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Today, Scope AR announces its augmented reality platform for repair manuals at the Augmented World Expo. WorkLink enables companies to provide interactive and augmented reality repair manuals to field technicians or other employees so that they can repair equipment, perform maintenance, or assemble machinery on the factory floors easily and quickly. WorkLink and the company’s other product, theRead More →

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Press release: Voice Control, Gesture Control, and See-through Displays Are Top Electronic User Interface Innovations BOSTON, MA – With Apple, Google, and Microsoft sharpening their focus on electronic user interfaces, voice control, gesture control, and see-through displays are emerging as hot spots for innovation, as are newer form factors inRead More →

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The second OpenSim Treasure Hunt concluded on May 25 with 122 participating regions, up from just 86 in the first hunt. The number of participating grids increased as well, from 22 to 26, Tangle Grid co-founder and hunt organizer Leslie Kling told Hypergrid Business. There were also many returning participants, sheRead More →

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AvayaLive Engage, one of the three major enterprise-focused virtual environment platforms, is shutting down the company announced. Avaya is no longer accepting new customers, and service for existing customers will end when their current contracts expire. The platform is shutting down because the browser are no longer supporting the requiredRead More →

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OSgrid will hold its birthday celebration and fundraiser on July 30 and 31, the grid’s board told residents at a membership meeting last Sunday. OSgrid, which is turning nine this year, is the largest and oldest virtual world running on the OpenSim platform. The birthday celebration will also include music and other events, withRead More →

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Just a week after Google unveiled its new virtual reality platform, Daydream, the first compatible headset has hit the market. Mumbai-based ConvergeVR Tech Labs Pvt. Ltd.’s headset is now available for order as a developer’s kit preview edition. The ConvergeVR DK3 headset costs 2,099 Rupees, or about US$31, plus delivery fees. The company willRead More →

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Since it first launched in early 2011, Kitely has been the only major grid not to publish its stats, instead providing them by email to Hypergrid Business on request. That changed today, as the grid began publishing its land area and total registered users on its login page. This isRead More →

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China-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus gave away 30,000 free OnePlus Loop VR headsets today, manufactured in partnership with AntVR. The Cardboard-compatible headset is reminiscent of the Gear VR in its design, and is a significant upgrade from last year’s giveway, which was a Cardboard-compatible headset made of actual cardboard. Like lastRead More →

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A Brazilian team has launched a new grid and OpenSim hosting company, offering local payment and support options. OpenSim Brasil offers hosting for full grids, starting at 230 Reals, or about US$64, with a 100 Real setup fee, for an eight-region grid. The AllCity grid, currently has 25 regions andRead More →

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Delightex, a Munich based firm that builds virtual reality platforms, released the CoSpaces app this week, which allows users to explore and share virtual reality spaces with other users on iOS and Android devices and Google Cardboard-compatible headsets. This is in addition to the company’s web-based application that allows users to create virtualRead More →

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Pornhub’s March launch of a channel dedicated to virtual reality content put a big stamp of approval on the technology, since it’s the most popular site for adult content on the Web. But there only had a handful of content providers to start with. That’s changing quickly. Last month, PornqueenVR launched withRead More →

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Google Expeditions, the virtual reality version of the 1990’s TV series The Magic Schoolbus, has reached over one million students, Google announced today. Google Expeditions was launched last spring, and is now in eleven countries. There are more than 200 virtual trips available to such destinations as Buckingham Palace and the Great Barrier Reef. TheRead More →

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EBay has launched the world’s first virtual reality store, in partnership with Australian retailer Myer. It works with all Google Cardboard devices, and the company is also giving away Shopticals, a branded headset made out of Cardboard. You can download the app for iPhones and for Android devices — but onlyRead More →

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A startup that allows a smartphone’s own camera to be used to track hand gestures has received a $20 million investment. Chinese technology conglomerate Kuang-Chi will invest in Israel-based provider of software-based machine vision and gesture recognition technology eyeSight Technologies, the company said in a statement. Currently, gesture controllers are only available for high-end,Read More →

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In a survey of more than 2,000 tech-savvy US consumers conducted late last month, 40 percent said that they planned to buy virtual reality headsets in the next two years — but that price was an issue. In addition, 61 percent of the respondents, who were mostly young and male,Read More →

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Google announced a new operating system for virtual reality that will run on new, compatible Android phones, the company announced at its annual developers conference today. The platform is called Daydream and seems to include some of the features of the Samsung Gear VR platform, including a virtual environment thatRead More →

