Apple CEO Tim Cook faced a question about virtual reality at the company’s first quarter earnings call on Tuesday, and was not particularly forthcoming about Apple’s plans. “In terms of virtual reality, no, I don’t think it’s a niche,” he said. “I think … it’s really cool and has some interestingRead More →

On an earnings call yesterday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he was happy with the number of Oculus Rift pre-orders. “I don’t show much joy, but I am happy,” he told investors and analysts. Zuckerberg said that virtual reality has reached an important milestone with the shipping of the Samsung GearRead More →

Oculus was the most popular platform with video game developers, according to the latest GDC State of the Industry report. More than more than 2,000 attendees of the upcoming March Game Developers Conference were surveyed, and 19 percent said they were currently working on a game for the Oculus Rift, followedRead More →

Five million Google Cardboard-compatible headsets have been shipping, Google announced yesterday. The accompanying graphic shows a lot of headsets made out of cardboard, and two — the Mattel Viewmaster and the Goggle Tech C1-Glass — made out of plastic. Google didn’t provide any details about how they track these numbers, andRead More →

Following Lenovo’s bundling of its new K4 Note smartphone with an Ant VR virtual reality headset last week — a promotion that sold 10,000 sets in less than a second — iberry has launched its new Auxus Stunner smartphone as part of a bundle with the Auxus VR headset. The bundle isRead More →

Avi-Labs, the OpenSim hosting company affiliated with Alexandro Pomposelli’s AviWorlds grid, has been slowly but steadily expanding its suite of services. Customers now include 4addiktion Grid, Baller Nation Grid, Sinful Grid, and Loff Virtual Worlds. “We are growing and I think it is time you consider placing us on your list,” said Pomposelli,Read More →

DigiWorldz has donated unfinished code for the Mumble voice system to the OpenSim community, the grid announced this week. Mumble is an alternative to the proprietary Vivox voice system. Boston-based Vivox Inc. provides high-quality spacial voice to Second Life, the Elder Scrolls, Eve Online, Everquest and many other large multiplayerRead More →

Jessica Lyon, the head of the Firestorm Viewer project, is now recommending the rival Alchemy viewer for OpenSim users. “Alchemy may be the most compatible viewer to OpenSim right now,” she said, thanks to the efforts of viewer developer Cinder Roxley. Lyon was speaking at a taping of the InWorldRead More →

Lenovo sold more than 10,000 virtual reality headsets as part of K4 Note bundles in 0.9 seconds in India this week. Unlike other similar promotions, which typically feature simple cardboard virtual reality sets, the K4 Note came bundled with a white Ant VR headset. From local media reports, it seems toRead More →

Samsung, the maker of the Gear VR virtual-reality headset, is opening a New York studio to produce new immersive experiences, CNET reported. Samsung announced the news at the Sundance film festival in Park City, Utah, where virtual reality is emerging as a prominent theme. “One of the biggest trends and themes forRead More →

Customers will be able to try out Oculus Rift headsets before buying them at retail stores in April, reports Road to VR. There’s no word on which retail partners Oculus will be working with just yet, but in the U.S. one suspect is Best Buy, the country’s largest consumer electronicsRead More →

Press release: More than 200 Million Virtual Reality Head-Mounted Displays to be Sold by 2020, According to Tractica Fueled by Gaming, Virtual Reality Adoption Will Also Drive Sales of 52 Million Accessory Devices during the Next 5 Years BOULDER, Colo. — While virtual reality is not a new technology in conceptRead More →

The world’s leading virtual reality treadmill, the Virtuix Omni, has begun shipping the devices to its Kickstarter backers last month, saw around $15 million worth of interest from individual investors through SeedInvest, and won at Top Pick Award from Tom’s Hardware at the CES show in Las Vegas (see video below). The companyRead More →

The total land area of the public OpenSim grids rose slightly this month, and there were nearly 10,000 new registered users, but active user numbers dropped slightly over the holidays. OpenSim now has a record-high of 71,557 standard region equivalents, a record high of 503,152 registered users, and 32,200 activeRead More →

OpenSim is taking off. Active users grew more than twice as fast in 2015 than in any other previous year. Based on Kitely Market stats, exportable, hypergrid content grew faster last year — five times faster — than non-exportables. And virtual reality is set to explode. With more than 16 millionRead More →

