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Update 10/15: Alex Pomposelli just sent out an email saying that Virtual Ville was back up and asking for financial support. “The grid is online now and if we will do this I am going to need your help and support,” he wrote. “The estate of my finances is critical afterRead More →

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A new virtual reality camera was successfully delivered to the International Space Station today. It’s not the first VR camera on the ISS, but this new one will allow the astronauts to film spacewalks in virtual reality. According to NASA, The International Space Station Experience is creating an immersive virtual reality seriesRead More →

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Metastellar, a new online magazine dedicated to speculative fiction, is now accepting submissions of flash fiction stories for paid publication. They’re looking for original, never-before-published fantasy, horror, or sci-fi stories and are absolutely open to publishing stories about virtual reality of virtual worlds. The stories need to be less thanRead More →

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The Fire and Ice Opensim grid is running an abstract art competition to celebrate hitting several milestones this month. “The theme is abstract art, beyond this, the scope is very open,” grid owner Sara Payne told Hypergrid Business. “Entries can be your own art. Additionally, they can also be anRead More →

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Multi-grid payments provider Gloebit has been experiencing technical difficulties these past few months, resulting in processing details. But the core problem has been fixed, company founder and CEO Christopher Colosi told Hypergrid Business “I’m still waiting to hear from more people,” he said. “But in my own testing, I completedRead More →

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Virtuality Grid halted new user registrations in July and will wrap up all operations at the end of this month. Region archive files — OARs — and cash refunds are being distributed now. “Once that is done, all DNS will be shut down,” grid founder Candi Infiniti told Hypergrid Business.Read More →

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Kay McLennan, OpenSim educator and professor at the Tulane School of Professional Advancement is holding a survey to determine how educators are changing their use of virtual worlds and virtual reality during this coming academic year in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. “As evidenced by educator participation in annual OpenRead More →

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Discover.film will be holding its short film festival in virtual reality this Friday on the VRChat virtual reality meeting platform. The event will start at 8 p.m. British time — or noon Pacific, following by a second screening at 1 a.m. British time, or 5 p.m. Pacific. The screenings willRead More →

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The Firestorm viewer developer team has created a quick, three-question survey to help them determine their user base on OpenSimulator and what problems they have with viewer compatibility. According to the developers, if they know what operating systems and grids their users use most, they can try to make theRead More →

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A new pop-up marketing will open on June 19 and run through July 5 at the Seattle Space Needle. The virtual Seattle Space Needle, the one on the Seattle region of the Discovery grid. “The previous pop-up markets were  highly successful with over 200 visitors from throughout the metaverse,” saidRead More →

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Today, Craft World will hold a grand opening of a group exhibition of eight artists. The exhibition will last for three weeks, and the artists are Eva Kraai, Paola, Bianchi Mills, William Nessuno, Tosha Tyran, Adriana Midni and WizardOz Chrome, and Art Blue — also known as Reiner Schneeberger in-world.Read More →

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The multi-grid Gloebit payment system has recovered from a major outage it suffered earlier this month, company CEO Christopher Colosi told Hypergrid Business. The platform is based on Amazon’s Web Services cloud hosting platform. “It seems like our AWS servers got into a really bad state and wouldn’t recover onRead More →

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The Oculus Quest headset has been sold out almost everywhere since the start of the epidemic, but it’s available now from the company itself., for $400 for the 64GB version and $500 for the 128GB version. Once it runs out, however, there are still second-hand versions available on Amazon startingRead More →

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3rd Rock Grid‘s third annual No Borders Festival of music and arts at the end of March raised 1,996 Euros — about US $2,160 — which the grid donated to Doctors Without Borders, an international non-profit that helps with emergencies around the world. “The hard work of board member Rhia Bachman,Read More →

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Due to unprecedented demand resulting from the COVID-19 epidemic, Linden Lab is having trouble getting enough server capacity to create new Second Life regions. “Our current server systems cannot accommodate unlimited growth without adversely impacting that stability and performance,” the company said in an announcement Thursday. “This means that regionRead More →

