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When you think of university level English education, an AR game might not be the first thing that comes to mind. However, with the current availability of powerful cellphones and inexpensive standalone VR headsets, augmented and virtual reality could be regularly used in college humanities courses sooner rather than later.Read More →

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Halloween is tomorrow, and OpenSim grids are turning up the spookiness — and the music. Get your costume on and check out these creepy spots tonight and tomorrow night! I’ve sorted the events below by time, in case you want to hit them all. OSgrid’s Halloween party Date and time:Read More →

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Nearly 400 valid responses came in for the Tenth Annual OpenSim Grid Survey, and Craft World received the highest overall scores, followed by Encore Escape, Utopia Skye, and 3rd Rock Grid, in that order. Craft World, which will turn ten years old on January 27, is not only one of theRead More →

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The United States Air Force had a problem. They needed to train hundreds of airmen, but there weren’t enough real aircraft to go around. Virtual reality offered the next best thing. Vinci VR, a two year old virtual reality startup founded by a 22 year old college undergrad, was recently awardedRead More →

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The new release of the OpenSim server software is out, OpenSimulator 0.9.1.0, also known as “Snail.” It supports animated mesh, the new YEngine script engine, and fixes a few bugs, according to core developer Ubit Umarov. It is also the first release to have a name, not just a number.Read More →

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The hypergrid turned 11 years old today. If you’ve ever wanted to teleport from one virtual world to another and be able to make friends and go shopping on other worlds, that’s the hypergrid. You can even join groups and send messages to friends on other grids. And if youRead More →

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Are you interested in presenting a panel at this year’s OpenSim Community Conference in December? Visit the OSCC’s Call for Proposals page and fill out the form. This year’s conference will focus on visions of the future and the evolution of the platform. It will take place on December 14Read More →

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The Tag Grid Marketplace, in development since 2015 but which the grid began widely promoting this year, has grown at nearly twice the rate of the Kitely Market over the past five months. Tag Grid merchants added 4,058 new item listings, while Kitely merchants added 2,289. However, Kitely is stillRead More →

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OpenSim land area went up by 3,300 regions this month, with the largest growth recorded on OSgrid, which gained more than 1,500 regions. OSgrid conducted a major clean-up last month, and some of this increase may have been due to region owners reconnecting their regions to the grid. OSgrid alsoRead More →

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The sixth annual Tangle Grid Halloween Expo is live now and will have its grand opening next Tuesday, Oct. 15. It will run until November 19. The expo is fully accessible to hypergrid visitors at tanglegrid.net:8002:expo isle. (Learn how to hypergrid here.) Visitors will be able to get freebie items,Read More →

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DigiWorldz, one of OpenSim’s most successful commercial grids, went down Tuesday due to a database issue and will be down for a few days while the grid uses the opportunity to do a major update. All in-world events have been canceled, and residents are used to follow the grid onRead More →

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Nineteen years ago, a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis and accompanying seizures cost Marianna Monentes her driver’s license and landed her in the hospital. After a few years of dealing with medical issues, she found a new path in Second Life where she learned to make virtual jewelry. In 2012, sheRead More →

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This year, self-driving cars started getting pretty good. Deep fakes video started getting pretty convincing. Our virtual assistants got to the point where they could understand us well enough to do some simple things, like tell us the weather or get driving directions home. When it comes to artificial intelligence,Read More →

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The world of augmented reality is undergoing a major metamorphosis. This past winter, the industry saw the collapse of three major AR players, all of which lacked sufficient funding and were unable to deliver on promises. But fast-forward six months and one of those companies, Meta, has been resurrected byRead More →

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In July, the team behind the popular Firestorm viewer announced that they planned to split the Second Life and OpenSim versions of their popular virtual world viewer. But after seeing the reaction from the OpenSim community, the developers have reversed their decision. “It made sense to split, but your pointsRead More →

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Ever since Google Plus closed down for good earlier this year, the OpenSim community has been scattered across a lot of different platforms — Discord, MeWe, Facebook, and others. So, we used to have more than 2,000 members in the OpenSim Virtual group on Google Plus. Google Plus was public,Read More →

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Looking to learn a new language, or to have some fun brushing up on a language you’re already familiar with? With so many apps available nowadays, how do you know which one to pick? Mondly’s an app I recently tried, and if you’re looking for an immersive language learning experience,Read More →

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I should just cut-and-paste that headline every month. Okay, so…. AviWorlds has a new website and new sky-high land prices. A 15,000-prim region is now $65, for a grid with almost no users, not much content, and a history of shutting down and losing user content on a regular basis.Read More →

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Looking for a VR headset but not sure where to start?  Here’s a short but sweet list featuring five of the most popular VR headsets available on Amazon this fall.  There’s a choice for any budget, from under $20 to over $1,000.  With many satisfied customer reviews and answered questions, each of these units has something good to offer.

