Opinion

Sun, Feb 5 2012

Where to build in OpenSim

Also in: Columns

If you like building — or need to build for your work or school — and you find Second Life cramped and expensive, OpenSim is a great option. But where do you start? There are over a hundred...

4 Comments | Read More »

Thu, Feb 2 2012

How educators can benefit from Kitely

Also in: Columns

Kitely – an OpenSim-based grid that runs its regions in the Amazon cloud — has a unique system that gives educators some interesting capabilities and advantages. To appreciate those features...

9 Comments | Read More »

Fri, Jan 27 2012

Welcome region checklist

Also in: Maria's Worlds

With some help from scripters, designers, and other hypergrid travelers, we’ve been bringing the Hyperica directory up-to-date. As part of the process, I travel to a lot of grid welcome regions —...

13 Comments | Read More »

Thu, Jan 19 2012

Is OpenSim usage falling?

Also in: Maria's Worlds

Today, Hamlet Au wrote a column suggesting that the OpenSim user base is shrinking — and used Hypergrid Business numbers to support his position. The short answer to his question is: No, OpenSim...

26 Comments | Read More »

Wed, Jan 18 2012

SOPA, PIPA, and OpenSim

Also in: Maria's Worlds

There’s been a lot written lately about how SOPA and PIPA would affect virtual worlds including Second Life. The legislation would allow copyright holders to shut down access to Internet domains...

19 Comments | Read More »

Tue, Jan 17 2012

International collaboration — in 3D

Also in: Columns

Here is a little vignette describing how 3D collaborative environments can impact large organizations. Just as technology has advanced in almost every field, so has the technology surrounding learning...

3 Comments | Read More »

Thu, Jan 12 2012

My son’s future — on the holodeck

Also in: Maria's Worlds

My son wants to design space stations for a living. But he also wants to raise cows — he will inherit the family farm. My son wants to follow in the footsteps of both his grandfathers — the...

4 Comments | Read More »

Tue, Jan 3 2012

Can people steal my stuff in OpenSim?

Also in: Maria's Worlds

A few days ago I saw a Tweet, that said something like, “I looked at OpenSim, but some guy said he would steal all my stuff. So, no thanks!” In fact, that attitude comes up a lot on discussion...

8 Comments | Read More »

Mon, Jan 2 2012

Prof: Schools moving to OpenSim should pay for hosting

Also in: Columns

In November, I led a well-attended three-hour workshop, Second Life is Dead – Prepare for an OpenSim Future at the 17th International Conference on Online Learning in Orlando, Florida. My basic point...

16 Comments | Read More »

Mon, Jan 2 2012

Virtual fitness resolution

Also in: Maria's Worlds

Last night, hanging out on OSGrid waiting for the ball to drop on New Year’s Eve, I resolved — among other things — to exercise more. But I’m the kind of person who thinks of herself...

3 Comments | Read More »

Fri, Dec 30 2011

Yes, it does have mass appeal

Also in: Maria's Worlds

I’m tired of naysayers complaining that Second Life — and, by extension, OpenSim — has no mass appeal. That it’s too hard to use. That regions take too long to load. That there’s...

17 Comments | Read More »

Fri, Dec 30 2011

Second Life is Not a Game

Also in: Columns

One of my teeny tiny pet peeves is when people harp about Second Life being a game. This is often followed by declarations that games should not be taken seriously. Therefore, Second Life should not be...

13 Comments | Read More »

Fri, Dec 30 2011

Renting land versus buying hosting

Also in: Maria's Worlds

We’re running a survey today about OpenSim hosting providers, and I’m getting the sense that there’s a lot of confusion about OpenSim hosting when it comes to renting land on a grid,...

1 Comment | Read More »

Thu, Dec 29 2011

Can you draw a hypergate?

Also in: Maria's Worlds

There are a lot of stargates floating around OpenSim. Most are copies of one of the gates that show up in the StarGate movies or television shows. Others are unrecognizable as gates — they’re disguised as...

7 Comments | Read More »

Tue, Dec 27 2011

5 reasons we still need Whisper

Also in: Maria's Worlds

Now that Vivox voice is available for free to small grids and to non-profit grids, there’s going to be less pressure on the OpenSim developers to finish integrating Whisper voice. And that’s...

2 Comments | Read More »

Sat, Dec 24 2011

Free Vivox for all

Also in: Maria's Worlds

Merry Christmas, grid owners — Vivox is now available, for free, to any grid owner. You get the same voice as in Second Life — with lip synching and directionality and speech indications. Hosted...