Merchants continued to expand the number of exportable items listed on the Kitely Market this month, showing an increasing tolerance for selling to the broader metaverse. Meanwhile, the number of items limited to just being used on the Kitely grid shrank for the second month in a row. There areRead More →

HTC will start taking pre-orders for Vive, its virtual reality headset, from February 29, its chief executive has confirmed. Cher Wang told the Telegraph the company had chosen to refocus on virtual reality and away from smartphones, saying the company was now “more realistic.” The price has not yet beenRead More →

If you can’t wait until February 7 to watch Animal Planet’s Puppy Bowl XII, you can get a virtual reality preview of it today. Watch the preview reel on Discovery VR or on Animal Planet’s YouTube page (below). You can also download the Discovery VR app for the iPhone and for Android smartphones.Read More →

So you want to play EVE: Valkyrie but don’t have the $1,500 for a new computer and Oculus Rift headset? Checkout these two cheap alternatives — both of which are available now. End Space VR on Google Cardboard Buy End Space VR for $0.99 for the iPhone or $1.09 for AndroidRead More →

A new Raytheon-built virtual reality app puts users on a New England hilltop, looking out onto the test range for the company’s new 360-degree Global Patriot Solutions radar. The app, available for both Android devices, and iOS devices, works with any Google Cardboard-compatible headset. Raytheon itself is giving away free Google Cardboard viewers, previously used the technologyRead More →

Oculus VR is now taking pre-orders for the Oculus Rift headset, but at $600 it’s about twice as expensive as many expected. The purchase page says the headset will start shipping in May to 20 different countries. By comparison, the developer kit cost about $350. The company says that the headsetRead More →

The Fibrum virtual reality headset, from Moscow-based Fibrum Ltd., is a lightweight in every sense of the word — except for price. It is certainly the smallest and lightest of the all-enclosed headsets that I’ve tried. The company says it weighs 4.2 ounces. I weighed it, with straps, and it cameRead More →

When it comes to investing in early-stage companies, you’re either “friends and family,” an angel investor accredited with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or a venture capitalist. In the past, average people have been shut out of the process because such investments, while potentially extremely lucrative, are also extremely risky.Read More →

The Adult Metaverse community was the fastest-growing this year, reaching 1,255 members by the end of 2015, followed by OpenSim Virtual, which reached 1,649 members and retained its spot as the top OpenSim-focused community on Google Plus. Four grids made the top-fifteen list growth list: Kitely, OSgrid, DigiWorldz, and the GreatRead More →

Hypergrid Business saw a dramatic increase in pageviews in 2015, hitting 1.59 million — up almost three-fold from 565,553 in 2014. This was a record high for the publication. The number of unique readers has also risen to a new record, nearing half a million, up from less than aRead More →

I just received the Baofeng Mojing 3 in the mail, and it’s the best alternative I’ve seen yet to the Samsung Gear VR. Plus, it works with all smartphones — not just the latest Samsung models. It has an excellent field of view of 98 degrees, weighs a reasonable 15 ounces,Read More →

The world’s smallest virtual reality headset has arrived. The Homido Mini weighs half an ounce, and fits into the palm of your hand. When you fold it out it looks like a tiny pair of glasses attached to a plastic clip. The clip goes over your smartphone, like this. ItRead More →

Having tried more than a dozen virtual reality headsets over the past few months, there are a few features that I now consider to be must-haves — but which seem to be rare to find. If any manufacturers are paying attention, please considering including more of the following in yourRead More →

OpenSim gained a record-high 10,013 active users in 2015 — more than double the increase of any previous previous year. By comparison, last year, OpenSim’s public grids gained 2,189 active users last year, 3,652 in 2013, 2,652 in 2012, and 2,671 in 2011. OpenSim also gained 80,702 registered users thisRead More →

Dreamland Metaverse outscored the two other major providers in every category in this year’s OpenSim hosting providers survey, while CloudServe, the new kid on the block, scored a close second. Zetamex scored last in four out of five categories. Zetamex also had an ownership change this past year, and hadRead More →

Tokyo-based Colopl has announced the formation of a $50 million Colopl VR Fund to provide support for the virtual reality industry. The Colopl VR Fund is open to funding both Japanese and foreign companies in hardware and software, including headsets, games, video content, development tools, and distribution platforms. It also plans toRead More →

