David Kariuki is a technology journalist who has a wide range of experience reporting about modern technology solutions. A graduate of Kenya's Moi University, he also writes for Cleanleap, and has previously worked for Resources Quarterly and Construction Review. Email him at [email protected].
Latest articles:
After Europe’s new data privacy regulations, GDPR, went into effect on May 25, OpenSim users saw a flurry of requests from grid owners asking them to agree to new privacy policies. Sometimes, those messages...
Twice as many grids now use Gloebit-powered payments compared to an older service, Podex, due to Gloebit’s easier set up and overall lower costs. Gloebits reports that it now has close to 2,000 account users...
The public OpenSim grids lost the equivalent of nearly 4,000 regions, for a new total land area of 80,671 standard region equivalents. The number of active monthly users dropped by 2,580, to reach a total...
Interested in taking a flight without worrying about the engine blowing out? You can now fly virtually, on an airplane filled with other passengers, on the Kea Nation enclave on the DigiWorldz grid. Kea Nation...
OpenSim land area and users rose slightly this month, despite outages and maintenance on several grids. Atek was down for a while before later resuming, as was Virtuality Grid, while Kinky Grid also went...
Child avatars are a sensitive topic in virtual worlds. For some users, the presence of child avatars opens the possibility of inappropriate sexual roleplay, which is at best extremely creepy and, at worst, illegal....
This year’s Virtual World Best Practices in Education 2018 conference, which ended last week in Second Life, was shorter than last year — three days, instead of four — and attracted about 1,100 attendees,...
OpenSim land area continued to increase gaining a total of 3,400 standard region equivalents this month — after gaining more than 9,000 regions last month. The number of active users also increased by 1,300....
LSL Editor, software that helps users write scripts more easily for Second Life and OpenSim objects, has been updated with more support for OpenSim functions. With the new version 2.56, users can also create...
17 Feb, 2018
OpenSim active user numbers hit a new high of 34,908 users this month. Land area also went up and is now at the equivalent of 80,175 standard regions, reversing a couple of months of...
15 Feb, 2018
The Sacrarium grid has taken down illegal content after receiving complains from users through emails and forums, and removed users who allegedly engaged in illegal behavior with child avatars. Neustadt, a region in Sacrarium grid...
About a week ago, a social media post accused a region on the Kitely grid of distributing infringing content. Strictly speaking, any infringement complaint needs to be made by the original content creator, through...
Keng City will open a new museum on Wednesday, February 1 on the DigiWorldz grid to celebrate Black History Month. The museum will showcase African-American accomplishments and events throughout history starting with the slave trade...
OpenSim’s longest-running live music venue — Maritime Club Belfast — is celebrating its tenth anniversary this weekend. The party starts at the club location on OSgrid on Sunday, January 28, at 1 p.m. Pacific Time. The club is...
OpenSim land area fell by the equivalent of 8,667 standard regions, and active users dropped by 3,473 due to combination of school holidays and fewer grids reporting stats than in the last couple of...
This May, a major new regulation goes into effect — the European General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR. It affects any company anywhere in the world that collects data on Europeans. And yes, that includes...
19 Dec, 2017
YrGrid denies allegations that it is refusing redemptions in order to profit from the recent spike in Bitcoin prices. Instead, the problem is caused by their Bitcoin wallet service provider, said the grid, which...
OpenSim’s public grids reached a new high in active users this month, as traffic went up more than 7 percent, or nearly 2,500 actives. There are now 34,881 active monthly users on the grids that...
Second Life, with a much bigger economy than that of OpenSim, also has a much bigger problem with copyright infringement than OpenSim. For instance, copybotters have long been using specialized third party viewers to...
What happens if you’re resident on a grid, buy a bunch of products from the Kitely Market for your avatar on that grid, and the grid gets shut down and your avatar inventory is lost?...
The submission deadline for Tangle Grid‘s Winter Picture Contest has been extended to Sunday, December 17 following an outage that saw the grid offline for more than a week. The previous deadline was December...
18 Nov, 2017
Apple has lagged behind in the virtual and augmented reality race so far. Their phones can be used for some low-end VR, via the Cardboard platform from Google, but they haven’t had anything of...
Grids are getting an early start on the holidays this year, with a number of winter-themed regions already up and ready to visit, and a full calendar of events planned across the hypergrid. Skiing...
OpenSim land area grew by the equivalent of 3,905 standard regions last month, a new record high of 88,225 regions. This was despite the fact that several large grids have stopped publishing land area...
Although many creators do not speak up, theft and illegal distribution of their content is hurting their morale and creativity, and may even be driving some out of OpenSim altogether. One creator of mesh...
