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The public OpenSim grids added 1,655 new regions this month, registered more than 10,000 new users, and grew active monthly users by 512. Meanwhile, Avination and AviWorlds are still down for the count, Logicamp suffered a devastating loss due to a ransomware attack, and SkyLifeGrid was folded up into Sinful Grid. AtekRead More →

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The Belgium-based Logicamp grid has suffered a catastrophic ransomware attack, and has lost some content due to a lack of current off-line backups. “I know that it is unforgivable but I am alone to manage everything and I can not do more,” grid owner Didier Preudhomme told Hypergrid Business. Logicamp is aRead More →

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SkyLifeGrid, launched after the most recent collapse of AviWorlds, has now merged with the Sinful Grid. However, SkyLife will continue offering hosting services, owner Josh Boam told Hypergrid Business, on the SkyLifeHosting.com website. SkyLifeGrid originally launched as Digitaleisure in late August with a controversial offer to migrate content from the AviWorldsRead More →

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Press release: Space, a new virtual world, launched today with free regions LONDON — Space, a browser-based virtual world platform from Sine Wave Entertainment, opened to the public after two months of private beta and seven years of development with a free region offer. “Space is built for the creative community,” said Sine WaveRead More →

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The Orbi  sunglasses, which film 360-degree videos, have just reached their crowdfunding goal. The glasses raised $88,568 from 269 Indiegogo backers in just a week, and there are still three weeks to go if you’re interested in helping the company reach its stretch goals. The light-weight, water-resistant glasses connect wirelessly to aRead More →

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Purdue University has received a patent for putting a picture of a nose at the bottom of a virtual reality display — and is selling the licenses to use this idea through partner Virtualis LLC. We normally all have the tip of our noses in our field of view, thoughRead More →

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AltspaceVR, a pioneering social virtual reality platform, announced today that it will be now offering virtual reality replays of live events. The full virtual reality environment is recorded, as well as the performances, so that future visitors will be able to experience the event as if they were there. “YouRead More →

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The US virtual reality market revenues will reach $38 billion in annual revenues by 2026, after an “inflection zone” over the next five years, according to Greenlight Insights, Inc. Of that, 62 percent, will be hardware revenues, and a third of total industry reviews will be in the enterprise marketing. On theRead More →

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Thanks to the CoreVR option on the Matterport 3D application, real estate and hospitality companies who have Matterport Pro 3D cameras can now capture 3D models of their locations, upload them, and convert them into virtual reality for free until end of this year. Those spaces will then be ready forRead More →

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The public OpenSim grids added more than 4,000 new regions this month, registered more than 4,400 new users, and grew by 735 new active users after maintenance and other outages depressed the numbers last month. ZetaWorlds, an open grid that allows resident to connect regions that they host on their own computers, forRead More →

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Press release: VisionZ October issue hits stands on Saturday Halloween is the focus of this month’s issue of VisionZ Hyperverse Magazine due out on Saturday, October 15. Typically, after a few days, the racks can be found all over the Hyperverse, here are a few key locations, including at 3rdlifegrid.com:8002:EyE eMagine, hypergrid.org:8002:yesRead More →

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Three 360 degree films — the Peal, Help and Real — demonstrated that immersive storytelling can pack a big emotional punch. The three films took the top prizes at the FIVARS 2016 Awards last month at the Virtual Reality Toronto event. The Festival of International Virtual and Augmented Reality Stories featured 30 titlesRead More →

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It was a busy week for virtual reality announcements this week. Following on Google’s Pixel and Daydream presentation earlier in the week, Oculus showed off new hardware and software at their annual Oculus Connect conference in San Jose. The company showed off new controllers, Watch the official Oculus Connect presentationsRead More →

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NBC is partnering with AltspaceVR to bring viewers virtual reality feel of the U.S. Presidential debates and will be streaming the second debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump tonight at the AltSpace VR’s Democracy Plaza at 8.30 p.m eastern time. Users of AltSpaceVR will be able to join theRead More →

