gavrylenko has made a “substantial” sum after selling the server he ran from his bedroom, which allows gamers from all over the world to connect to and play together on, with friends. The 17-year-old boarding school pupil said: “I am very proud that I was able to turn my passion into a profitable business and I plan on treating my mother. “As a result of the war, she was forced to flee her home, leaving her homeless, so to buy her a property will make all the hours spent on this project worthwhile.” She is currently staying with friends in Portugal, but intends to settle close to her son. Other family members of Maksym’s remain in his war-torn homeland. His grandparents would not leave Kyiv, having lived there their whole lives, and his sister stayed in the country as her partner had to sign up to defend Ukraine. Making enough money from selling the gaming company he set up to buy his mother a house was something he never expected, the teenager said, with he and his friends embarking upon the project for fun. “We never imagined it would develop into a viable business opportunity, but with guidance from my brother who works in tech, and the school, I was encouraged to explore the possibilities to turn it into something bigger,” Maksym said. His success comes after he moved from Ukraine to Scotland in 2021 and bought a little-used Minecraft server for £1,000, and in the years that followed he and two friends made changes which resulted in a huge rise in players. Along with this, advertisers were attracted to the server, and its value increased. And because of the influx, Lomond School said a lucrative offer was made by a tech firm, which was accepted in May this year. I have no doubt that this won’t be the last we hear about one of Maksym’s business ventures Johanna Urquhart, Lomond School principal Now with one business success under his belt, Maksym wants to expand on his knowledge by going to university and has applied to a mixture of UK and overseas universities. “I don’t know what the future holds, but I’ve always had an interest in business having worked as a part-time translator and a writer in Ukraine,” said the student, who studies at the school in Helensburgh, in Argyll and Bute. “As well as having a passion for gaming, I really enjoyed the entrepreneurial side of our project, and I have applied to universities around the world to study business management.” His preferred choice for university is south of the border in England. Johanna Urquhart, Lomond School principal, said what Maksym had achieved was “absolutely incredible”. “I have no doubt that this won’t be the last we hear about one of Maksym’s business ventures,” she said. Read More Ukraine-Russia war news – latest: Putin’s troops ‘swept away’ in flooding from dam collapse, says Kyiv Watch live view of flooding in Kherson after destruction of Dnipro river dam Massive destruction after Ukraine dam collapse revealed in new satellite images

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Developers say they “audibly gasped” when first using Apple’s upcoming augmented reality headset, the company has said. Apple announced the Vision Pro headset in June, when it said it would arrive early next year and cost $3,500. In the wake of that announcement, it allowed some journalists to use the headset, including The Independent. Since then, however, Apple has kept its Vision Pro largely hidden. Some units have been shipped out to developers, and it is offering special sessions where they can try out their apps in Apple’s buildings, but those taking part have been asked to sign expansive non-disclosure agreements that mean they cannot talk about those experiences. Now Apple has published some comments from some of those early users, however, who have detailed the first experience of using the headset. Actually strapping the headset on is fundamentally different from using it in the simulator that Apple has provided so that developers can start work on their augmented reality apps, they said. “I’d been staring at this thing in the simulator for weeks and getting a general sense of how it works, but that was in a box,” said David Smith, the developer of the app Widgetsmith. “The first time you see your own app running for real, that’s when you get the audible gasp.” Another developer said that it changed the experience of using his app. Michael Simmons – who runs Flexibits, which creates apps such as calendar tool Fantastical, said that using the kit was a surprise. “It was like seeing Fantastical for the first time,” he said. “It felt like I was part of the app.” Using the app in augmented reality meant that he was already thinking of new ways to get past the “limiting” nature of a screen with a border, he said in Apple’s post. “Experiencing spatial computing not only validated the designs we’d been thinking about — it helped us start thinking not just about left to right or up and down, but beyond borders at all.” Slack employee Chris Delbuck also said that he had come to think about the way the app might work in three dimensions in new ways. “I wouldn’t have been able to do that without having the device in hand,” Apple quoted him as saying. Apple is allowing any adult developer to apply to attend one of its “Vision Pro labs” for free, which are being held in a range of cities across the world. Developers must bring either an app they are working on for the Vision Pro, or an iPhone or iPad app that they want to see in augmented reality. Some reports have suggested that Apple has seen less interest for the labs than it might have hoped, possibly in part because it is not offering the labs on the east coast of the US. The labs have been “under-filled”, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported earlier this month – which might explain why the company is so keen to stress the importance of attending the sessions. Read More iPhone 15 could bring two major changes to fix battery life iPhone owners to receive payouts from Apple iPhone 15: Global smartphone demand collapses as Apple aims to take top spot

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AMSTERDAM--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 5, 2023--