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Craft World grid will be celebrating their 11 year anniversary tomorrow, Wednesday, January 27 starting at 1 p.m. Pacific  time at the Jubilee Expo facility on the Jubilee region of the grid. The hypergrid address is craft-world.org:8002:jubilee. DJ Arianna, Dancegroup, and VJ Josina Burgess will host the event at 1Read More →

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OpenSim land area grew the equivalent of 2,270 standard regions and OpenSim grids reported more than 4,000 new registered users this month compared to last month. However, the number of active users dropped by 646. This loss — and then some — could be attributed to Foundation Grid and VirtualRead More →

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Darkmoon Breedables is celebrating its one year anniversary as the first horse animesh breedable OpenSim and the first breedable in DigiWorldz. “Breedables” are in-world pets users can breed for a variety of traits. Darkmoon’s low-lag breedable horses can also be trained for racing and riding when they become mature, DarkmoonRead More →

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Around 35 percent of businesses plan on implementing virtual or augmented reality technology in 2021 according to a recently published research report by GetApp, involving 700 small and medium business leaders from around the world. According to the new report, small businesses will adopt virtual technologies to respond to newRead More →

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No need to socially distance in OpenSim this holiday season. Grids are going all out with hunts, songs, dances and parties. Here are a few places to start and things to do. Shop, party and hunt on Virtual Dream grid The French Virtual Dream grid‘s Christmas market is now openRead More →

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More than 5,000 new users signed up on OpenSim grids in the last 30 days, the largest gain in four months. In addition, the public OpenSim grids added the equivalent of 367 standard regions and 548 new active users. Kitely gained the highest number of regions this month with 189Read More →

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Tangle grid is closing down its expo series after six years of events. “I want to thank all that have participated and visited us at the Expo over the years,” grid co-founder Leslie Kling told Hypergrid Business. She explained that there wasn’t enough interest to keep the program going. TheRead More →

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GasWorks Blues, the performance club formerly based on the Alternate Metaverse grid, held its first grand opening at the GasWorks region on AviWorlds this week. “It is an opportunity to gain new followers, that perhaps we hadn’t reached previously, and we feel that the Aviworlds grid is well positioned forRead More →

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A virtual walkthrough of the new planned Pentecost Church of Lumberton in North Carolina has been built in Tangle Grid in order to show parishioners what the final building will look like. The virtual build was commissioned by the senior reverend to help the church raise money for construction andRead More →

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OpenSim grids added a total of 1,574 standard region equivalents to their land area in the last one month, while the number of active users increased by 375. On a further positive note, OpenSim gained an additional 4,000 registered users. OSgrid gained the largest land area in terms of theRead More →

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Grids around the OpenSim metaverse are gearing up to celebrate Halloween, and some have already started the festivities. Tag Grid holds Halloween build contest The Halloween Build contest on the Tag Grid started on Wednesday, October 7, and will run until Friday, October 31. To participate, a builder chooses a ten-by-tenRead More →

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OpenSim grew by more than 1,700 regions over the past month while active users increased by more than 1,400. There is usually a seasonal uptick in the fall as students and teachers return back to school. This year, that may have been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, as well. OpenSimRead More →

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“Garden of Eden,” the first in a series of three live VR art explorations, concerts, and shows organized by HBO, kicks off today at 10 p.m. Eastern time on VRChat, a social VR platform. Those without a VR headset can watch the “Garden of Eden” livestream on YouTube and will beRead More →

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OpenSim stats are down this month by a little over 1,000 active users — but Tag Grid, OpenSim’s largest closed grid, did not report stats this month, and had over 1,500 active users this month. Active users are expected to increase again next month, as students return to school. CraftRead More →

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Craft World has seen a 25 percent increase in the number of school regions and more teachers attended lessons in immersive education at the grid as a consequence of the coronavirus lockdown, grid owner Raffaele Maci told Hypergrid Business. “At the moment, we have about 140 teachers, 350 students —Read More →

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VRCollab, a remote meeting and collaboration app that lets users in the construction industry coordinate and collaborate on projects in real-time from different construction sites and offices, has witnessed a twice-and-a-half increase in monthly signups during the coronavirus pandemic related lockdowns. Because many people have been unable to go toRead More →

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The number of active users on OpenSim dropped by around 3,500 users this month, mostly due to stats problems on the adult Brazilian 3D Love grid, which reported more than 3,000 active users last month but none this month. Another big drop was a loss of over 1,000 actives onRead More →

