Today is August 1st, and those of you who play Minecraft probably know that today is the new update! For those who don't know, this is Minecraft version 1.3.1. It's been a long time since the previous version (1.2.5) was out, so this update is well deserved. It's a massive update, with about 15 or so major new features, including-
-Trading with Villagers
-Emeralds (currency for trading)
-Revamped Creative inventory
-LAN Worlds (singleplayer worlds can now be opened into a local server)
-Singleplayer commands (now you can use / commands in singleplayer like on a server)
-New Book recipe (3 pieces of paper and 1 piece of leather in any orientation)
-Books you can write in (1 book, 1 ink sac, and 1 feather= 50 pages of [editable] writing)
-Ender Chests (Make 1, put your stuff in, then build another anywhere and your things will be inside)
-New type of world- Large Biomes (increases the size of biomes immensely)
-Jungle Temples/ Desert Pyramids (trapped temples with valuables inside)
-Redstone tripwires
-Experience can now come from ores such as coal
-New maximum enchanting level (30 instead of 50)
-Many single- and multiplayer bugs fixed
For a full list of bug fixes and new pictures, see
minecraft wiki on 1.3.