Tag Archives: OpenSim

Tue, Nov 15 2011
OpenSim grids pass 20,000 regions

OpenSim grids pass 20,000 regions

The top 40 public OpenSim grids passed the 20,000-region milestone this month, with a new peak of 20,680 regions, after gaining 1,155 net regions over the past four weeks. Growth on OpenSim's top 40... 

20 Comments | Read More »
Sun, Sep 11 2011
A modest proposal for hypergrid security

A modest proposal for hypergrid security

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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

It’s time to move all grids south

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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, Aug 26 2011
5 tips for pro builders moving to OpenSim

5 tips for pro builders moving to OpenSim

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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 a installer bundle

OpenSim needs a installer bundle

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 »
Thu, Aug 18 2011
SpotON3D to talk patents in SL forum

SpotON3D to talk patents in SL forum

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SpotON3D will address the patent issue in a discussion on the first day of its Content Creators Expo in Second Life. Philippe Pascal, SpotON3D’s developer program manager, invited Hypergrid Business... 

7 Comments | Read More »
Wed, Aug 17 2011
Five steps to OpenSim at your school

Five steps to OpenSim at your school

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I have been using OpenSim since October, 2008. The software is still in an alpha stage of development, but it has come a long way, and its usage has exploded, and will continue to do so. Linden Labs has... 

2 Comments | Read More »
Wed, Aug 17 2011
NPCs are coming to OpenSim

NPCs are coming to OpenSim

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Thanks to a “small bounty” from Birmingham, U.K.-based Daden Limited, OpenSim has new NPC functionality — otherwise known as non-player characters or bots. David Burden “Having... 

14 Comments | Read More »
Mon, Aug 15 2011
Grids reach new peak with moderate growth

Grids reach new peak with moderate growth

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The top 40 OpenSim grids now have a total of 18,498 regions — up by 1,539 regions from a month ago. Meanwhile, total registered users grew by almost 12,000 to 206,098. Total regions on top 40 OpenSim... 

19 Comments | Read More »
Sun, Aug 7 2011
SpotON3D forum ends in tears

SpotON3D forum ends in tears

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SpotON3D attempted to address the controversy over its plans to patent technology for putting an OpenSim viewer on a webpage in an outreach event this morning, but some of the company’s toughest... 

33 Comments | Read More »
Thu, Aug 4 2011
5 reasons why OpenSim is innovating faster than Second Life

5 reasons why OpenSim is innovating faster than Second Life

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In recent months, the amount of innovation coming out of the OpenSim community has been staggering. Hypergrid travel is not only more secure, but now supports cross-grid friendships, messages, and landmarks.... 

3 Comments | Read More »
Wed, Aug 3 2011
AvWorlds to have Facebook integration this week

AvWorlds to have Facebook integration this week

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AvWorlds has announced that the company will be releasing a Facebook plugin this week, allowing users to quickly create avatars based on their existing Facebook identities. Those without Facebook accounts... 

2 Comments | Read More »
Sat, Jul 30 2011
Kudos to SpotON3D for viewer plugin

Kudos to SpotON3D for viewer plugin

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A lot of folks sit around complaining about not having a decent Web-based viewer for OpenSim and Second Life. (Okay, maybe just me.) The existing stand-alone viewers require that users download and install... 

10 Comments | Read More »
Fri, Jul 29 2011
SpotOn3d releases browser plugin for OpenSim

SpotOn3d releases browser plugin for OpenSim

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There have been several attempts over the past year to create a viewer for Second Life and OpenSim based virtual environments that would run in a browser. I’ve tried to write about them all, from... 

22 Comments | Read More »
Wed, Jul 20 2011
Aurora-Sim bridges gap to the hypergrid

Aurora-Sim bridges gap to the hypergrid

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Aurora-Sim is a hot, fresh, new distribution of OpenSim that promises some nice features for grid managers (see story here) but, until this weekend, its users were cut off from the rest of the metaverse. That... 

3 Comments | Read More »
Wed, Jul 20 2011
5 reasons not to rush to Unity

5 reasons not to rush to Unity

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Yesterday, I wrote up 5 reasons to rush to Unity 3D (with an extra bonus reason). Yes, the platform is technically advanced and easy to use, great for marketing and business applications — but Unity... 

16 Comments | Read More »
Fri, Jul 15 2011
OpenSim grids break records for regions; users

OpenSim grids break records for regions; users

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It’s been a record-breaking months for OpenSim, with the top 40 grids passing 16,000 regions and 200,000 users for the first time in history. The total number of regions on these 40 largest public... 

6 Comments | Read More »
Thu, Jul 14 2011
Cariama vs. HGExchange

Cariama vs. HGExchange

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If you’re launching a new grid, your number one problem is lack of content. Whether your grid is a corporate office complex for your employees, a campus for your students, or a large social and roleplaying... 

