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Arch Virtual is putting the finishing touches on a super fun project for the Sacramento Kings to help project stakeholders, fans and members of the community explore the arena long before construction starts. The new $477 million downtown Sacramento Entertainment and Sports Center was approved by the city of Sacramento lastRead More →

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This is it. This is the kind of moment every democratic citizen argues for: An opportunity to give voice to your demands as a citizen. Don’t waste it. Act now. On May 15, the Federal Communications Commission began seeking public comments on how best to protect an open Internet. The publicRead More →

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The arcade industry was decimated back in the mid-90’s by the advancements in consumer console games as well as a failure to adapt to changing player demographics. Virtual reality could bring it back. As a side benefit, virtual reality arcades could help drive the development of the technology, whet public appetite forRead More →

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Now that I am a world renowned published author – thanks to Hypergrid Business publishing my last article — I began vigorously stroking my…er…um…er… long beard – tuts to all of you with filthy minds – and began thinking of ways to help promote and extend the reach of the hypergrid communityRead More →

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No this isn’t the start of a bad joke, although as you read on, you may find that it could be, only the joke is on you…or in this case, it was on me. Like many grid owners, and even just regular OpenSim users, I was excited when I firstRead More →

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A couple months ago, the old Aurora-Sim branch of OpenSimulator was forked due to the slow development and a few other small reasons. Then WhiteCore-Sim was born, it has been gaining a bit of attraction from Aurora-Sim enthusiasts, however recently some larger individuals are seeing this as a cause toRead More →

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The Oculus Rift virtual reality technology is one of the most exciting developments in gaming since original Nintendo. But can it be useful beyond gaming? You bet. Non-game virtual reality applications are poised to transform an enormous array of industries, including health care, oil & gas, architecture, education and just about everything inRead More →

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Do you have a grid running on the Diva Distro and using its Wifi Web Application Account Management module? If your grid’s website looks like this, then you do: OpenSim versions that use this web front end include the Diva Distro, Sim-on-a-Stick and New World Studio mini grids, as well asRead More →

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When the announcement came out on March 12 that Linden Labs was inviting beta testers for their Oculus Rift based VR viewer, I dusted off my Oculus Rift Developers kit and signed up. About six months ago, I tried out the first version of the Oculus Rift developer’s kit inRead More →

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The value of virtual reality in architecture, real estate and construction industries is becoming increasingly well known, and what everyone wants to know is, “how much does it cost?” To help simplify the estimation process, we developed the Cost Estimation Tool, found at the bottom of our Architectural Visualization page,Read More →

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Last week Linden Lab and the OnLive cloud gaming service debuted a new service aimed at delivering Second Life to almost any device capable of connecting to the internet. While still in beta and available for PCs, OSX and Android — iOS support is coming — I had an opportunity toRead More →

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In 1911, Arthur Brisbane’s quote “a picture is worth thousand words” appeared in a newspaper article. Today more than 100 years later, everyone has the means to show pictures at rates of 60 per second and magnify the value of their communication. The readily accessible means to communicate our ideasRead More →

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These scripts are for people who are thinking to themselves — now that Maria is hiring a researcher and putting them to work on updating the Hyperica directory, wouldn’t it be nice if I could just grab content from there for my own gates. Well it would be nice, andRead More →

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What happens when a virtual world designer sues for unauthorized use of a virtual island? The case involved the question of whether terraforming is protected by copyright law, and whether a terrain purchased for use in Second Life can be exported to OpenSim. The results: Yes, terraforming is protected by copyright lawRead More →

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I began working in virtual worlds in 2009 in Second Life, migrated to OpenSim soon thereafter, and along the way discovered Hypergrid Business. Some of you may know me from my sim, Serenity Island. My career has been as a computer consultant, artist and educator. As a reader of HypergridRead More →

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The Nova grid and New Voice OpenSim hosting company went out of business in early 2012. This is the story of what went wrong, from the founder himself, Enrico Ranucci. When New Voice was about to go out of business in early 2012, many people tried to help — andRead More →

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We’re back from Autodesk University in Vegas, where we had the opportunity to show some of our latest Oculus Rift projects to the architecture, engineering and construction crowd there. Wow, was that ever fun! Exhibiting can be a boring, exhausting experience, but not with the Rift! From beginning to end,Read More →

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Hypergrid Business has posted its Fourth Annual OpenSim Grid Survey. 654 people responded to questions about their primary grid and about the other grids they have visited. The big winner this year was Kitely. The report says: “Kitely came out on top for ‘How do you rate this grid overall?’ withRead More →

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Much has been said about using virtual environments for teaching and training. While it is an inescapable fact that no environment, real or virtual, can make up for a dedicated, well-prepared teacher with a passion for their subject matter, there is merit in the concept that a virtual environment canRead More →

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As the hypergrid grows, we should be wary of vanity metrics. I’m a pretty big fan of the Lean Business model pioneered by Eric Reis of IMVU fame.  The main concept behind Lean is that you start small, release a barebones version of your product, measure carefully, and then modifyRead More →

