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Most people who run their own grids — and this includes the little Diva Distro I’ve got on my home computer — use one of the official, recommended distributions of OpenSim. This means the latest stable, recommended release from OpenSimulator.org, or the Diva Distro mini-grid, Sim-on-a-Stick, or New World Studio.Read More →

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You can’t keep these guys down. AviWorlds is back in action, now in its seventh incarnation. The grid is pledging to make backups of everything, grid founder Alexandro Pomposelli  — also known as Alex Ferraris in-world — said in a Facebook post Saturday,  “so that all is well this time andRead More →

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It was quite an honor to witness my uncle, David Brouchoud, exploring a virtual recreation of the USS Helena CA-75, a Navy heavy cruiser he served on more than 60 years ago. Using the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, he was able to walk the decks of the ship again,Read More →

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The Cyberinth Virtualizer, which launched its Kickstarter campaign a little more than a week ago, has reached its $250,000 goal with 26 days left in the campaign. The $700 device is designed to be used in combination with a virtual reality headset such as the Oculus Rift, and allows users to walk, run, crouch, jumpRead More →

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Sept. 18 update: All prices will be going up on Nov. 1 but existing customers — and all those who order before Nov. 1 — will be grandfathered in. Read more here. Aug. 9 update: The prices were slightly raised, and more features added, with more starting regions, and choice of namesRead More →

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Mal, Maria and Tara are joined by Petlove Petshop and Saffia Widdershins. to talk about August events on the hypergrid, about Second Life and PrimPerfect, and about the new $3 regions from Zetamex.Read More →

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OpenSim users chose “better vehicles and physics” as a top priority more than any other feature in a Hypergrid Business survey this past week. You can see the raw results of the survey here. Overall, 43 respondents out of 143, or 31 percent, said that better vehicles and physics wereRead More →

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Stay inside this month, in front of the air conditioner, and catch up on all the OpenSim events you’ve been missing. Nara’s Nook celebrates new releases The authors on the Nara’s Nook grid are celebrating new releases today, with a party on the Reader Cove region. Teleport to world.narasnook.com:8900:Greyville via theRead More →

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Virtual reality is making a big comeback, and virtual worlds are being rebranded as virtual reality right and left. There’s nothing particularly wrong with that — immersive virtual worlds are a natural fit for virtual reality. But virtual reality is more than just virtual worlds with extra immersion. “Immersion squared” orRead More →

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The easy-to-use Sim-on-a-Stick distribution of OpenSim has been updated to the latest version, supporting Bullet physics, variable-sized regions, profiles and other improvements. Sim-on-a-Stick is a packaged version of the Diva Distro. If you’re upgrading from a previous version, there are some settings changes you may need to make. Read all aboutRead More →

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If you are a grid owner or event organizer looking for more hypergrid visitors, you can submit your calendar for inclusion in the Hyperica website. Just email me the iCal link or your Google calendar link, at maria@hypergridbusiness.com. For recurring events or major events, you can also include a linkRead More →

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A new social virtual world is coming, and it’s called CEEK. Not much information is available yet, other than this press release. Here’s what we know so far: EON Reality, best known for the EON Icube and similar holodeck-style systems, is providing the technical infrastructure, and Next Galaxy Corp., which makes consumer-orientedRead More →

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Press release: TRINITYVR ADDS 360 DEGREE OPTICAL TRACKING TECHNOLOGY TO TRINITY MAGNUM, ITS VIRTUAL REALITY AND PC SHOOTING MOTION CONTROLLER Company Also Announces Additional Games and Compatible Technology for Trinity Magnum, Including Arcade-Style Racing and Dinosaur Hunting Games NEW YORK – TrinityVR, a start-up company focused on building a scalableRead More →

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Have you ever teleported from one grid to another and had your attachments disappear? That problem has now been fixed, thanks to code donations from the on-demand Kitely grid. Grids running the latest, cutting-edge OpenSim code should already have this fix, said Oren Hurvitz, Kitely’s co-founder and VP of research andRead More →

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Las Vegas-based Zetamex, one of OpenSim’s leading hosting companies, is experimenting with a $3 region offer for 15,000-prim regions on OSgrid and Metropolis. “This is an experimental service, meaning we are changing and it may not last all depending on how you our customers and future customers take to theseRead More →