The total land area of the public OpenSim grids fell by more than 1,000 regions this month as ZanGrid shut down and Genesis Metaverse moved its hosting. Total active users numbers continued to rise,...
There is a lot you can do or a lot of places you can travel to in-world during this Halloween festive period, with many OpenSim grids running Halloween-related events such as hunts and parties,...
15 Oct, 2017
Tangle Grid is hosting the Halloween Expo starting this Sunday, October 15 at the Expo Isle region where different creators from all around OpenSim will come show off, sell and promote their Halloween-related items...
One of oldest commercial OpenSim grids is shutting down at the end of this month. ZanGrid was founded five years ago as Zandramas grid, and is one of the top 25 grids by both popularity...
4 Oct, 2017
Barely a year after Genesis Metaverse stopped hosting its own grid infrastructure and moved to hosting services from DigiWorldz, the grid has decided to go it on its own again, according to a post. The move...
Gloebit has built, tested and proposed to Firestorm viewer team, a patch that, if implemented, will bring multi-currency support in OpenSim and eliminate the need for Gloebit users to do complicated coding and configuration...
OSgrid, OpenSim’s largest and oldest virtual world, launched a fundraising campaign today. The OSgrid Carnival Fundraiser kicked off today at 10 a.m. Pacific and will run until 10 p.m. Pacific today on the grid’s Event Plaza region....
AviWorlds is back online after owner Alexsandro Pomposelli put aside his differences with SkyLife owner Josh Boam. The two had an acrimonious dispute last year after AviWorlds went down due to server issues and other problems....
OpenSim’s public grids gained 2,546 active users this month, and land area increased as well, by the equivalent of 2,475 standard region. OSgrid gained the largest land area — 4,440 new standard region equivalents, followed...
12 Sep, 2017
Several OpenSim grids using a Florida-based data center for their hosting have been able to stay up during Hurricane Irma with the help of backup generators. The grids include DigiWorldz, Great Canadian Grid, Genesis Metaverse,...
Franco grid is calling on as many OpenSim creators as possible to submit their avatar creations for the fourth annual Festi’Avi 2017 event before the deadline at the end of September. The event is hypergrid-enabled...
Virtual reality can breathe new life into old games, says video game expert Patrick Soulliere. And Soulliere knows about games — he’s organized more than 100 online e-sports tournaments for Micron Technology that feature...
Second Life is moving its architecture to the cloud, Linden Lab announced last week, and that might help them offer lower land prices. The reason? On-demand cloud-based regions would only be up and running...
OpenSim’s public grids gained nearly 1,500 regions this month despite the summer season, but total active numbers were down by just over 1,700. The 257 currently active grids reported a record high area, totaling...
The Island Oasis grid now has a new owner, and has been offline since Monday while the servers are being moved to their new location. The grid is expected to be back up on Friday, according...
If you’re using a default avatar that comes with some versions of OpenSim, your name might wind up on copybotted content without you knowing about it. That’s just what happened to a user known...
AvatarFest, which will showcase and celebrate non-commercial builds from talented OpenSim creators, will take place on September 23 and 24. Many exhibitors have submitted their applications but those who have not and are still...
Craft World grid is down today for maintenance, and is expected to be back up in three days. Meanwhile, Genesis Metaverse has completed a major upgrade of its own and is back up. Improvements...
Starting your own grid isn’t easy. You need your own servers, membership website, plus, of course, residents. Plus, if you want an in-world economy, you have to put payments in place. There are hosting...
The total reported land area of OpenSim’s public grids has passed 80,000 regions — a record high. This is despite the fact that InWorldz, the most popular OpenSim grid, did not report its land...
If you have a unused balance in your ZanGrid virtual currency account, the grid is suggesting that you donate it for War Child charity to help children and people affected by war. The grid is...
3rdLife grid will be hosting it is first year birthday on Friday, July 14 on its Amusement Park region, featuring live music and DJs. The following is the schedule for the day. 4...
The first meeting of the Hypergrid Chamber of Commerce will be at 11 a.m. Pacific time on Friday, July 21 and several major players in the OpenSim economy have officially joined as members, including Gloebit, Podex, and Kitely. Another...
Lost World grid is offering avatar make over freebies such as custom shapes, skins, hairs and clothes that have been collected from around OpenSim, all for free. However, the grid cannot confirm the origins...
After trying several business models with fail and shutting down and reopening several times thus earning the name “the yo-yo grid,” AviWorlds is back online. This time, it’s a closed grid, meaning people will not...
