Minecraft: Working phone with web browser and video calls built in hit game

A Minecraft user has teamed up with US mobile network Verizon to create a working mobile phone, which can browse the web and make video calls, entirely within the building-block video game. And you thought that working calculator was mind-blowing.

Minecraft YouTuber CaptainSparklez has uploaded the video showing the impressive piece of work, which was created by Verizon's teamsters. An explanation from Verizon says: "With the help of Wieden+Kennedy and BlockWorks, we built custom functionality that lets players browse the internet, make video calls and create a selfie stick to send an MMS selfie to a friend."

"In the world of Minecraft, almost everything is made of blocks. We've created a web application, Boxel, that translates real web pages and streaming video into blocks so they can be built on a Minecraft server in real time. Our server plugin uses Boxel-client to handle the communication between Minecraft and the real world as translated by the web application."

The page includes instructions for how to generate a boxel screen and hook it up to a webcam or smart device. In the video above we see it all in action – the browser loads a simple web page and a short video call takes place. Sure the quality isn't exactly great, but it's an impressive feat nonetheless.

Those on the receiving end of a video call we see the caller as their Minecraft character, which is a neat touch.

This creation is certainly up there with other incredible feats of Minecraft engineering, such as the aforementioned scientific calculator, this working computer complete with RAM, the Mines of Moria or this working Sonic The Hedgehog mini-game.

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