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Thu, Jul 7 2011
3Di scales back on OpenSim

3Di scales back on OpenSim

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Japan’s 3Di Inc., the first vendor to release a business-friendly Web-based viewer for OpenSim, has cut back its development work on the platform in favor of Flash-based virtual environments. “Apart... 

2 Comments | Read More »
Wed, Jul 6 2011
OMC users triple since start of year

OMC users triple since start of year

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The number of OpenSim grids accepting the multi-grid, hypergrid-enabled Open Metaverse Currency (OMC) has continued to grow in the first half of this year, now at an all-time high of 29 grids. Meanwhile,... 

1 Comment | Read More »
Wed, Jun 29 2011
OpenSim devs launch foundation, put OpenSim on solid legal footing

OpenSim devs launch foundation, put OpenSim on solid legal footing

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OpenSim’s volunteer developers have launched a foundation, the non-profit Overte Foundation, which expected to solve the licensing problems that keep OpenSim server developers from talking to viewer... 

10 Comments | Read More »
Wed, Jun 29 2011
Five top metaverse blogs

Five top metaverse blogs

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I subscribe to a lot of virtual world-related blogs in my RSS reader (click here for the bundle) , and follow a lot more on Twitter (click here for the list). Here are the five that I check in on daily. i... 

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Mon, Jun 27 2011
Jibe vs. OpenSim

Jibe vs. OpenSim

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Jibe is a new, Unity 3D-based virtual environment created by ReactionGrid, one of the leading OpenSim hosting vendors. Many people confuse the two platforms, but they are very different environments. In... 

2 Comments | Read More »
Wed, Jun 15 2011
OpenSim cleans out old regions; new grids emerge

OpenSim cleans out old regions; new grids emerge

The top 40 OpenSim grids lost a net total of 475 regions since mid May, for a new total of 15,290 regions, but all of that decline — and then some — is accounted for by the removal of 2,200... 

5 Comments | Read More »
Tue, Jun 7 2011
Intel increases OpenSim avatar capacity 20-fold

Intel increases OpenSim avatar capacity 20-fold

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Press release: Intel Announces New Research and Partnership Efforts at Annual R&D Event Will release open source packages: To increase avatar capacity on an OpenSim region 20 times, allowing thousands... 

5 Comments | Read More »
Mon, Jun 6 2011
How to hijack the metaverse

How to hijack the metaverse

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We all remember the Microsoft-Netscape battle. Okay, maybe some people don’t, so here’s the summary: Netscape was a company that made a free Internet browser and and a not-free commercial Web... 

3 Comments | Read More »
Sun, Jun 5 2011
Educator calls for college enclave on OSGrid

Educator calls for college enclave on OSGrid

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I am looking for volunteers for an OSGrid Academic Consortium — somewhere between four to eight schools who want to have free regions in an education-oriented community located near to one another... 

4 Comments | Read More »
Sun, Jun 5 2011
Hypergrid inventor calls for mass grid migration

Hypergrid inventor calls for mass grid migration

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Hypergrid inventor Crista Lopes, professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine called today on big public grids to begin a mass migration to lower regions. The reason is that Second... 

12 Comments | Read More »
Sat, May 28 2011
Second Life vs. OpenSim

Second Life vs. OpenSim

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You cannot compare Second Life and OpenSim. One is a social world. The other is an open source piece of server software. You can’t even compare Second Life to individual grids using OpenSim as their... 

14 Comments | Read More »
Sat, May 21 2011
Army extends MOSES to other researchers

Army extends MOSES to other researchers

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MOSES — Military Open Simulator Enterprise Strategy — is an OpenSim-based, 3D, virtual environment platform originally developed by the U.S. Army as an alternative to Second Life Enterprise.... 

2 Comments | Read More »
Fri, May 20 2011
Why pay for OpenSim?

Why pay for OpenSim?

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With OpenSim hosting prices dropping fast and features and stability improving, it surprises to me that people still ask why anyone should pay for OpenSim. Yes, OpenSim is free. You can go to OpenSimulator.org... 

7 Comments | Read More »
Wed, May 18 2011
What virtual content creators can learn from Netflix

What virtual content creators can learn from Netflix

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Netflix now accounts for the largest share of Internet traffic. According to a new report from Sandvine, Netflix movies and television episodes are now more than 22 percent of the stuff traveling through... 

1 Comment | Read More »
Wed, May 18 2011
Daden creates world selection tool

Daden creates world selection tool

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Press Release: Daden creates World Finder, a virtual world selection tool Birmingham, U.K. – A simple virtual world selection tool, World Finder, has been created by virtual world specialist’s... 

1 Comment | Read More »
Tue, May 17 2011
One university’s pioneering OpenSim journey

One university’s pioneering OpenSim journey

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The last four months have been tumultuous ones for our university. With the end of educational discounts for our island in Second Life, we faced a tough decision. Second Life’s steep learning curve and... 

