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Looking for something new to try on your Google Cardboard-compatible headset? The following are five of my latest favorite immersive games. 1. InMind VR by Nival Available for  iOS  or Android . With pretty high quality, InMind allows the player to take the “journey into the patient’s brains in searchRead More →

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I took a chance on the Viewbox from Evomade when experimenting with other mid-range virtual reality glasses made it obvious that weight would be a major issue for me. As inconsequential as 10 or 14 ounces looks on paper, it feels like 10 pounds when bearing the brunt of it on the bridgeRead More →

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Right now, and probably for the next few years, there are two major dimensions that can be used to define different virtual reality solutions and experiences, and which tell you a lot about the costs, scope and feasibility of what is being described. The dimensions are: The kind of display that is used inRead More →

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This month’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas cemented virtual reality’s place as the up-and-coming consumer technology for 2016 – a movement further endorsed by the industry’s major players Oculus, HTC and Sony’s release dates of new headsets and hardware. 2016 will also be an important year for the virtual reality industryRead More →

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The UnicornVR headset is an inexpensive, lightweight virtual reality headset with a wide field of view, but is limited in the smartphones it fits. I tried the headset with a Samsung Note 4, a Note 3, the iPhone 5s, the LG G3, and the Samsung Xperia Z1. The Samsung Note 4 wasRead More →

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Special thanks to Dr. Jon Peddie and Jon Peddie Research for the fundamental sales data needed to make this analysis possible.  More than this, even though this article was originally only intended to be published in JPR’s Tech Watch publication, they agreed to allow this article to be public as everyoneRead More →

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With winter in full swing, there are a lot of events coming up on the metaverse. Christmas parties, winter festivals, and New Year’s parties are all things to look forward to. So here is a list of some of the upcoming events for you to mark on your calendar. ChristmasRead More →

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A new study predicts “by 2016, half of doctors will be using online and virtual platforms to earn online continuing medical education credits. Such a radical increase — in 2008 numbers put online continuing medical education at 7 to 9 percent – can be easily explained looking at the incredible technological advancements of the recentRead More →

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For the first time since the creation of motion pictures, a new medium of storytelling is being built: virtual reality. As with any new medium of art, the rules are being established, language being developed and devices being explored. As it stands currently within the realm of virtual reality, anythingRead More →

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Having been reading more and more of the Alpha Tester posts about High Fidelity I thought it was about time to give it a try – and our Daden U day on 30th October provided the ideal opportunity. High Fidelity is the new virtual world development from Second Life founder Philip Rosedale,Read More →

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They met as text on a digital page. An ocean between them assurance that they could be who they wished they were in their lover’s eyes. Love’s illusions fashioned in ones and zeroes texted across the transatlantic cable. No warning that the god-helmets they experimented with would fuse their consciousnessRead More →

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You only know what you can remember, as the saying goes, but virtual reality technology holds the potential to reorganize and adulterate a person’s memory, blurring the lines between what is real and what is virtual. Our strongest memories are deeply ingrained based on events and experiences that activate theRead More →

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Virtual reality technology is on fire and definitely a stimulating field to be in these days, with areas such as computer animation, software engineering and virtual reality design in demand and thriving. A career in one of these fields could be highly rewarding, but is not for everyone. Take it forRead More →

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Although the first consumer version of the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset is not scheduled to be released until the first quarter of 2016, some Hypergrid Business readers have shelled out for one of the preview developer kits — or know someone who has. If you’re one of these lucky people, here are sevenRead More →

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Editor’s Note: AviWorlds, an OpenSim-based virtual world, launched a sister hosting company in late June, Avi-Labs. At Hypergrid Business, we’ve been hesitant to recommend it because it had no track record and no customers, and its parent company has a long and turbulent history of instability. Today, however, we have aRead More →

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Restaurant owners looking for an edge in a crowded market and hungry diners that would like more, or better detailed information about eateries now have a virtual reality option. Recently, YouVisit launched YouVisit Restaurants as a free app for the Samsung Gear VR headset. The app allows anyone with aRead More →

