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Last night, Google sent me a message that I could have one of its virtual AI-powered voices record my audiobooks for me. I wrote an article about for MetaStellar here: Google offers free AI-powered audiobook narration. You can edit the finished file to fix pronunciation mistakes and then download theRead More →

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All OpenSim stats are up this month. The total land area of the public OpenSim grids increased by more than 1,000 regions, to 100,880, while the active users increased by more than 3,000, to 43,272. Creatrix World, which reported more than 700 regions last month, is currently recovering from aRead More →

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Just like Brandon Sanderson, I, too, have been busy during this pandemic. In fact, I’ve written more than ten new books. Take that, Sanderson! Okay, most of them are really short. His books are 400 pages long. My books are shorter. Krim Deeds, for example, is 150 pages. But, onRead More →

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The educational play “We Are Going to Lviv” is back for a single performance tonight on the Meta region of the OpenSim Community Conference grid. The trip was originally part of the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education 2022 conference and is an artistic journey that spans the past andRead More →

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The 15th annual Virtual World Best Practices in Education conference kicks off on  Thursday, March 31 and will run through April 2 at the VWBPE region in Second Life. This year, about 23 exhibitors including universities, non-profits, journals, community organizations, and individuals are set to exhibit at the VWBPE Conference Exhibit Hall,Read More →

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CIOs, CTOs and technology leaders agree: AI will be the main driver of innovation across industries throughout the next five years. Nearly half of CIOs say they’ve either already started using AI or plan to implement it in 2022, and two-thirds of workers surveyed recently said they want employers toRead More →

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You can join the Hypergrid Hoppers — a club for explorers of the OpenSim hypergrid —  as they travel to Ukraine. The trip is part of the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education 2022 conference and is an artistic journey that spans the past and future of Ukraine with a focusRead More →

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“Metaverse” is a word thrown around a lot lately, and its meaning seems to mean whatever anyone wants it to mean. Here’s a breakdown of the most common definitions. Metaverse as virtual reality The term “metaverse” was first coined in Neal Stephenson’s 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash. He usedRead More →

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The total number of active users was up quite a bit this month, but total land area and registered users dropped slightly. The loss of 144 standard region equivalents and 1,141 registered users was more than accounted for by the fact that FrancoGrid had server issues and didn’t report itsRead More →

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The 29th edition of Sheffield DocFest, the United Kingdom’s biggest documentary and digital media festival, will take place from June 23 to June 28 this year — and it’s looking for submissions. Sheffield DocFest’s Alternate Realities program has some upcoming deadlines if you’d like to apply, and applicants from theRead More →

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The total land area of the public OpenSim metaverse shrank by over 2,000 regions over the past month. Nearly all of that loss can be attributed to ZetaWorlds — which lost 2,336 regions due to maintenance on the grids. The total number of both active monthly users and registered usersRead More →

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  Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic we’d expect hybrid teams to regularly meet, work and learn in virtual reality (VR), wouldn’t we? After all, over 10 million high-quality, reality-bending virtual reality (VR) headsets have been sold heavily. But here we are in our video meeting, staring at a webcamRead More →

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Strapping on an Oculus Quest 2 to explore the vast game options on the Oculus store and all over the internet is thrilling, and some of them are sure to give you an adrenaline rush. I searched around and tried several games on my new Oculus Quest 2, thanks toRead More →

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Phillip Rosedale is returning as a strategic investor and advisor to Second Life, a company he founded 19 years ago, but it is unlikely that Second Life is going to change much given the tough company culture, closed nature of the platform, and the fact that High Fidelity is itselfRead More →

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Steve Gray, former executive at Tencent Games, the world’s largest gaming studio, is getting into the metaverse. His new company, Meta Music Studios, launched The Apollo Project last week, a blockchain-based gaming platform for music and games, with its first game TAP Stars, an avatar growing game, set to launch next month.Read More →

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Blockchain technology, used to power cryptocurrencies and other decentralized record-keeping systems, has been struggling to find practical use cases outside ransomware and speculative projects like Bitcoin and NFTs. There have been a number of pilot projects in a variety of industries, but they’ve rarely turned into anything with significant businessRead More →

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The number of active public grids hit a record high of 382 this month, but usage stats were down across the board. The number of active users dropped by 3,844 since this time last month, to 37,301. This is mainly because several grids, including German World Grid and 3rd RockRead More →

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Active users passed 40,000 for the first time in history, hitting 41,145, up more than 2,000 compared to last month. This despite a number of grids not reporting their stats this month including Tag Grid, which typically has more than 1,500 unique monthly logins. The number of registered uses alsoRead More →

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The Hypergrid Safari tours will resume in January after more than three years off. The safari, which involves travel to arranged grids, will kick off at the brand new HG Safari region on OSgrid at 12 noon Pacific time on Wednesday, January 12. The group plans ten trips during theRead More →

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The ninth annual OpenSimulator Community Conference presentations and panels start today at 7 a.m. Pacific time on the OSCC grid. If you haven’t, you can still register to attend. Registration is free. Conference Schedule OSCC21 features over 65 speakers sharing innovative content, dynamic short presentations, and panels that all takeRead More →

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The 2021 OpenSimulator Community Conference is next weekend, and registration is now open — and free. This year’s conference features more than 65 speakers leading presentations, workshops, panel sessions, music, and social events across the diversity of the OpenSimulator user base. See the full schedule here. Attending the conference event isRead More →

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In a Thanksgiving mode this week? These ten headsets will help bring you closer to your family — or help take you away. And they all make great Christmas gifts. 1. Oculus Quest 2 Use case: Untethered high-end VR experiences. The Oculus Quest 2 standalone virtual reality headset is theRead More →

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OpenSim is more flexible and economic to use when compared to other game engines like Minecraft, Mozilla Hubs, and Sansar, especially when it comes to creating and designing virtual worlds that can be applied for education. This is despite the OpenSim game engine being considered obsolete in graphical quality, saidRead More →

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The impending loss of Vivox voice in OpenSim is putting stress on educational institutions and other groups and organizations that need in-world voice. Vivox was integrated into the viewer and required no additional work on the part of the users. Other systems, such as Skype or Discord, typically require thatRead More →

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Wyldwood Bayou grid will celebrate first anniversary from Friday, October 29 through Monday, November 1, which coincides with the grid’s second Halloween Bash to be held on Sunday, October 31. The grid was launched a year ago by Kith Whitehawk as a destination grid for the club Rockin’ the Blues, andRead More →

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More than 300 valid responses came in for the Twelfth Annual OpenSim Grid Survey, and Wildwood Bayou received nearly perfect scores in all categories, with Utopia Skye, Enchanted Grid, Craft World and Kitely close behind. Wildwood Bayou, Utopia Skye, and Enchanted Grid were all write-in grids. Most years, there’s at leastRead More →

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AviTron, is testing out cryptocurrency as an in-world payment method in addition to its in-world currency, Tron. The grid will be accepting Bitcoin and Dogecoin as payment for land rentals and in-world purchases, despite the fact that the currencies are highly volatile and pose regulatory and other hazards for grids.Read More →

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AvaCon is delighted to announce the ninth annual OpenSimulator Community Conference 2021 to take place virtually on the OpenSimulator Conference Center grid on December 11 and 12, 2021. The OpenSimulator Community Conference is an annual conference that focuses on the developer and user community surrounding the OpenSimulator software. Join us and showcaseRead More →