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A lot of people lately have been telling me to move into the cloud and I have been talking about this with many developers — both OpenSimulator and web server development as well. Most of them, in both groups, agree with me that the cloud is just not great forRead More →

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As many of you know, early last September we held the first OpenSimulator Community Conference, a purely online event hosted in OpenSimulator itself. It was produced collaboratively by the Overte Foundation and Avacon, with the planning process beginning in February 2013 and increasing in intensity right up until the conferenceRead More →

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I went, and I had a great time. I was completely blown away by the excellent presentations and level of professionalism at OSCC13. Everything worked like clockwork, and I saw many friends from Second Life. I went with the idea that, if I could use virtual worlds technology in anyRead More →

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10 ‘Star Trek’ Technologies That Actually Exist Out There (via AnyStatements) Whether it’s deep space or the deepest depths of the ocean, truly brilliant machines can operate in all sorts of extreme conditions. While the U.S.S. Enterprise doesn’t exist (yet!), there are other technologies out there that seem to beRead More →

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How would you define a classroom? Some may think of it as a gathering place, others as a laboratory. Another may shudder with the memory of being confined in a crowded artificially lit room, all students facing in the same direction like workers in a garment factory. To each memberRead More →

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If you have decided to transfer all your content from Second Life to another OpenSim grid, like Kitely, you have several possibilities how to do that. One good solution is make backup from Second Life and restore it on your home local OpenSim standalone region, you can use vanilla OpenSim, Diva Distro or Sim-on-a-stick, allRead More →

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For those of you who haven’t been watching the latest Google+ feeds, Fernando Francisco de Oliveira, a long and involved OpenSim enthusiast and programmer and founder of OpenSim hosting company Oliveira Virtual Lands, has released to the world a module that lets OpenSim use PostgreSQL. For those who do not know,Read More →

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[Editor: Virtual therapy has been in the news lately for everything from schizophrenia to addiction recovery to pain management for burn victims to weight loss. Studies and research reports are accumulating, showing that virtual therapy and counseling can be as effective, or even more effective, than traditional approaches. To offer a personalRead More →

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The Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education (VWBPE) conference began today, and will continue for the next three days. The conference will take place across three different virtual worlds and will host presentations in Second Life, OpenSim’s Jokadia grid, and in Cloud Party. The majority of presentations and social eventsRead More →

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Virtual reality therapies are increasingly proving successful in a number of settings. As the virtual reality platforms and interfaces improve, we will start to see more of the following: 1. Reducing pain Pain is partly psychological in nature, which means that distractions can help relieve pain. Listening to music, forRead More →

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Virtual worlds are a great way to run classes. In fact, according to the latest Hypergrid Business survey, educators are the second largest professional user segment for OpenSim, and about a third of users overall used OpenSim for training and simulations. You can have students from all over the worldRead More →

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During the Spring Semester of 2007, this fool rushed into Second Life, something he felt would not only change education but the world beyond. Virtual worlds looked like a utopian technology with lots of zealous folks ready to evangelize the masses. Six years later, grading what may be my last-everRead More →

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Revit and Oculus Rift via Unity3D: Experiencing BIM in Virtual Reality While the vast majority of my work is designing virtual world environments, our studio Crescendo Design, still takes on a new architectural project from time to time. The best part is, our clients get to become test subjects forRead More →

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Second Life is a killer app for Oculus Rift. Here are ten reasons why — and why OpenSim will get there first. 1. Quality, content and creativity Now, before you skip ahead to post a comment about how Second Life has been overrun by furries and 14-year-olds, take a moment toRead More →

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First impressions of Oculus Rift: Architectural Visualization, Second Life, and beyond I wish I had more time to write out a more extensive review of the Rift, but here are my first impressions: You absolutely feel as if you are transported to another place, to the point where it’s almostRead More →

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Linden Dollar: Another Virtual Currency Affected by FinCEN. Bitcoin has been in the news recently. But bitcoin is not the only virtual currency. Virtual currencies, in one form or another are here to stay. When U.S. Treasury Department’s enforcement arm, FinCEN, issued its interpretive statement, it recognized this much. TheRead More →

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Starting a new company doesn’t have to take a lot of money, and you don’t have to make the big splash on your first day of operations. Instead, you can apply these tips from the world of lean business to start small and grow fast. 1: Identify a market needRead More →

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As Linden Lab gradually loses landmass in its virtual world, as shown so graphically in Tyche Shepherd’s Grid Survey data, the Lab turns again to a dog it kicked repeatedly in 2010: educators. Hamlet Au broke the story that the Lab is “quietly” reaching out to selected schools and nonprofitsRead More →

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Learning in “simulated worlds” is not a new idea – but the HP Catalyst team at City Academy in Norwich (UK) has a new approach… and some fascinating insights about its impact on at-risk students. Jerome Thompson, a teacher at City Academy Norwich, is one of the lead developers ofRead More →

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[Editor’s Note: Aurora-Sim branched off from OpenSim in early 2011.] I am very sad to see so many people tell me that I should give up on Aurora-Sim, and that it is a waste. I think it is mostly been placed there because people remember its biggest tank — theRead More →