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Mon, May 16 2011
Mesh may accelerate OpenSim migration

Mesh may accelerate OpenSim migration

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I’ve been reading lately about how great mesh will be for Second Life. But I’m wondering whether it won’t actually be better for OpenSim, instead. Off-world content versus in-world content In... 

1 Comment | Read More »
Mon, May 16 2011
OMC currency gains popularity in the first quarter of the year

OMC currency gains popularity in the first quarter of the year

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The number of OpenSim grids accepting the multi-grid OMC virtual currency reached a record high in the first quarter of this year, as has the number of users of this hypergrid-enabled currency from Austian... 

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Sun, May 15 2011
OpenSim grids reach record high

OpenSim grids reach record high

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The top 40 OpenSim grids gained a total of 1,199 new regions over the past month, for a new record total of 15,765 regions. The biggest growth was on OSGrid, the non-profit grid which allows people to... 

6 Comments | Read More »
Thu, May 12 2011
FireSabre launches Starlight grid for educators

FireSabre launches Starlight grid for educators

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Educators looking for OpenSim alternatives to Second Life are currently limited to ReactionGrid or Jokaydia Grid, which is operated by ReactionGrid — unless they want to set up their own grid or... 

22 Comments | Read More »
Sun, May 8 2011
The business case for OpenSim

The business case for OpenSim

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A reader asked me today about the OpenSim business case — are there enough users on any of the grids to make it worthwhile for a business to set up a presence there instead of in Second Life? The... 

5 Comments | Read More »
Sat, May 7 2011
Major OpenSim upgrade adds security, meshes

Major OpenSim upgrade adds security, meshes

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OpenSim’s new 0.7.1 release supports meshes, media-on-a-prim, and adds additional security features for grid owners and content creators. The upgrade also promises increased stability and less lag.... 

2 Comments | Read More »
Thu, May 5 2011
Researcher tracks virtual movement

Researcher tracks virtual movement

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A researcher at the University of California in San Diego is seeking participants for a large-scale study of avatar movement in Second Life and OpenSim. The study involves both online questionnaires and... 

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Sun, Apr 24 2011
At the Second Life tipping point

At the Second Life tipping point

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Second Life is a tipping point, and has been precariously balanced there for months. Average daily concurrency has been slipping since the start of 2010, according to data from Metaverse Business. In fact,... 

5 Comments | Read More »
Fri, Apr 22 2011
Outage underscores the need for backups

Outage underscores the need for backups

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Ten Kitely users lost 13 regions this week because of a bug in the company’s software. The bug has been fixed, users compensated for their losses, and a new automated backup system is in the works. Kitely... 

2 Comments | Read More »
Tue, Apr 19 2011
RealXtend Association formed

RealXtend Association formed

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The developers behind the realXtend branch of the OpenSimulator virtual world platform announced the formation of the realXtend Association today. “The purpose of the association is to be a place... 

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Sun, Apr 17 2011
OpenSim 102: Running your own sims

OpenSim 102: Running your own sims

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There are plenty of reasons to run OpenSim on your own computers. If you’re a content creator, you can have as many regions as you want, for free, and load them up when you need to work on them.... 

2 Comments | Read More »
Fri, Apr 15 2011
Clouds help propel OpenSim growth

Clouds help propel OpenSim growth

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The top 40 public OpenSim grids gained more than a 1,000 new regions since this time last month, propelled partly by low-cost cloud-based regions from a new hosting provider, Kitely. There are now a total... 

13 Comments | Read More »
Fri, Apr 8 2011
OpenSim 101: Renting land

OpenSim 101: Renting land

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This is a primer for folks considering moving into OpenSim who have never used OpenSim before and who don’t have much of a technical background. Things move fast in the OpenSim universe, so last... 

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Wed, Apr 6 2011
Survey: Slow erosion of educators from Second Life to OpenSim

Survey: Slow erosion of educators from Second Life to OpenSim

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In March, I asked educators on the SLED and EDUCAUSE Virtual Worlds lists to tell me how their ownership of land in virtual worlds compares to their holdings a year ago. Here are the results. Analysis:... 

10 Comments | Read More »
Tue, Apr 5 2011
Waiting for an OpenSim content marketplace

Waiting for an OpenSim content marketplace

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Update: There are now two marketplaces, Cariama and HGExchange, that deliver items to multiple OpenSim grids. Read more here: Where to get content for OpenSim. As a business owner — and someone... 

7 Comments | Read More »
Wed, Mar 30 2011
Second Life, OpenSim hosts can learn from Kitely

Second Life, OpenSim hosts can learn from Kitely

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Kitely offers OpenSim hosting in the cloud — ridiculously easy to use and ridiculously cheap for low-traffic regions. Now, anyone can have their own sim up and running in less than two minutes, at... 

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