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The sixth annual Tangle Grid Steam Expo is live now and will run until October 1. The expo is fully accessible to hypergrid visitors at tanglegrid.net:8002:expo isle. (Learn how to hypergrid here.) Visitors will be able to get freebie items, and also purchase content using the Gloebit currency. (Learn how toRead More →

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We asked the best and brightest in virtual reality to share their thoughts on what we can expect from VR in 2020. We’re more than halfway through 2019, so let’s get real about what’s happening in virtual reality. Across the globe, VR is a trend that is rapidly exploding andRead More →

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There is now a virtual reality enabled version of the Firestorm viewer, developed by Peter Kappler. Austin Tate, director of the Artificial Intelligence Applications Institute at the University of Edinburgh, has posted an article about how to install and run it here. Also known as “Ai Austin” in-world, Tate runsRead More →

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A couple of weeks ago, the Firestorm team announced that they planned to split the Second Life and OpenSim versions of their popular virtual world viewer. “This means we can now issue updates for Second Life and updates for OpenSim independently of each other,” wrote Jessica Lyon, CEO and projectRead More →

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The Encore Escape grid will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Woodstock music festival in mid-august. The Woodstock 2019 reenactment will take place in real-time, from August 15 to August 18, on 150 virtual acres of land sculpted using US Geological Society topographic maps from 1967, to reflect theRead More →

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All the stats were up this month on OpenSim’s public grids, including land area, registered users, and active users. Land area was up by 49 standard region equivalents, to 83,516. OpenSim grids also registered 6,649 new users this month, for a new total of 421,087 registered users. The number ofRead More →

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One of the first questions every new grid owner must answer is whether to have in-world payment, so that users can buy stuff, or pay for services, or donate money while they’re on the grid. The easiest answer is “no.” You can put up some freebie stores, have residents buyRead More →

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If you, like me, are looking to launch a little OpenSim grid of your own — or even a big commercial grid — but you don’t want to mess with all the details of setting up and configuring servers, installing and patching the software, managing the network connections and loadRead More →

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Kitely rolled out its virtual private grid service at the beginning of the year. Today, I finally decided to try it out. The bottom line? It looks like a good option for schools, non-profits and companies that need a way to handle lots of different users and regions, and needRead More →

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If you’re new to OpenSim, you’re probably here because you’ve heard about the ridiculously low land prices. Many grids offer regions for $10 a month — or less — and you can get a whole grid for free by running your own Superlow land prices on commercial grids If youRead More →

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The gaming-themed Mobius Grid has introduced display names for its residents and is working to make the technology wider used within OpenSim, grid owner Roy Corr told Hypergrid Business. The grid rolled out display names last year and was testing them on the hypergrid this spring. “We have been collaboratingRead More →

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OpenSim’s average region price has dropped to $15 per standard region, down from $18 last February. The lowest price for a region dropped slightly to $4.90 a month, at Tranquility, while the highest price fell from $60 to $50 a month. The median region price also fell, from $15 toRead More →

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Closed grids — where users can’t teleport over to other grids — have been losing ground in OpenSim lately and suffered a big hit last year with the closing of InWorldz. But some people prefer closed grids, where grid owners have more control over who can access the grid, andRead More →

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If you haven’t done enough this week to honor our planet you can get some belated Earth Day action this weekend at the annual EarthX conference in Dallas, Texas — and, if you can’t get there in person, streaming online and on its YouTube channel. The event, which is taking place onRead More →

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If climbing Mount Everest in real life is too expensive or dangerous, but you still want to find out what it’s like, virtual reality may have the answer. EverestVR is an immersive experience for the Vive and Oculus Rift headsets, available on the Vive Infinity platform. Set amongst the world’s tallestRead More →

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  Keng City, OpenSim’s only major African-American grid is working to promote awareness and inclusivity on the hypergrid, and to battle prejudice, with exhibits, events, and destinations of interest. Even simple things, like finding appropriate avatars, can be a challenge for OpenSim’s users. “We struggle finding culturally related items for our avatars,”Read More →