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Let me tell you how my sales demo goes. At first, clients design a house extension using a simple web app, which also offers  a real-time 3D preview. People get excited because they see form and factor evolving interactively, and they can really imagine what their house extension will lookRead More →

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In this article I want to address the application of the regulations of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) to businesses dealing with virtual currencies. This aspect of regulations is often overlooked or ignored, but the fines are very real. This spring, PayPal was fined $7,658,300 because they allowed transactions with Iranian andRead More →

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  New York State Department of Financial Services has recently released a 31 page application for anyone who wants to engage in doing business with virtual currencies. The application is a convoluted and cumbersome to say the least. But most of all it is costly. If the objective was to createRead More →

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One thing that has always provided a great source of delight for me is opening the map of my viewer and seeing little green dots fill a region. Does it sound like I need a doctor? Well, it’s possible, but a good marketing plan made it happen. Each green dot represents a singleRead More →

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For iPhone owners who have the Google Cardboard or an equivalent headset, we had the 29 fun VR apps for the iPhone article. Now it’s Android’s turn. You can find out where to get the older version of the Google Cardboard headset here, and the new version, released last last month, here.Read More →

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Seven years ago when I began Paris METRO Couture, in Second Life, there were very few insider tips on how to start a fashion business. I am a business person who has designed apparel in the real life as well, and so I wondered, do the same principles apply toRead More →

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So you want to operate a business in a virtual world, with a shop that people can visit and look around. Last week, I offered some tips for creating demand for your products. This week, here’s some advice on how to do a competitive analysis. 1. Gauging quality How doRead More →

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There’s a well used adage, “sex sells.” It’s a bit of a cliche but true. There are many other sales triggers of course, including fear — used a lot by insurance companies, hope — used by lotteries, and vanity — used by beauty and cosmetics firms. The list is endless. However, theyRead More →

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Over the past few years, education—from the elementary to the post-secondary level—has started to put much greater emphasis on the STEM fields, that is, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The reason for this is the growing recognition of the importance of STEM in modern digital society, and the predicted increaseRead More →

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I’ve been taking a lot of snapshots of regions for Hyperica listings and have been experimenting with the Phototools feature in the Firestorm viewer. The Phototools feature allows you to pep up your snapshots and make them look gorgeous. To access some of the Phototools features quickly, at the bottomRead More →

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As anyone with experience in OpenSim knows perhaps the biggest barrier to having the general public view your work is the requirement to download a viewer and the complexity of using it once you have it downloaded. Google Cardboard is a device that turns smartphones into stereoscopic, 3D viewers. UsingRead More →

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My name is Tyler Brabo, and, ten days ago, I was hired to research hypergrid destinations for Hyperica. This required that I create an account in OpenSim, get an avatar, and figure out how to surf the hypergrid. My boss, Maria Korolov, asked me to keep track of what problemsRead More →

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The latest releases virtual world viewers, such as Firestorm, Singularity, and Kokua can provide access to a “Destination Guide” for your OpenSim grid for both local and hypergrid visitors. And this guide can feature both local and hypergrid destinations. But the grid owner first has to enable this feature in their configurationRead More →

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An open grid is one that allows outside people to connect their own regions. Those regions could be hosted for free on home computers, or be provided by third-party hosting companies, such as Dreamland Metaverse, Zetamex, CloudServe, Oliveira, or any other grid-agnostic vendor on our hosting list. Here is theRead More →

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Inventory exports, or IARs, became a heated topic of discussion in Google Plus communities yesterday, with one grid even disabling its IAR exports temporarily as a result. Much of the debate is due to a misunderstanding of how IAR backups work — and of how thieves steal content. What isRead More →

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Ready Player One is a best-selling novel by Ernest Cline set in the year 2044, a time when nearly the entire human population is tapped into a metaverse called The Oasis. There’s also a movie currently in development. The book is a love letter to 1980’s culture, but it stillRead More →