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Update: The survey is now closed, but you can see all the raw results here.   The explosion of new virtual reality developments, the announcement that Linden Lab is working on a new version of Second Life, and a steady stream of updates from High Fidelity have combined to createRead More →

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  According to a report today in TechRadar, Microsoft has just accepted FOVE into its Microsoft Ventures program. FOVE Inc. is a company that makes the world’s first virtual reality headset with eye-tracking. The eye-tracking feature seems to take this headset a bit farther along than where the Oculus Rift isRead More →

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OSgrid, the oldest virtual world running on the OpenSimulator software, is turning seven years old and birthday celebrations begin 10 a.m. Pacific time on Saturday morning with DJs and live performances. These include DJ Foxx Bode at 10 a.m., Bolt Dominica at 11, Joaquin Gustav at noon, and Sonya Jevette atRead More →

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Riftmax Theater 4D, a virtual environment with a theater and meeting space, has been released for the Oculus Rift and is now available for free as a download from Oculus Share or from the project website. It was also the location of last week’s Road to VR Roundtable Discussion and is where the talkRead More →

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Everybody talks about the fact that we need better search functionality in OpenSim, but there are few solutions out there. Why today’s automated searches don’t work Keyword search is what Metaverse Ink does, created by hypergrid inventor Crista Lopes, also known as Diva Canto in-world. Searching for “shoes,” for exampleRead More →

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Two more Comic-Con virtual reality experiences have been announced — “The Wall” from the Game of Thrones is back, and the Pacific Rim will be in VR for the first time. This is in addition to the previously-announced virtual experiences for the X-Men, Sleep Hollow, and the tornado movie “IntoRead More →

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Facebook will be “investing aggressively” in virtual reality, company executives said on an earnings call yesterday. The company closed on a $2 billion acquisition of virtual reality headset maker Oculus VR earlier this week. “We’re not getting into more specifics on the exact headcounts,” said Facebook CFO Dave Wehner. “But weRead More →

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Entertainment companies are piling on virtual reality, with immersive Oculus Rift experiences that they take to conventions about public venues. The latest to jump on the bandwagon is Fox, which is bringing an X-Men-themed virtual experience to Comic-Con tomorrow. According to the Associated Press, attendees will get 90 seconds toRead More →

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Virtual reality camera maker Jaunt VR has teamed up with entertainment industry Variety for the first-ever virtual reality coverage of a red carpet premiere. David S. Cohen of Variety and Tara McNamara of ThatWasSomething.com co-hosted the coverage Monday night of the Hollywood premiere of “Gardians of the Galaxy.” Kenneth Voelker of JauntRead More →

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Warner Bros. will be rolling out a new virtual experience at Comic-Con this year, based on the new movie Into the Storm. Booth #4545 will feature “an intense experiential booth featuring a 4-D immersive Oculus Rift experience that puts fans directly into a recreated scene from the upcoming tornado survival film,” theRead More →

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Justin Clark-Casey’s monthly OpenSim development update reminded me that OpenSim now has a new command for grid owners — “show grid size.” The command counts up all the land area on a grid, including the land of variable-sized regions, and gives the answer in terms of square kilometers. And afterRead More →

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The first-ever hypergrid fashion expo begins this Saturday on Tangle Grid and will last through August 3. Time is running out for merchants and creators interested in being part of the event. To participate, contact IsambardKingdom Brunel on Tangle Grid, or Peter2 Veliz in Second Life. Merchants looking for a more permanentRead More →

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A new branch of OpenSim, ArribaSim, promises better performance than mainline OpenSim while maintaining full compatibility. And now there’s a packaged version of it, called Arriba Mini-Grid, that sets itself up with a single click. The package is provided by Dorena’s World, a mid-sized German-language commercial grid. In face, Dorena’s WorldRead More →

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Oliveira Virtual Lands, which rents regions and parcels on OSgrid and Metropolis, now has a presence on the French-language non-profit open grid FrancoGrid. Like the other two grids, FrancoGrid is hypergrid enabled and residents are allowed to make backups of entire regions and inventories. Oliveira has set up a home regionRead More →

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  Daden Ltd,. a UK-based virtual reality consulting firm, has released a virtual campus demo that runs in the browser. The demo showcases some of the company’s virtual tools, including the ability to display slideshows, videos, Web links and PDF documents in the world. It also offers maps, collaborative rating systems, comment boards,Read More →