WorldViz virtual reality solutions are being used in a variety of ways in learning institutions, from enhancing virtual learning and collaboration, boosting academic research, studying human and behavioral interactions, to enhancing student language and...
Public OpenSim grids gained the equivalent of 1,257 regions this month, while the number of active users rose by 511, after falling for the past three months in a row. Great Canadian Grid, InWorldz...
OpenSim lost land area and active users this month — on paper, at least — as one large commercial grid did not report its stats this month, and another grid suffered an outage. The total...
AviWorlds is coming back — again — with a brand-new business model and a brand-new technology partner. Since early 2011, owner Alexsandro Pomposelli has experimented with being the most expensive grid, and with offering land...
Neverworld Grid has opened a fashion center, a group of hypergrid-enabled regions for avatar fashion and fashion shows where designers can showcase and sell items to both local residents and hypergrid visitors. There are...
Students from around the world can now travel to Pakistan and learn more about the country — virtually. Online educational community PenPal Schools has launched a free six week field trip project to connect about 2,000 students from...
The Great Canadian Grid will host its first annual Art Fest at 10:00 a.m. Pacific on Saturday, April 29 and Sunday, April 30 at the RR Estates regions. It will feature display of art, photography,...
The grid Haven Your World is rebranding as AviUnite this month, with new social features, a free land offer, Kitely Market deliveries, and hypergrid connectivity. “From Saturday, April 22, we will be offering all...
All approved Gloebits merchants can now, from Saturday, withdraw their in-world proceeds through PayPal. The cash-out limit of 5,000 Gloebits is also going up, based on the merchant’s transaction history and level of identity verification....
Key OpenSim stats fell this month, as two popular grids — InWorldz and The Adult Grid — opted not to report their total land area or their active users. InWorldz has been the most...
On the back of a new free land offer marketing campaign, Island Oasis gained 603 new registered users this past month, nearly twice as many as in March. This was the highest number of new registrations since...
15 Apr, 2017
DigiWorldz has bought VirTec this week and will resume normal business in two weeks when the vending machines will be running on DigiWorldz servers and be deployed to other grids. This comes after VirTec’s previous...
A number of grids are hosting Easter events including Easter Egg hunts and contests this Easter season. That includes two events on OSgrid. OSgrid‘s Easter Egg contest began last Monday and will go through Friday,...
Submarine Channel, an Emmy-winning studio, has released their first-ever short virtual reality film Ashes to Ashes, which was shot from point of view of an urn containing the ashes of a dead grandfather. The...
7 Apr, 2017
VirTec has stopped selling its products to new merchants, but the company says it will continue to support existing customers of its multi-grid vending system. VirTec has removed the stands that sell the vending...
Google Cardboard-compatible viewers are a great choice for people who want to experience VR but don’t want to shell out the hundreds of dollars that the big-name headsets cost. In fact, these viewers can...
OpenSim grids reported a net fall in both regions and active users this month, but the regions drop was due to one grid with server issues, and the active users drop was due to...
To help schools and educators create, access and share more virtual learning and educational resources, an Educator Commons shop has been set up on OSgrid‘s Wright Plaza region by Kay McLennan, a professor of practice at Tulane...
3 Mar, 2017
To celebrate its first anniversary later on this month, the Croatian-language Kroatan Grid is holding a photo contest themed “my crazy virtual life.” The deadline for submissions is Monday, May 15, and the winning photos will be...
Island Oasis postponed its sixth anniversary, celebration, originally scheduled for March 1, after grid grid founder and COO Nicole Dreyer suffered a heart attack. Dreyer, also known as Sugar Paolino in-world, was rushed to the...
26 Feb, 2017
All active grids with infringing content have addressed the problem, according to VirTec owner Virtouse Lilienthal, one of the affected content creators. VirTec makes a multi-grid OpenSim vending system which has machines that report back...
25 Feb, 2017
The Kitely Market has passed the $100,000 sales milestone, the grid announced last week. The Kitely Market, which now delivers to 174 different OpenSim grids, is the leading online marketplace for OpenSim content. It accepts payment...
16 Feb, 2017
Active user numbers on the OpenSim hypergrid crossed the 80 percent share mark this month, reaching a new record high, while the hypergrid share of land area reached 95 percent, another new record high....
The annual No Borders Festival, which was previously known as ROBstock Festival, will take place on Saturday, February 11 and Sunday, February 12 from 8 a.m to 8 p.m Pacific time on 3rd Rock Grid to...
The total amount of money spent on purchases over the VirTec OpenSim vending machines network nearly doubled last year, increasing by 92 percent from $4,206 in 2015 to $8,080 in 2016, the company reported. Meanwhile, the total...