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OpenSim users have purchased more than a quarter million dollars worth of virtual goods on the Kitely Market since its inception in 2013, Kitely announced yesterday. In that time, it has grown from fewer than 1,000 listed items to nearly 34,000. When it launched, it only delivered to one grid,Read More →

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Yesterday afternoon, I got a preview of the new HCT Vive Sync virtual meeting platform from HTC Vive, and it’s the best one I’ve seen yet — and I have seen a lot of these platforms. But I’m still not sure that it’s worth spending several hundred dollars, or more,Read More →

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Two weeks after its latest — and supposedly final — shutdown, the much-troubled AviWorlds grid is back up and running again, this time under new management. “I’ve liked AviWorlds ever since I first started working for it,” new owner Josh Boam told Hypergrid Business. “I’m excited to be able toRead More →

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The on-and-off AviWorlds grid is off again. By my count, this is the 13th time that the grid has officially closed. And, as usual, grid owner Alex Pomposelli says that this time it’s for good. “This is it,” he told Hypergrid Business. “I’m no longer going to open AviWorlds. The domainsRead More →

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$16 per month for a single island up to 16 standard regions in size, first month free from OpenSim Projects, an independent hosting company.Read More →

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Update from GeVolution founder Cliff Hopkins: There are more than 500 OARs, which are stored on Great Canadian Grid servers. Hopkins has access to those servers and will be distributing the OARs. GeVolution will pay for the hosting costs for those servers for the next month. Once Hopkins gets theRead More →

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The total size of the OpenSim metaverse grew this month, as 79 grids reported increases in land area, led by the non-profit OSgrid, which gained more than 500 standard region equivalents. Discovery Grid gained 249 regions and Kitely and ZetaWorlds both gained more than 100 regions each. As a result, totalRead More →

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Epidemics on your mind? Then today’s virtual hypergrid field trip could be for you. The Hypergrid Hoppers will meet on Tuesday, February 25 at 1 p.m. Pacific Time, starting at the HG Hoppers region of Craft World for a “Medieval meets Extinction Global” field trip. The hypergrid address is craft-world.org:8002:HGRead More →

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OpenSim stats reversed a multi-month land area decline this month, with slight upticks in regions and registered users. Active monthly users were down by 1,523, but the loss was due to a stats issue on the Virtualife grid. Last month, the grid posted 2,888 active users, but Hypergrid Business readersRead More →

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The German-language Dorena’s World grid turned ten years old this month. Dorena’s World is one of the oldest grids in OpenSim. Founder Dorena Verne first came to OpenSim because “curiosity killed the cat,” she told Hypergrid Business. While Verne was still in Second Life, she started the grid as aRead More →

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Exhibitors can already start setting up for February’s Sci-Fi Expo on Tangle Grid, grid owner Leslie Kling told Hypergrid Business. The month-long exposition, accessible to hypergrid visitors, officially opens on Wednesday, February 5 and runs through March 5. The hypergrid address is tanglegrid.net:8002. (Learn how to hypergrid here.) Writer Torn MacAlesterRead More →

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Stats were down this month in OpenSim, with the public grids reporting both fewer regions and fewer active users. It’s not an auspicious start to the year, especially since OpenSim stats declined in 2019 overall as well. This was the third consecutive month in which the total land area fell.Read More →

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The first Hypergrid Hoppers trip of 2020 is planned for this Tuesday, January 7, at 1 p.m. Pacific Time, starting at the HG Hoppers region of Craft World. The hypergrid address is craft-world.org:8002:HG Hoppers. “What place we will visit shall be a surprise,” organizer Ervare Farroretre told Hypergrid Business. “WeRead More →

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Over the past year, the public OpenSim grids lost both land area and active users. Since last December, grids lost the equivalent of 8,276 standard-sized regions, going from 81,326 regions to 73,050. And the total number of actives fell by 2,019, from 37,745 to 35,726. However, some individual grids didRead More →