30 Comments | Read More »

Tue, Dec 20 2011

How to scale Second Life

Also in: Maria's Worlds

Second Life had the potential to be the 3D AOL, to usher in a new age of immersive 3D environments. It failed not because it was too complicated or difficult to use or tried to do too much at once. After...

26 Comments | Read More »

Fri, Dec 9 2011

Crash of the House of Usher doesn’t keep students down

Also in: Columns

[Editor: Joe Essid teaches a class about Edgar Allen Poe's "Fall of the House of Usher" for the department of English & Rhetoric & Communication Studies at the University of Richmond, using virtual...

4 Comments | Read More »

Thu, Dec 8 2011

HG Biz Plan: Hypergrid Post Office

Also in: Biz Plans, Maria's Worlds

The premise: I believe that we’re about to see the massive growth of a metaverse in which people can easily travel from one public world to another. Over time, the technology will become increasingly...

7 Comments | Read More »

Wed, Dec 7 2011

All the pieces are there

Also in: Maria's Worlds

I belong to a business group in my area that recently expressed interest in setting up a virtual space for its members. The idea is that they could have meetings there, and individual members could get...

8 Comments | Read More »

Thu, Oct 27 2011

OpenSim needs a viewer of its own

Also in: Columns

Even as OpenSim implementation continues to grow, a constant remains: there is no viewer tailored specifically for OpenSim as it comes direct from OpenSimulator.org. It’s discouraging, and it’s easy...

17 Comments | Read More »

Mon, Oct 17 2011

Neighbor me!

Also in: Maria's Worlds

Today’s OpenSim grids all have a static idea of a world map. So does Second Life. There’s nothing wrong with that — I love having a virtual environment that I can navigate, that makes...

8 Comments | Read More »

Mon, Oct 17 2011

HG Biz Plan: Language school

Also in: Biz Plans, Maria's Worlds

1 Comment | Read More »

Sat, Oct 15 2011

HG Biz Plan: Event calendar

Also in: Biz Plans, Maria's Worlds

No Comments | Read More »

Thu, Oct 13 2011

What kind of entrepreneur are you?

Also in: Maria's Worlds

Back when I incorporated my first company a few years ago, I tried to learn as much as I could about the entrepreneurial process and mind set. I joined entrepreneurial organizations and attended events...

11 Comments | Read More »

Thu, Oct 13 2011

HG Biz Plan: Hyperport

Also in: Biz Plans, Maria's Worlds

2 Comments | Read More »

Sun, Oct 9 2011

HG Biz Plan: Virtual fishing

Also in: Biz Plans, Maria's Worlds

3 Comments | Read More »

Fri, Oct 7 2011

HG Biz Plan: Virtual book world

Also in: Biz Plans, Maria's Worlds

No Comments | Read More »

Wed, Oct 5 2011

HG Biz Plan: Virtual psychics

Also in: Biz Plans, Maria's Worlds

1 Comment | Read More »

Mon, Oct 3 2011

HG Biz Plan: Virtual gym

Also in: Biz Plans, Maria's Worlds

7 Comments | Read More »

Sun, Oct 2 2011

The coming sim-com boom

Also in: Maria's Worlds

We are going to have a metaverse of interconnected virtual worlds. Whether it evolves out from the current OpenSim and the hypergrid, or from the new crop of Web-based virtual platforms, or some combination,...

10 Comments | Read More »

Sat, Oct 1 2011

I’m building a virtual memory palace

Also in: Maria's Worlds

Back before I became a business journalist, I was a war correspondent. And I accumulated a few psychological scars as a result. In the past, I deal with some of my ghosts by lighting candles in church...

6 Comments | Read More »

Thu, Sep 29 2011

How real is real enough?

Also in: Columns

How real does a virtual environment need to be for users to feel presence? This is a question educators have been researching in the attempt to implement virtual spaces to expand the classroom. For those...

4 Comments | Read More »

Wed, Sep 28 2011

Unity a road to un-united worlds

Also in: Maria's Worlds

As the number of Unity-based virtual platforms proliferates, and a decent viewer for OpenSim and Second Life still remains a pipe dream, we’re getting close to the point where the center of gravity...

