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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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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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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 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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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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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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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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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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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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All OpenSim stats were up this month. Despite Tag grid not reporting its user numbers, OpenSim actives were up by 107, while land area increased by the equivalent of 673 standard regions. In addition, OpenSim’s public grids registered 875 new users. Most of the regions added this month are hypergridabble,Read More →

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OpenSim added more than 1,300 active users this month, after a drop of nearly 5,000 last month. Public grids also registered 2,670 new user accounts. Land area slipped slightly — by 507 regions, but nothing like last month’s drop of 4,361. The drop in area was fully accounted for, andRead More →

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StoryLink Radio, a group of Irish storytellers at Seanchaí Library, will host a series of Halloween events on Kitely and Second Life next month. There will be live in-world storytelling sessions and hunts from 7 p.m. Pacific Time every Thursday, Friday, Sunday, and most Tuesdays from 1 October to 30 October,Read More →

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OpenSim lost both land area and active users this month. Part of it is seasonal, with schools out of session, and people going outside to enjoy the nice weather. Part of the loss is because The Tag Grid, which reported nearly 1,700 active users last month, did not share thoseRead More →

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OpenSim’s public grids reported an increase in land area this month, continuing an 11-month growth streak. Total area increased by the equivalent of 2,252 standard regions, for a new record high of 103,625 regions. That’s nearly four times the area of Second Life, according to the latest stats from GridSurvey,Read More →

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OSgrid, the largest grid in land area and active user numbers, will celebrate its 14th birthday starting on Monday, July 19. The celebration will run through July 25. And to celebrate its birthday, the grid will give away free parcels in the OSGB14 regions where creators can showcase their bestRead More →

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OpenSim stats went up across the board this month, with the number of regions hitting yet another record high, despite a cleanup on OSgrid that took down more than 1,000 region map reservations. Overall, land area went up by the equivalent of 86 standard regions, for a new high ofRead More →

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OpenSim’s total land area has crossed the equivalent of 100,000 regions for the first time in history. With the equivalent of 3,504 standard-sized regions added since this time last month, OpenSim’s public grids now report the equivalent of 101,400 regions in land area. We say “equivalent” because many OpenSim grids nowRead More →

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Textures that previously took 15 to 30 seconds to appear now take less than two, due to the March update to the Firestorm viewer. That means that OpenSim builders, creators, and shoppers who use the Firestorm Viewer can pull textures from their inventories, drop them on an object, and immediatelyRead More →

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The Fire and Ice grid now has a new better performing server, allowing region owners to offer role play games, racing games, performing arts, and other computationally demanding activities to their visitors. These changes will boost performance of regions by reducing workload, said grid owner Sara Payne, who is alsoRead More →

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Last month, Rec Room — a virtual reality app that lets users build virtual environments and games which they can play virtually with others across mobile and PC platforms — became the latest virtual reality startup to achieve a unicorn status,  which means it reached a $1 billion valuation. ExpertsRead More →

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Littlefield will celebrate its eight year anniversary since it started as a standalone grid on Saturday, April 10 with music and an exhibition of in-world creations. The event starts at 3 p.m. Pacific time on the Anniversary region with a live performance by Terry Wildman, followed by a dance partyRead More →

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Interested in seeing the evolution of metaverse art? The Craft World grid will be hosting an exhibition on Friday, March 19 on the Uqbar region, of photographs and 3D builds from Second Life created between 2006 and 2012. Voxel 1 is only the first event in the Retrospective Exhibition series, saidRead More →

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Microsoft showed off its new “holoportation” technology at its  Microsoft Ignite 2021 Keynote earlier this month. The technology combines avatars and augmented and virtual reality to allow people to virtually “teleport” themselves to meetings. For better immersion in digital worlds, holoportation allows a user to use a full digital 3D versionRead More →

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  Signal Theory has built an immersive and interactive app that lets you take a selfie of yourself on Mars and share it on Instagram. Plus, the app lets you explore the red planet through the eyes of the Perseverance Rover. The app is built using the National Geographic Mars 360Read More →

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Story telling is increasingly blurring the line between the physical and virtual worlds, according to presenters at the just-concluded this year’s  Technology + Storytelling: Engaging The Immersive Future event organized by NYC Media Lab. We’re already seeing this happen on the production sites in series like Disney’s The Mandalorian, as youRead More →

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Smartphones have radically transformed how we communicate with each other, learn, shop, get the news, get driving directions — they touch nearly every facet of our lives. The transformative effects of smart glasses, also known as augmented reality glasses, can be equally dramatic. Instead of looking down at a screen,Read More →

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Tangle grid offers free skypads on the Skylife Properties region for people who want to set up private homes, private clubs, and other services. A skypad is a small island floating in the sky above a region, allowing users a plot of land with more privacy than traditional home plotsRead More →

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OpenSim’s total land area hit a record high this month, with the equivalent of 90,310 regions. And this is actually an undercount — many grids don’t report their stats, many schools and company grids run in completely private mode, and some grids count large variable-sized regions as single regions. ThisRead More →

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  Gay Nation, which is an area on the AviWorlds grid dedicated to the LGBTQ+ community, is offering free spaces for shops, businesses, venues, recreational activities, and hypergrid travel agencies. Anyone can request space, including residents of other grids, as long as their offerings are of service to the LGBTQ+Read More →