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Press Release:  OpenSimulator Community Conference Announces Principal Scientist at Oculus VR as Keynote Speaker July 22, 2014 – The OpenSimulator Community Conference is pleased to announce Dr. Steve LaValle, principal scientist at Oculus VR and professor of Computer Science at the University of Illinois, will be a keynote speaker at theRead More →

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According to a new report by UK-based virtual worlds research firm KZero, 83 million head-mounted virtual reality display devices such as the Oculus Rift will have been sold by 2018. In addition, 18 million virtual reality input systems will have been sold by that year. Prices to drop from $350Read More →

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A grid’s welcome region is like the home page of a website. It’s where new users arrive for the first time, and where hypergrid travelers land if all they know is the grid’s loginURI. For example, OSgrid’s welcome region is LBSA Plaza. Its full hypergrid address is hg.osgrid.org:80:lbsa plaza  but hg.osgrid.org:80 worksRead More →

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Mal, Maria and Tara are joined by Petlove Petshop and Cinders Vale for wide ranging discussion, including reflections on Relay for Life in Second Life, changes in the Terms of Service, the eighth closing of AviWorldz, the falling price of land in OpenSim and the latest improvements in OpenSim metrics.Read More →

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Zetamex CEO Timothy Rogers has posted an interesting article about WhiteCore-Sim, a version of OpenSim that is best known for providing the metaverse with variable-sized regions. A few grids have attempted to run based on the WhiteCore-Sim software or its predecessor, Aurora-Sim, including Nova grid in the picture above. But,Read More →

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The biggest choice every new grid makes is whether to enable hypergrid or not. Every single grid up until now has opted for either yes, no, or sometimes. Newly-launched Exo-Life, however, has picked a different path. It is on the hypergrid, but connects only to eight other grids. Currently, of theRead More →

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Poland-based headset maker Cmoar Ltd. has relaunched its Kickstarter this week with a lower-priced headset. “After only a couple of days since the original Kickstarter campaign has been launched, and in result of an interest it created, the company managed to start a cooperation with a new manufacturer who offeredRead More →

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So you’ve decided to start a commercial grids, hosting company, or consulting firm. Congratulations! But customers aren’t breaking down the doors like you expected. You could blame the customers for not being smart enough to appreciate what you’re offering. Or you could check and see if you’re making any ofRead More →

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In doing this month’s stats report, I updated the Terms of Service and Intellectual Property Rights policy links for a few grids. And I got to wondering about all the other grids that don’t have these policies posted. Out of 213 active grids this month, I only have links toRead More →

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In doing this month’s stats report, I updated the Terms of Service and Intellectual Property Rights policies for a few grids. And I got to wondering about all the other grids that don’t have these policies posted. Out of 213 active grids this month, I only have links to 23Read More →

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Last summer, Linden Lab got into some deep water with content creators when it updated its Terms of Service to grab too many intellectual property rights. Today, Linden Lab announced that it updated the TOS, but the update might not have gone far enough. Read the full Terms of ServiceRead More →

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Finally, some good news for avatars on the social network front – Google Plus, which has become a favorite platform for OpenSim communities — has dropped its real names requirement. “Today, we are taking the last step: there are no more restrictions on what name you can use,” the companyRead More →

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The top OpenSim grids saw a record increase in active users this month, and a near-record increase in region counts, despite the summer season and a lack of stats from a major grid. The top 40 public OpenSim grids gained 2,109 regions this month, for a new record high of 46,907 regions.Read More →

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When face-to-face meetings for mentoring and coaching sessions aren’t an option, most people would turn to telephone calls, Skype, or Google Hangouts. But a mentoring session in a virtual world offers some additional functionality and some benefits not found in other platforms. For example, in addition to removing the barriersRead More →

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Press release: Virtual Facebook Refugees find new home on Avatar Social Network As Facebook continues to crack down on pseudonymous accounts such as those of Second Life avatars, some virtual communities are migrating to other sites. Most recently, Pointe Fusion Elite, a community of DJs, artists, and music fans, has movedRead More →

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In a recent comment thread, some readers have asked questions about OpenSim’s long-term goals and road map. I’m going to offer some suggestions now, and ask you, my readers, to contribute others in the comments. Then I will do a survey of our readership to find out which long-term featuresRead More →