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The crowdfunding campaign for a Virtual Lisbon grid is up and running again, asking OpenSim users to contribute just $1 each to the project. The founder, Carlos Loff is an experienced virtual worlds builder and community manager, and has been active in Second Life since 2007. This is his fourth tryRead More →

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The Virtual Life Grid has turned on hypergrid connectivity, the grid announced in a press release today and on Twitter. The grid’s hypergrid address is now virtuallifegrid.com:8002. For those interested in learning more, the grid will be holding a general meeting for residents on May 28 at 2 p.m. Pacific at the Virtual LifeRead More →

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If there was any doubt, two new reports out this week confirm that we have the first killer app for virtual reality, and it’s watching videos. That might come as a surprise to people who expected immersive, first-person games to be more attractive, or virtual meetings and socializing. However, watching videosRead More →

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Virtual reality trailblazer Oculus VR has launched its VR for Good program, offering support to students, filmmakers, and nonprofit organizations looking to create immersive films. The first part, aimed at high school students in the San Francisco area, is a six-week program designed to help students explore careers in the sciencesRead More →

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The total number of standard region equivalents dropped this month on OpenSim’s public grids due to a large cleanup of orphan regions on Metropolis. The grid removed around 1,600 unused region reservation slots from its grid map. The total number of standard region equivalents on the public grids is now 56,535,Read More →

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Samsung’s Gear VR had 1 million users last month, reported its content partner, Facebook’s Oculus VR. Oculus also reported that Gear VR now has 250 apps, including the recently-added Minecraft. The average user spends 25 minutes a day using the headset, which was released six months ago. Media the killer appRead More →

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The Kitely Market reported a new high in the number of product listings, and the share of those listings that are exportable to other grids was also higher than ever. The Market currently offers 13,703 different variations on 7,201 products. Of those variations, 8,909 are exportable to other grids. ExportablesRead More →

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Home interior design firm Decorilla recently launched an Android and iOS application that allows users to do virtual walthroughs of interior designs using Google Cardboard-compatible virtual reality headsets. The company is also planning to extend coverage to Oculus and Samsung Gear VR headsets. The company started with Google Cardboard because Cardboard-compatible headsets areRead More →

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The Great Canadian Grid and DigiWorldz have been hit by a cyber-attack that has taken the grids offline on Saturday. There should be no damage to the grids themselves. Both grids are now back up. “Everything is good and I am now in the process of doing updates on all the serversRead More →

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Corrections: Well this story made people mad! But when I’m wrong, I’m wrong. Here are three corrections: 1. The question of who is handling the finances is a he-said, she-said situation. If the she-said side of it is right, then associating an innocent person’s name with this mess is theRead More →

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Daden Limited, a U.K Based firm that creates immersive learning and visualization systems, is planning to add a dozen new virtual locations to its recently released Fieldscapes VR, an educational virtual tour app for Android devices. Fieldscapes VR also allows users to create their own virtual learning environments, no coding required. In addition,Read More →

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Samsung, Sony, HTC, and Oculus will lead other brands in shipping about 9.6 million units of virtual reality hardware in the global market this year, to surpass previous estimates of $2 billion in sales and reach around $2.3 billion, International Data Corp. predicted in a new research report, not counting salesRead More →

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Despite acceptability and huge interest among investors to adopt virtual reality, the technology is still in its learning phases and lack of technological standards across the industry and bandwidth issues will certainly derail its tipping point, according to a research report released by Greenlight VR last week. At the same time,Read More →

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The Mobius Grid is seeking $2,000 in donations in order to port the Phlox script engine to standard OpenSim. The Phlox script engine was created by the InWorldz grid and donated to the community last fall. The open source community page for Phlox is located here, on GitHub and is distributed under theRead More →

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Press release: New platform enables user-created social VR experiences SAN FRANCISCO – Linden Lab, the creators of Second Life, today announced that applications have opened for an upcoming “Creator Preview” for Project Sansar, the new platform for user-created social virtual reality experiences. Interested 3D content creators can now apply at ProjectSansar.com and acceptedRead More →

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The Dutch VR development studio Verum Visum LP has launched a Kickstarter for an interactive documentary, Chornobyl360, that will allow users to experience the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster in an immersive way and interact with living witnesses from 1986. The Kickstarter was launched on April 26 on the 30th anniversary ofRead More →

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Women account for only seven percent of all the active and participating investing partners in the top hundred venture firms globally, according to a report released this week. And only 38 percent of the top hundred venture firms have any female investment partners at all –  28 percent of the firms haveRead More →