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DigiWorldz and the Great Canadian Grid are back up after a nerve-wracking week when Hurricane Matthew threatened to cut off power to the grids’ Florida data center. “DigiWorldz is back online and no damage at all,” DigiWorldz founder Terry Ford, also known as Butch Arnold in-world, told Hypergrid Business. DigiWorldz alsoRead More →

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DigiWorldz and the Great Canadian Grid have gone off-line as Hurricane Matthew took down power lines in the area, set transformers on fire, caused power surges, and inflicted other damage. That caused unstable power situations for some of the power circuits feeding the data center where those two grids are hosted,Read More →

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Customers will purchase more than 450,000 Google Daydream View headsets by the end of the year, according to SuperData Research. Samsung’s Gear VR, Daydream’s closest competitor, is estimated to sell around 2.3 million units. However, the headset has been on the market for over a year. Daydream View will hitRead More →

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Google officially announced its new Pixel phone and its Daydream View VR headset today. The live stream of the presentation was watched by more than a quarter million people. Watch the full presentation below. (The Daydream VR announcement starts at the 1:04 mark.) According to Clay Bavor, Google’s VP forRead More →

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The U.S. Army’s Moses project is one of the most high-profile users of OpenSim, with a focus on training and simulations rather than on using OpenSim as a platform for a social grid. Last Friday, project leader Douglas Maxwell sent a note to OpenSim developers disclosing four “high priority securityRead More →

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AviWorlds is back, and the company has its original domain back as well. This is the ninth time that the grid has come back up after it had closed. “Since I’m back in New York now I’ve had time to start a smaller project,” grid owner Alexandro Pomposelli — also known asRead More →

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Udacity, an online platform for college courses, is now offering a VR development course — with no previous programming experience necessary. The class costs $199 per month, and runs for six months. Those who complete the program will receive a “nanodegree” certificate from Udacity — and get half of theirRead More →

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  The Kokua Viewer team has released an OpenSim-friendly version of their viewer this week, and 3rd Rock Grid is set as the default grid in the grid manager. Other grids included are Craft, InWorldz, Kitely, FrancoGrid, OSgrid, SirinHGpole, Spellscape, and Tangle. Users can also add their own grids, asRead More →

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Engage, a free multi-user virtual reality social platform that allows educators to create and share virtual environments and take students on virtual field trips is now available in preview edition and will launch early next year. The platform also supports business networking, worker training and collaboration, with private rooms that can accommodate upRead More →

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MyWebRoom will launch a free new social virtual reality platform next month, myVR, which will allow users to create and customize private room, and hold events using mobile-based VR headsets. It could be the first virtual reality platform that allows user-created environments. Two of the big players in the space, AltSpace and vTime, onlyRead More →

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Time Inc., the publisher of the iconic Life magazine that closed in 1972, is relaunching the title — in virtual reality. The new Life VR features immersive storytelling, the company said in its announcement last week, and is available as a free download in the Life VR app for iOS and AndroidRead More →

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The community-focused AvatarFest event kicks off on Friday, accessible to all OpenSim hypergrid users. There are about two dozen exhibitors already participating, and more than a dozen performances are scheduled, including those by OpenSim celebrities Truelie Telling, The Fabulous Wailers, Rosie O’Grady, and many others. There is also a performance of “Two GentlemenRead More →

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Google’s Daydream virtual reality platform is now open to the public. The Daydream software development kit came out of beta, the company announced Thursday. The kit, available here for Android, has native Unity integration and native integration with Unreal Engine 4. Daydream is coming this fall, and is part ofRead More →

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The tenth annual Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education conference will be held March 29 through April 1 of next year — and is currently accepting proposals. Conference organizers are looking for presentations about new projects, research, services, or tools that benefit educators, or retrospectives about previously-presented work. Academic papers should beRead More →

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People watching 360-degree videos recalled the brands mentioned 28 times more than in traditional ads, according to a new report by Nielsen. Recall of 360-degree content in general was eight times higher, and consumers were three times as likely to buy after seeing an ad in virtual reality. Nielsen’s researched was conductedRead More →

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The average price of a region on an OpenSim grid is US $20.39 per month for a region with 15,000 or more prims. Hypergrid-enabled grids are a little bit less expensive, with an average price of $18.86 per region. Closed grids tend to cost more, charging on average $30.28 perRead More →