The White House has released a 360-degree virtual reality tour of its holiday decorations. On an Android smartphone, you can watch the tour in immersive virtual reality with a Google Cardboard set. On iPhones and standard desktop browsers, you can click-and-drag to look in different directions. It’s interesting because it’sRead More →

Mozilla, which helped pioneer WebVR last year, is making virtual reality development even easier with this month’s release of A-Frame, a tool that allows developers to create experiences for the desktop, the Oculus Rift, and smartphones with Google Cardboard headsets, Mozilla said in its announcement last week. “WebVR has shippedRead More →

My Samsung Gear VR arrived in the mail, and I’m super stoked. Now I get a chance to try all the cool virtual reality apps that aren’t available for Google Cardboard. And they are AWESOME. Okay, not as awesome as the HTC Vive was awesome — that was Star TrekRead More →

When investing in a new technology platform, whether that investment is in time or money, nobody wants to invest in a dead-end system. Businesses in particular that put all the eggs in the wrong basket aren’t just wasting their money. They’re also losing market opportunities to other companies which guessedRead More →

Just in time for the holidays, Exo-Life Virtual World has released a set of IAR inventory export files, to accompany its collection of ten free OAR region export files. The IAR files include three fully-functional in-world calendars featuring Exo–Life‘s staff and residents. There is also an IAR file of women’s dresses, andRead More →

I got my Powis virtual reality headset in the mail this weekend. Although the main body is made out of cardboard, it’s a couple of steps up from a standard Google Cardboard headset. The cardboard itself is sturdier, there’s a comfortable rubber edge where the headset meets your face, and eachRead More →

The on-demand Kitely grid passed 10,000 regions this month for the first time, and the Great Canadian Grid hit the 1,000 region mark. They helped boost OpenSim to a new record high of 71,360 standard region equivalents, an increase of 326 regions since last month. Overall, OSgrid, Kitely, the Great Canadian GridRead More →

I just received the Dscvr virtual reality headset in the mail, from manufacturer I Am Cardboard. At $30, this headset is a reasonable-priced upgrade by I Am Cardboard standards, which sells a plain cardboard headset for $20. But compared to the other headsets on the market, the Dscvr is tooRead More →

The Kitely Market saw the first downturn in its listing numbers this month, a result of some housekeeping on the part of management. “We were forced to remove the listings of several merchants who repeatedly failed to follow our product listing guidelines despite our detailed instructions on what needs toRead More →

I’ve been reading a lot of military science fiction lately and space operas. They’re two of my all-time favorite genres, and have been ever since I was a teenager. But in the decades since I’ve been in high school I’ve spent a lot of time writing about finance, economics andRead More →

Flickr has released a new app for the Gear VR that allows users to browse through the platform’s 360-degree photographs. “Over the years, Flickr users have uploaded tens of thousands of 360-degree photos and today we’re offering a new way to explore and view these images,” the company said inRead More →

The consumer release of HTC’s Vive headset is delayed until April 2016, HTC announced last week. “We will be starting the new year by making an additional 7,000 units available to developers, with pre-orders from the end of February followed by commercial availability in April 2016,” the company said. InRead More →

Google has released the Cardboard Camera app, free for Android smartphones. With Cardboard Camera, users are able to record 360-degree panoramas for viewing with Cardboard VR headsets. The way it works is that it prompts the user to slowly turn around in a circle — I spun around in my office chair.Read More →

The number of OpenSim-related communities on Google Plus is growing, in part due to simple subscription options, easy calendar updates, and Google allowing pseudonymous accounts. Altogether, there are 20 new communities on our list. The five biggest, that are specifically focused on OpenSim are OpenSim, OpenSim Everything, OpenSim Standalone, Collaborative Hypergrid, andRead More →

Frame, a company that can run any software in a cloud-based browser window — for a fee — is taking over Texas-based Bright Canopy, which offers browser-based access for Second Life and OpenSim viewers. Bright Canopy founder Bill Glover has told Hypergrid Business that he has accepted a position fromRead More →

San Francisco-based Gameface Labs, the company behind the all-in-one Gameface virtual reality headset, will be part of the Valve ecosystem, CEO Ed Mason told Hypergrid Business. The headset will also support Google Cardboard applications, he said, and will have a virtual world browser that will be compatible with both SecondRead More →