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  Gloebit is a virtual currency accepted on about forty different OpenSim grids, and is the most popular currency on the hypergrid by a very large margin. Gloebit works roughly similar to PayPal. Users create a Gloebit account on the website, transfer money into it, and can they spend that money as theyRead More →

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  Kitely rolled out their new private grid service yesterday, and there’s a lot of information there to take in all at once. It’s not a full separate OpenSim grid, like you’d get from DigiWorldz or Dreamland Metaverse. Instead, it seems more like something halfway between a Kitely region and yourRead More →

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More than 300 responses came in for this year’s Ninth Annual OpenSim Grid Survey, and Sacrarium received the highest overall scores, followed by Virtual Brasil, Utopia Skye, Kitely, Tranquility Grid, DigiWorldz, Discovery Grid, OSgrid and DreamNation, in that order. Between them, the respondents had visited nearly 200 different grids, andRead More →

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Augmented reality endorsement picks up pace, according to a recent market forecast. The AR market volume is expected to hit $30 billion by 2023, growing at 39 percent CAGR. This growth is rooted in AR’s utility. Augmented reality proves itself a multi-purpose technology, being eagerly adopted across different domains, such asRead More →

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DigiWorldz and Discovery Grid were the two top destinations of former InWorldz residents looking for a new home, with respondents almost evenly split at 38 and 36 percent, respectively. Kitely was in third place, with 18 percent of respondents. InWorldz, one of OpenSim’s oldest and most successful grids shut downRead More →

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OpenSim grids are welcoming former InWorldz residents with open arms, offering technical support to get their OARs uploaded, discounts on region rentals, and even free homes and stores. Scroll down for details about special offers. Where to go For people looking for a closed, commercial grid — no hypergrid travelRead More →

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The lights went out at midnight. InWorldz, one of the oldest and most successful OpenSim grids, shut down last night. And it ended in a way fitting for a social grid — with a party. “Tonight we were lucky enough to have the ability to log in and have aRead 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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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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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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This May, a major new regulation goes into effect — the European General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR. It affects any company anywhere in the world that collects data on Europeans. And yes, that includes emails and IP addresses, and there’s no minimum company size required. If you’re an organized grid,Read More →

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The results of the 2018 OpenSim sentiment survey are in, and the responses are, in general more optimistic than pessimistic about OpenSim’s future, and in general planned to more active this year. Readers were nearly twice as optimistic as pessimistic about OpenSim — 48 percent said that they were optimisticRead More →

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One of the most important numbers in OpenSim is how many new people sign up for accounts each month. New people means new customers for merchants, new creators and performers who help improve quality of life on the grid, new people to interact with, and, of course, potential new landRead More →

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First, I’d like to apologize. I first noticed that Zetamex had posted its OpenSim hosting prices over the summer, and meant to do a story then, even contacting the company and some of its customers for quotes. But then a family medical emergency happened, and I’ve spent much of theRead More →

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Grids are getting an early start on the holidays this year, with a number of winter-themed regions already up and ready to visit, and a full calendar of events planned across the hypergrid. Skiing and Winter Expo in Tangle Grid This year’s Tangle Winter Expo will run from December 1 toRead More →

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Although many creators do not speak up, theft and illegal distribution of their content is hurting their morale and creativity, and may even be driving some out of OpenSim altogether. One creator of mesh avatars, who did not want to be named, saw her products distributed full perms across multipleRead More →

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More than 400 responses came in for this year’s Eighth Annual OpenSim Grid Survey, and Littlefield received the highest overall scores, followed by AllCity, Virtual Brasil, and DigiWorldz. DigiWorldz also had the largest number of readers who said it was their primary grid, followed by Kitely. This is the second year inRead More →

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There is a lot you can do or a lot of places you can travel to in-world during this Halloween festive period, with many OpenSim grids running Halloween-related events such as hunts and parties, some grids having Halloween related islands and regions where they are celebrating OpenSim builds and hostingRead More →

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If you’ve been keeping up with media based content marketing — and hopefully you have — then you know the current trend is to publish and share immersive, 360-degree videos. While a 360-degree video is playing, you can pan the camera view to see the entire area, hence the “360-degree”Read More →

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Virtual reality can breathe new life into old games, says video game expert Patrick Soulliere. And Soulliere knows about games — he’s organized more than 100 online e-sports tournaments for Micron Technology that feature many professional gamers and has managed a full time professional gaming team at Stellar Lotus forRead More →