OutWorldz has released a beta version of the DreamWorld OpenSim installer for home-based mini-grids which now offers users a free subdomain for their grid, such as anygrid.outworldz.net. Previously, users had the option of registering their own domain...
Grid owners, content creators, and other members of the OpenSim community are working to solve a serious case of alleged content theft that surfaced recently on the Alife Virtual grid and may involve several...
myVR, a social virtual reality platform from the folks at myWebRoom, has opened the platform to allow brands and marketers create and publish in-app branded experiences. For instance, companies can place branded videos and...
Viar.Live allows users to upload and share 360 degree photos, create virtual reality tours from the uploaded 360 degree photos, embed virtual reality content on websites, and distribute the content across desktops, iOS and...
Public OpenSim grids gained land area, registered users, and active users this month, with active users reaching a new all-time high. Grids reported a net increase of 638 active users, for a new total of 36,330...
Kitely has added a complete classifieds system to enable users to buy classified ads using Kitely Credits, as well as new search tabs in the viewer to allow people to search for avatars, OpenSim groups,...
More than 70 virtual and argumented reality companies will showcase their products, innovations and demos at CES 2017, starting this Thursday in Las Vegas. The full list of those exhibiting in the gaming and virtual...
Christmas and winter themed events, virtual tours, skating, creative contests, parties, and dances have already hit the ground running in various grids. A number of grids are also offering you to hunt and win...
An industry group and individual vendors are working to fix the problem of incompatibility across multiple virtual reality content hosting, distribution and advertising platforms. Currently, advertisers, publishers and brands often have to create native...
The Great Canadian Grid has launched a new website GCG Pulse that allows users to publish their events to be hosted at the grid, and the website uses Google Calendar to help users include...
I recently tested the latest version of DreamWorld, a new OpenSim installer that lets you run your own mini-grid on a home computer. If everything goes right, installing the software, setting up a new...
Search marketers can now use Google’s VR View, Street View and Cardboard Camera apps to capture, upload and optimize 360 degree videos, virtual reality videos and images for better and easier visibility on search engines...
Today, most virtual reality avatars are very basic, cartoony figures, with a limited range of motions and expressions. Vendors are working to change this, and make avatars more realistic, with facial expressions that reflect...
Dacuda, a 3D scanning and room-scale virtual reality company is partnering with brain technology company MindMaze on a new headset that will offer positional tracing and improve social interactions in virtual environments. The new MMI...
The Orbi sunglasses, which film 360-degree videos, have just reached their crowdfunding goal. The glasses raised $88,568 from 269 Indiegogo backers in just a week, and there are still three weeks to go if you’re interested...
Thanks to the CoreVR option on the Matterport 3D application, real estate and hospitality companies who have Matterport Pro 3D cameras can now capture 3D models of their locations, upload them, and convert them into...
Tucson Roadrunners, an American Hockey League affiliate of the Arizona Coyotes, will stream, in 360 degrees, their inaugural home opener against the Stockton Heat at 8:05 p.m. Central Time today. The team has entered into partnership with 360fly...
A number of grids are hosting Halloween themed events, destinations, parties and hunts this month. Halloween Dance at Littlefield Grid Littlefield Grid has dedicated the Halloween Themed region to host the event for the...
Three 360 degree films — the Peal, Help and Real — demonstrated that immersive storytelling can pack a big emotional punch. The three films took the top prizes at the FIVARS 2016 Awards last month at the...
NBC is partnering with AltspaceVR to bring viewers virtual reality feel of the U.S. Presidential debates and will be streaming the second debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump tonight at the AltSpace VR’s...
Engage, a free multi-user virtual reality social platform that allows educators to create and share virtual environments and take students on virtual field trips is now available in preview edition and will launch early next...
MyWebRoom will launch a free new social virtual reality platform next month, myVR, which will allow users to create and customize private room, and hold events using mobile-based VR headsets. It could be the first virtual reality...
More brands are likely to engage in using 360 degree video advertising, 2D digital billboards, 2D video, and even TV spots inside virtual reality environments over the next two years, the Interactive Advertising Bureau said in a...
Kroatan, a new social OpenSim grid, is hosting a Halloween Hunt from October 8 to November 8 at the Silent Meadow region. The hunt features the story of Frank Inglewood, an England citizen who disappeared from his...
Virtual reality ad platforms continue to evolve, with vendors now offering analytics for advertisements placed inside 360-degree videos, virtual reality games, and other virtual experiences. Vendors are also trying to make the ads less...
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