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It is four times faster to train employees soft skills when using virtual reality than when using traditional in-person classroom or online training, according to a new study by PricewaterhouseCoopers. And it’s cheaper, too — organizations spend about $195 per trainee when using virtual reality, compared to the $207 to $265Read More →

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The coronavirus pandemic is accelerating the use of virtual reality and augmented reality, experts say, especially in retail, education and health. “The trajectory is clear that this technology is set to become the next ubiquitous computing platform, much like we saw with mobile devices and personal computers,” Taylor Freeman, founderRead More →

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The number of active users on OpenSim increased by more than 3,000 this past month, and land area grew by over 2,000 regions as people continue to wait out the pandemic. Meanwhile, if OpenSim users are wary of attending real-world Fourth of July events, OpenSim grids, including Tag Grid and Littlefield,Read More →

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For the past few years, virtual reality meetings, events, and classrooms haven’t taken off the way that proponents expected, due to inconvenience, usability issues, bandwidth requirements, the need for high-end computers, and expensive headsets, new software, and more. Nothing works right — it’s easier to have a phone call orRead More →

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All stats — area, registered users, active users — went up this month on the public OpenSim grids. In addition, we have hit the highest number of active grids in the history of this report, 365, as well as the highest number of grids reporting stats, at 293. Many ofRead More →

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Sinespace, a Unity-based virtual world platform from former OpenSim core developer Adam Frisby, has a new ready-to-go virtual world for meetings and education, called Breakroom. The world requires that users install desktop — mobile versions are in the works. The platform starts at $500 a month for up to 50Read More →

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With the pandemic, educators around the world are finding out first-hand that most virtual meetings don’t provide the same kind of educational benefits as in-person classes. Students don’t have the sense of being together that allows them to learn collaboratively. So when a group of teaching colleges in Israel wasRead More →

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OpenSim land area continued its four-month growth streak this month, and the number of active users in OpenSim is up this month by over 2,400 users, mostly due to the fact that the Tag Grid released numbers this month, but not last month. But some of the increase could alsoRead More →

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In another blow to the viability of VR-based virtual worlds, Linden Lab has sold off its next-gen Sansar virtual world to an unknown startup called Wookey Project Corp. Wookey has no information on its website except for the names of three employees. In a press release late last month, Linden LabRead More →

WorkLink usecase

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Enterprises are optimistic about the potential of virtual and augmented reality, according to a recent report by Perkins Coie in collaboration with XR Association trade group and venture capital firm Boost VC. Two-thirds of companies expect to increase spending on immersive technologies this year compared to 2019, the report said, withRead More →

Vive Pro Eye Office

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With businesses, schools and other organizations sending many employees to work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic, this could be a good time for organizations to take another look at virtual reality. And VR manufacturers have just released some nice new high-end headsets. Earlier this month, HTC announced two business-orientedRead More →

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The COVID-19 pandemic seems to be turning a corner in China, with no new cases reported today, but the virus is still spreading aggressively around much of the world, including the U.S. and Europe. For a glimpse of what it was like on the ground in China, check out thisRead More →

WorkLink usecase

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Scope AR’s WorkLink platform, an augmented reality tool that provides AR-enabled remote assistance and step-by-step work instructions, is helping factories by having maintenance experts provide real-time remote assistance and work instructions to factory workers in geographies where Chinese experts are no longer allowed to travel due to COVID-19, previously knownRead More →

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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 would pop up in the middle of a hypergrid trip, hindering travel. DigiWorldz, for example, hasRead More →

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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 and is on more than 50 grids, and the cumulative value of transactions reached more thanRead More →

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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 of 35,399. Most of the land area losses were due to a regular cleanup on OSgrid,Read More →

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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 has brought in several airplanes recently, including the KNVV Douglas DC, which can carry up to 12Read More →

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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 under construction temporarily. Tangle Grid is currently still down for maintenance. And Gevolution was doing loadRead More →

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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. For other users, child avatars are a necessity for grids with an educational focus. And forRead More →

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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, down from a high of around 4,500 in previous years. Attendance was up slightly over lastRead More →

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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. OSgrid is still the biggest grid with a total of 20,203 standard region equivalents, followed byRead More →

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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 scripts that run other scripts, LSL Editor developer Frank Rulof told Hypergrid Business, and the testingRead More →

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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 declines. However, it still falls short of the 88,225 regions last November. Much of the movement isRead More →

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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 and which was selling naked child avatars and had children avatars moving around naked, wearing BDSMRead More →