6 Comments | Read More »

Tue, Sep 27 2011

What I look for in an OpenSim host

Also in: Maria's Worlds

The OpenSim hosting industry is still young, and, though it is developing quickly, still lacking in experience and maturity. But it doesn’t mean that customers have to settle for substandard service. I’ve...

4 Comments | Read More »

Mon, Sep 26 2011

The hypergrid is not the next Web

Also in: Maria's Worlds

I am a big fan of the hypergrid. I love logging into my personal grid. Then teleporting to my company grid, or visit friends on OSGrid, or go shopping on GermanGrid. But I don’t have any illusion...

6 Comments | Read More »

Sun, Sep 25 2011

Five ways make money with a viewer

Also in: Maria's Worlds

All existing OpenSim viewers are based on the GPL-licensed open source version of the Second Life viewer. All derivative viewers also have to be open source — which makes it hard to build a business...

11 Comments | Read More »

Wed, Sep 21 2011

Virtual Events: The New Marketing Frontier

Also in: Columns

The economic downturn has put a damper on tradeshow activities worldwide. Travel budgets have been tightened across the board. Attendees are less willing to hop on a plane halfway around the globe for...

2 Comments | Read More »

Fri, Sep 16 2011

How SWIFT reduced virtual world training to 30 minutes

Also in: Columns

An interesting quesion arose from my ALT-C talk last week. It was basically “How can you use Second Life for teaching when it takes two hours to learn how to use it?” Which isn’t really a question,...

4 Comments | Read More »

Tue, Sep 13 2011

Why free land is good for OpenSim

Also in: Maria's Worlds

Will free land destroy grids? There will probably a winnowing out of grids that continue to charge for residential land without offering enough additional perceived value. But the end result will, I believe,...

41 Comments | Read More »

Mon, Sep 12 2011

Getting attention in a virtual world

Also in: Maria's Worlds

A few days ago, I heard a brief talk by marketing expert Steve Harrison in which he talked about how to get attention for your message. It turns out he was speaking about how to get the attention of journalists...

3 Comments | Read More »

Sun, Sep 11 2011

A modest proposal for hypergrid security

Also in: Maria's Worlds

As John Rogate pointed out today, the 4096 bug — which limits hypergrid teleports to no more than 4,096 regions in any direction — is a significant impediment to hypergrid travel and to the...

27 Comments | Read More »

Sun, Sep 11 2011

It’s time to move all grids south

Also in: Columns

Hypergrid is probably one of the greatest and unifying features for OpenSim, and virtual worlds in general. Basically, virtual worlds cannot be what they should be without the hypergrid. It is the same...

18 Comments | Read More »

Fri, Sep 9 2011

5 missing pieces in OpenSim

Also in: Maria's Worlds

OpenSim development — like that of any open source project — is very much focused on what developers want to do. They are, after all, volunteers, they don’t take orders. That leaves business...

12 Comments | Read More »

Thu, Sep 8 2011

Medical simulations can benefit healthcare, pharma industries

Also in: Columns

Healthcare and the pharmaceutical industries can benefit from using training simulations and serious games in everything from sales and customer relations to helping medical professionals work with upset...

No Comments | Read More »

Tue, Sep 6 2011

Avaya trains sales reps virtually

Also in: Columns

The flight simulator celebrated its 100s anniversary a couple of years ago. A training rig was developed in 1909 to help pilots operate the control wheels of the early monoplanes in a safe environment...

2 Comments | Read More »

Fri, Sep 2 2011

Whose side am I on?

Also in: Maria's Worlds

I’m regularly asked why I give more coverage to one company or another, or why I’m biased against particular grids or platforms. And, it’s true. I do have a bias. You see, in my day job...

9 Comments | Read More »

Wed, Aug 31 2011

Free land might kill your grid

Also in: Maria's Worlds

Any grid owner that makes a living by renting out premium residential regions should start planning ahead — for a future in which the effective of residential regions drops down to zero. Free is...

36 Comments | Read More »

Fri, Aug 26 2011

5 tips for pro builders moving to OpenSim

Also in: Maria's Worlds

Second Life builders and designers coming over to OpenSim might think that it’s the same thing, except for the lack of support for some high-end vehicle physics scripting commands — and bigger...

5 Comments | Read More »

Fri, Aug 26 2011

OpenSim needs an installer bundle

Also in: Columns

I attended UMass in the early eighties when access to DARPAnet first became available to students. In the beginning, all we had was terminal-based FTP access to download TeX markup documents that we could...

11 Comments | Read More »

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