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Educators are souring on virtual worlds, as evidenced by declining participation in online forums, in virtual conference attendances and education-related destinations on the Second Life grid. For example, Second Life Educators, the forum for educational organizations and educational use of Second Life, shows a dramatic decline in the number ofRead More →

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If you’re using a default avatar that comes with some versions of OpenSim, your name might wind up on copybotted content without you knowing about it. That’s just what happened to a user known as “Gemini Fullmoon,” a resident of the Great Canadian Grid. Fullmoon is also the owner of the FullRead More →

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Starting your own grid isn’t easy. You need your own servers, membership website, plus, of course, residents. Plus, if you want an in-world economy, you have to put payments in place. There are hosting providers, like DigiWorldz and Dreamland Metaverse, that will do all of this, but it takes quiteRead More →

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AltspaceVR will close its doors next Thursday, August 3, because it ran out of money. “We can’t afford to keep the virtual lights on anymore,” the company said in a note posted last night. I’ve been writing about the company since it released its first closed beta in early 2015,Read More →

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Last September, I looked at the land prices on all the public OpenSim grids, and the average price was $20.39 per standard region. Today, I reviewed the prices of all 55 grids that I know of that post their prices, and the average has fallen slightly to $19.22. The medianRead More →

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The Google Plus community OpenSim Everything gained 131 new members since last September, bringing it to a total of 506 members. It was the single biggest gainer of the OpenSim-specific communities we follow. However, more people could be visiting the community without becoming official members. OpenSim Virtual remains the largestRead More →

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All approved Gloebits merchants can now, from Saturday, withdraw their in-world proceeds through PayPal. The cash-out limit of 5,000 Gloebits is also going up, based on the merchant’s transaction history and level of identity verification. Cash-out limits will continue to rise in the future, Gloebits CEO Christopher Colosi told Hypergrid Business.  “As timeRead More →

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If you’re a fan of Torben Asp — and you probably are, as he’s one of OpenSim’s favorite performers — and you live or visit the US east coast, you might now be able to catch him performing live, in person. “The move to the USA is to pursue a real lifeRead More →

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InWorldz announced that as of this month, it will no longer be publishing its region stats or active user numbers, two statistics which have been falling over the past few months. Total registered user numbers and the number of users currently logged in remain on the login screen, however. AccordingRead More →

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A number of grids are hosting Easter events including Easter Egg hunts and contests this Easter season. That includes two events on OSgrid. OSgrid‘s Easter Egg contest began last Monday and will go through Friday, April 14. The Event Plaza has been re-decorated for the occasion. Participants are competing to create the bestRead More →

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ZanGrid went live with the Gloebit virtual currency on Monday as the platform gets ready to start approving merchant cashouts. The currency can also already be used on Mobius Grid. Users can use a single virtual wallet to shop on any Gloebit-supported grid, and, when the grids allow, take the purchasesRead More →

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Grid owners, content creators, and other members of the OpenSim community are working to solve a serious case of alleged content theft that surfaced recently on the Alife Virtual grid and may involve several other grids and 62 allegedly stolen OARs, or region backup files. On Thursday, Genesis Metaverse CFO JanetRead More →

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Firestorm is the preferred viewer for OpenSim users, based on a survey of Hypergrid Business readers. Nearly 53 percent of respondents chose Firestorm as their favorite, followed by 26 percent for Singularity and 7 percent for Alchemy. Firestorm was also the viewer that most people had tried. According to the survey,Read More →

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Last year was a mixed year for OpenSim grids. Active users were up, but the increase was much lower than in the previous year. The increase in registered users was also smaller, but this was mostly due to a multi-month outage on Avination, which is still down. Land area actually shrank thisRead More →

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OpenSim users can buy legal mesh bodies for their avatars — and the news has helped keep noted designer Linda Kellie from leaving. “Jessica Random and I sat down the other day and made a pro and con list,” she wrote in a post yesterday. “And in the end one ofRead More →

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Updated: January 19, 2018 Virtual reality is still in its very very very early stages. The headsets are bulky or uncomfortable, the interfaces aren’t really there yet, there isn’t that much content, and the experiences can sometimes give you motion sickness. But you need to try it anyway, and haveRead More →