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This past year has been full of questions for the OpenSim community. Who are we? Where are we going? Is the platform even worth it? The OpenSimulator software dates back to January 2007, according to the official history of the project. The open source virtual world software was meant toRead More →

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There will be New Year’s Eve party all over OpenSim tomorrow night, Dec. 31 — and during the day, as well. Mark your calendars — all times below are U.S. Pacific time. Caribou on Kitely at noon Get a head start on your New Year’s Eve celebration with DJ SaraRead More →

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[Update: Since the article was first posted, the total raised has increased to $1,120.] The Great Canadian Grid is holding a fundraiser to raise money to pay for technical help to restore the grid, and to pay for servers. As of this writing, the grid has raised $385 towards theRead More →

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A personal dispute between the owners of Great Canadian Grid and DigiWorldz has resulted in an outage on the Great Canadian Grid. DigiWorldz, which is not only a grid but also an OpenSim services provider, had been providing some critical grid services to Great Canadian Grid and cut off thoseRead More →

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AviWorlds, the grid that oscillates between proclaiming itself the highest-priced grid and the lowest-priced grid is back on the lowest-priced side again, with a free region offer for all residents. Addition regions are available for as low as $5 a month for a standard-sized, 15,000-prim region, and up to $25Read More →

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The OpenSim-specific Dayturn viewer was updated this weekend with Bakes on Mesh support. According to Dayturn developer and Xmir grid founder Geir Nøklebye, this viewer is a big improvement over previous versions. “It is a significant change for anyone using a mesh avatar because it lets you use old systemRead More →

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US $6 for a 20,000-prim region on the hypergrid-enabled Fire and Ice grid, with hypergrid and Gloebits. Each region can be a variable-sized region at no extra fee.Read More →

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Land area went down slightly but active users were up this month, thanks to the OpenSim Community Conference and holiday events. The total number of standard region equivalents on OpenSim’s public grids dropped by just over 1,000, from 74,063 to 73,050. The number of active users went up by 137Read More →

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Hypergrid Business readers were more optimistic about the fate of OpenSim this year, more satisfied with its technical progress and ecosystem, and the number of readers who planned to spend more time in OpenSim next year increased as well. However, this year’s respondents were slightly less likely to think thatRead More →

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High Fidelity is shutting down its apps, marketplace and virtual currency, shutting down its open source project, and laying off about half its staff, founder Philip Rosedale announced in a post rather misleadingly titled “Updates, and a New Beginning.” Rosedale is best known as the founder of Second Life. HighRead More →

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This Friday, the public is invited to tour the International Spaceflight Museum in Kitely. one of the several community social events organized to coincide with this year’s OpenSim Community Conference. ISM Exhibit Building Chair Mike Lorrey will personally lead and narrate a tour of the ISMuseum region in Kitely, withRead More →

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Discovery Grid will hold the grand opening of its 2019 Virtual Seattle Winter Market 2019 on Saturday, December 7, 2019. The market will be open until January 7, 2020. The hypergrid address is discoverygrid.net:8002:Seattle. The market’s region coordinates are 503/448/46. This makes the second pop-up market for the grid, butRead More →

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The December issue of HyperGrid Zone magazine is out, and packed with profiles of OpenSim artists and creators, as well as Christmas events and destinations. The cover story is about the Nuna Gallery, which is located on 3rd Rock Grid and is having its grand opening on Dec. 15. To visitRead More →

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AviWorlds is celebrating a whole year of not closing down. “To celebrate one year online AviWorlds is now offering $5 per month private regions with 25,000 prims,” grid owner Alexsandro Pomposelli told Hypergrid Business. The grid is currently hypergrid-enabled, allowing residents to teleport in and out to other grids, andRead More →

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I’m barely able to type this right now. I have a massive turkey hangover. But that’s not stopping me from scouring the web for Black Friday deals. This is probably a bad idea, because my sales resistance is so low, but I just can’t help myself. But it’s not justRead More →