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When it comes to virtual reality, there are two fronts, two main technical directions that the technology is evolving in that everyone is talking about. But there’s also a third front, that hasn’t been getting as much attention, but which has the potential of being truly revolutionizing. Videos and video games OneRead More →

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Rethink Communications, a Vancouver-based advertising agency, recently approached my company, AC+A with an interesting project to raise awareness for the #NoTankers campaign. The campaign is run by Rethink’s clients, the non-profit Dogwood Initiative, to stop the increase of oil tanker traffic in Vancouver’s Burrard Inlet. Rethink wanted to create aRead More →

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Zetamex, the second highest-rated OpenSim hosting company, has been repeatedly criticized for changing things up too much — price plans, offerings, management panels, even CEOs — all have changed repeatedly in the past few months, leaving users struggling to keep up. Some of the changes have been for the better,Read More →

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Over the years, OpenSimulator has grown to be a widely used platform, serving as the virtual world server for many communities ranging in size, specialization and languages. due to the platforms open source nature, community contribution to its code base over the years has made OpenSimulator a formidable choice forRead More →

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On November 1, for the first time, avatars and the people behind them are going to run the American Cancer Society Relay for Life, for real, virtually. What in the world does that mean? Using the InWorldz InShape system, beta testers from the virtual world will get together on aRead More →

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The 3dcolab.com crew has built a simulation of the historic Michigan Central Station, a railway depot which is one of the best known iconic ruins of Detroit. We showed our magnificant as it used-to-be re-creation last month at the Detroit Design Festival dElectricity event. The location was a friendly art gallery and coffeeRead More →

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Piquant. Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO, at the epicenter of tech, opined last week about women in tech, suggesting they not ask for raises but instead trust “the system” to recognize performance with pay increases when appropriate, earning “good karma” along the way. At the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. FiveRead More →

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The Museo del Metaverso — Metaverse Museum — is starting back up again on the Craft grid after two years of inactivity. The Museum was originally created in Second Life in 2007 and in 2010 it moved permanently to Craft. The museum offers a new way of presenting and promoting art through workshops,Read More →

PolyWorld Woodland Toolkit. (Image courtesy Xin Xin.)

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When I demoed my Oculus Rift game, “Black Hat,” recently, one man told me that he felt sick the previous time he tried a Rift. I convinced him to give it another go and he was surprised by how pleasant the experience was. Quite a few people become nauseous while in the Rift. PartRead More →

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Samsung and Oculus VR are expected to release their collaborative project, the Gear VR, sometime before the end of the year. The headset uses the Galaxy Note 4 to power a completely untethered virtual reality experience and will be Oculus VR’s first actual step into the consumer market, since their own headset isn’t expected outRead More →

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Until very recently, if you ever found yourself talking about virtual reality, it was probably because you were cornered by a wild-eyed science fiction enthusiast breathlessly describing the holodeck on the USS Enterprise, the light cycles in the Tron mainframe, or dodging bullets in the Matrix. You almost certainly weren’tRead More →

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  As we’ve noted previously, the FCC opened a comment period, which ended on July 18, 2014. More than a million comments were received over a five-month period. In fact, comments that were sent by postal mail are still being added. Please note, however, that a second comment period is nowRead More →

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Last year, Oculus VR kickstarted a whole new era of virtual reality. It’s easy to take for granted, now that the movement is well underway, but it’s important to remember that none of this would be possible without the ingenuity, persistence and forward thinking vision put forth by Palmer LuckeyRead More →

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It was quite an honor to witness my uncle, David Brouchoud, exploring a virtual recreation of the USS Helena CA-75, a Navy heavy cruiser he served on more than 60 years ago. Using the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, he was able to walk the decks of the ship again,Read More →

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Virtual reality is making a big comeback, and virtual worlds are being rebranded as virtual reality right and left. There’s nothing particularly wrong with that — immersive virtual worlds are a natural fit for virtual reality. But virtual reality is more than just virtual worlds with extra immersion. “Immersion squared” orRead More →