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Merchants who sell virtual goods on the Kitely Market can now automatically share the revenues they receive with third parties, both for individual listings and for individual variations of those listings, the company announced this week. “Merchants have been asking us to add support for automatically splitting marketplace store revenue betweenRead More →

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OSgrid cleaned out about 1,000 dead region reservations from its grid map, but there was still a net gain in land area this month, with the public OpenSim grids adding the equivalent of 679 standard regions, for a new land area total of 57,612 standard region equivalents. OSgrid is the largest andRead More →

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Dan Banner was appointed president of OSgrid at the end of March, following a previous term as treasurer. Former president James Stallings, who is also known as Hiro Protagonist in-world, has stepped down from that position, but will remain a board member. “I have gone back to working full timeRead More →

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Alkonost Development, a London-based independent research and development start-up mostly focused on virtual reality and augmented reality, has launched the beta version of Extended Workspace, a virtual reality interface that allows users to use hand-tracking systems to interact with virtual environments with the entire hand — including fingers and fingertips – suchRead More →

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Rochester Institute of Technology‘s Magic Spell Studios which recently announced that it will partner with Crytek, a Germany-based video game developer, to bring virtual reality laboratories in universities around the world is also exploring other technologies such as 3D printing and laser cutting to make kits that offer a rangeRead More →

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Nvidia, which recently announced its Iray VR and Iray VR Lite to enable  photorealistic panoramas and light-rich visuals, walkthroughs and scenes in 3D virtual spaces on personal computers and mobile devices, will start to support Iray VR Lite as a standard feature set on its Maya, Cinema4D, Rhino, and 3DsRead More →

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Voxelus, a Los Angeles-based virtual reality firm, has launched its “app store for virtual reality content,” the Voxelus Marketplace, that allows users to sell virtual reality content for the platform’s Voxels in-game crypto-currency. All content is free of charge until April 20 when the platform leaves beta, CEO and founder Martin Repetto told HypergridRead More →

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Developers love the Oculus, Vive, and PlayStation VR because they offer the most cutting edge technology and the highest degree of immersion. But developers are ACTUALLY working on content for the Google Cardboard ecosystem. Don’t confuse the platform for the little cardboard give-away sets, please! There are some VERY niceRead More →

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Press release: Mayo Clinic and vMocion Introduce Technology Which Creates the Sensation of Motion, Transforming Virtual Reality Featuring Mayo Clinic’s Patented Galvanic Vestibular Stimulation (GVS) Technology, vMocion’s 3v(TM) Platform Now Available for Licensing LOS ANGELES, CA and SCOTTSDALE, AZ —  Mayo Clinic and vMocion, LLC, an entertainment technology company, today announced itRead More →

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Press release: Digital Media Wire Announces Agenda, Speakers and Virtual Reality Innovation & Networking Lounge for LA Games Conference April 19th Annual Industry Confab Brings Together Top Leaders from EA, Sony PlayStation, Twitch, Google, CAA, SGN, Nexon, Tencent, Gamevil, Seriously, Kabam, Ubisoft, Glu, Endemol, Lionsgate, Perfect World, OGA and manyRead More →

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The second multi-grid OpenSim Treasure Hunt begins in two weeks, and there is still time for grids and region owners to participate. Promote your destination by picking up a stand from Hyperica at hg.hyperica.com:8022, Tangle Grid at tanglegrid.net:8002:HG Station 1, or WestWorld grid at westworldgrid.com:8102, or download an IAR fileRead More →

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Beijing-based Baofeng Technology Co. Ltd. has sold more than one million of its mobile-based virtual reality headsets since the beginning of this year, the company told the official China Daily newspaper. That compares to reported sales of half a million headsets last year, making Baofeng the industry leader. White theRead More →

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Press release: Discover How to Build the Smarter — Engaged — High Performance Organization MARICOPA, AZ– Elearning! Media Group, producers of the Enterprise Learning! Conference 2016 (ELC16), the leader in learning and workplace technology media, is pleased to announce its groundbreaking Keynote Speaker for the conference. Anders Gronstedt, Ph.D., President, The GronstedtRead More →

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Hypergrid inventor and OpenSim core developer Crista Lopes, also known as “Diva Canto” in-world, just won the $10,000 prize for software in the public interest from the Tides Foundation, a social justice and sustainability-focused organization. Lopes, who is the first woman to win this award, is also a professor of informatics at the DonaldRead More →