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It seems that everyone has been getting virtual reality for Christmas — and posting the reaction videos on YouTube: And on Twitter… Holiday 2016 VR Reactions   Here at Hypergrid Business, we normally get between 3,000 and 4,000 people a day looking for Google Cardboard QR Codes — on Sunday, thatRead More →

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Christmas and winter themed events, virtual tours, skating, creative contests, parties, and dances have already hit the ground running in various grids. A number of grids are also offering you to hunt and win cash and other gifts, or buy lands at cheaper prices. Many will also be hosting newRead More →

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If you missed the panels from last weekend’s OpenSim Community Conference, you can now catch up with some of them on YouTube. OpenSimulator Core Developer Panel A discussion of key issues facing OpenSim developers, with Avacon founder Joyce Bettencourt, OpenSimulator core developer Robert Adams, core developer Michael Cerquoni, OpenSim core developer andRead More →

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Kitely Market sales have increased significantly over the past year, Kitely CEO Ilan Tochner told Hypergrid Business. The market now delivers licensed OpenSim content to 162 grids, with 16,364 product variations grouped under 8,551 listings. Of the variations, 11,394 are sold with the export permission, meaning that they can beRead More →

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It’s not too late to order virtual reality presents for the holidays — and they don’t have to cost a lot of money, either! Once you get your headset, click here for instructions on what to do next. Here are some of my favorites — and I’ve personally tried these,Read More →

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OpenSim hosting company Dreamland Metaverse received the highest scores for performance, support, stability and its user interface in this year’s hosting providers survey, followed by DigiWorldz and Zetamex Network. There were 40 responses total to this year’s hosting survey, which asks grid owners about their hosting providers. However, many ofRead More →

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Today, most virtual reality avatars are very basic, cartoony figures, with a limited range of motions and expressions. Vendors are working to change this, and make avatars more realistic, with facial expressions that reflect those of that actual users. The technology that makes it possible involves facial, body and eyeRead More →

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Update: The data and chart have been updated to include the full 2016 calendar year. Almost every month, at least one person complains about why InWorldz is listed in our stats, or included in our surveys. Some people complain that InWorldz is not on the hypergrid, meaning that people can’tRead More →

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Finally, in these dark and tumultuous times, some good news — Linda Kellie is back, and creating new content. Outside of the core developers themselves, Linda Kellie is the most valuable member of the OpenSim community. Her collections of free content have long been staples for many users — schools,Read More →

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More big names names are jumping on the 360-degree video bandwagon. This fall, there were announcements from the NFL, the BBC, Sky, USA Today, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. National Football to launch new VR video program on Thanksgiving The National Football League, in partnership with Google and NextVR, announced last week that they are bringing NFLRead More →

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A number of grids are hosting Halloween themed events, destinations, parties and hunts this month. Halloween Dance at Littlefield Grid Littlefield Grid has dedicated the Halloween Themed region to host the event for the entire month of October. There will also be a costume party and Halloween Dance at 8Read More →

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Nearly 800 responses came in for this year’s Seventh Annual OpenSim Grid Survey, and after 31 were deleted as invalid, DigiWorldz came out with the most responses, while AllCity received the highest scores, followed by FrancoGrid, Virtual Highway, DigiWorldz and Lost Paradise. People rated 51 different grids, of which 19 made it pastRead More →

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Kroatan, a new social OpenSim grid, is hosting a Halloween Hunt from October 8 to November 8 at the Silent Meadow region. The hunt features the story of Frank Inglewood, an England citizen who disappeared from his car and mysteriously turned up at the spooky Alchemilla Hospital. The hunt entails finding Inglewood’s writing pads,Read More →

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OpenSim developers are getting ready to release OpenSim 0.9.0, and some grids are already experimenting with the new features by downloading the experimental version of the new release — and they are running into some problems. The problem is specific to grids using the new ubOde physics engine, which is includedRead More →

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Virtual reality ad platforms continue to evolve, with vendors now offering analytics for advertisements placed inside 360-degree videos, virtual reality games, and other virtual experiences. Vendors are also trying to make the ads less annoying for users by experimenting with ad types and placements. VirtualSky Denver-based VirtualSky recently rolled out the ability toRead More →

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Alife Virtual reported a dramatic increase in active users this month, to 1,576 unique monthly visitors, but those stats may not be accurate, according to technology expert Magnuz Binder, who has previously submitted patches to OpenSim. In his non-OpenSim life, Binder is a former academic focusing on technology and now works asRead More →