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This year’s presidential election will be conducted, in part, in virtual reality. A partnership between NBC News and AltspaceVR is transforming a virtual recreation of New York’s Rockefeller Center Plaza into Democracy Plaza, where AltspaceVR users can attend debate watch parties, live discussions with political experts and political comedy events.Read More →

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The social virtual reality platform AltspaceVR is doubling down on the social aspect, with interface changes designed to make it easier for people to get together. Previously, AltspaceVR — like many virtual environments — was organized around the idea of virtual locations. That doesn’t work well because when people showRead More →

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IMAX will begin its virtual reality roll-out as early as the end of this year, IMAX Entertainment CEO Greg Foster said at a conference in Los Angeles this Wednesday. Moviegoers will be able to purchase bundled ticket that cover both the movie and access to a virtual reality experience located at the sameRead More →

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Update: I missed a couple of grids in the first version of the story, AllCity updated their stats, and I removed Alife Virtual’s stats from the report because of questions about their accuracy. Read full story here. Only a small handful of grids had problems this month, while the restRead More →

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The 2016 OpenSimulator Community Conference, to be held in December, is now accepting proposals for presentations and activities. “We are particularly interested in speakers that can dramatically tell the story of their work and employ great props and graphics,” the organizers said in the announcement. This year’s conference is organizedRead More →

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Carlos Loff has moved his Virtual Lisbon and Space Life projects to DigiWorldz, with plot rentals available for interested residents. He was previously hosted by AviLabs, the hosting company behind AviWorlds, which imploded messily and publicly last month. Even before AviLabs fell apart, Loff said he was having trouble attracting residents.Read More →

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The next OpenSim Treasure Hunt has been scheduled, and it will rum from October 3 to November 7. The hunt, the fourth so far this year, is an opportunity for grids and venues to promote their destinations to hypergrid travelers, and for designers and other content creators to promote theirRead More →

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Due to user feedback, Las Vegas VR has moved beyond 360-degree videos with animated graphics and video overlays, as well as new interactive features to its application to improve navigation and user immersion. Since the app was first released this past March, it has been downloaded more than 10,000 times — andRead More →

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Editor’s note: This article was updated on 1/27/2023 to remove dead links and  links to malicious sites. An OpenSim viewer that runs in a regular web browser has long been at the top of most-wanted lists for OpenSim users. And the U.S. Army is stepping up. This fall, the U.S. Army’sRead More →

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Digitaleisure, one of the new grids created in the wake of AviWorlds’ latest flame-out, has been forced to rebrand as SkyLifeGrid due to legal issues. The original name and domain was too close to that of Digital Leisure, an online gaming company. Digital Leisure paid for the domain transfers, said SkyLifeGrid owner JoshRead More →

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The 2016 Fest’Avi event begins today, the third year that FrancoGrid is hosting the avatar exhibit. The event begins at 6 p.m. Paris time, or 9 a.m. Pacific, at hg.francogrid.org:80:FestAvi 2016. The event features an exhibit of 19 new creative avatar designs, theMorlitaM live concert, and the FestAvi party. The theme of thisRead More →

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Google Plus continues to be the social media destination of choice for OpenSim users, due its usability, sharing features, and support for identities based on avatar names. I currently track 175 virtual communities that have some relation to OpenSim, and just collected the members counts of each group. See theRead More →

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Adapting OpenSim to work on virtual reality headsets will require a substantial amount of work on both server and viewer code. Is this something that OpenSim users want to see happen? According to a survey conducted on this site this week, 79 percent of OpenSim users think that VR isRead More →

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Disclosure: The folks at Vox VR just sent me a free review copy of their Vox+ Z3 headset, which is a rebranded version of the BoboVR Z3 but with a larger field of view. Thanks, guys! The purchase links at the bottom of this article are to all the major sites I knowRead More →

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CoSpaces, a platform that allows users to create, explore and share virtual reality spaces, is now being used by educators, teachers and students to create virtual learning environments and enhance learning. The platform now includes a creation tool that can be used by teachers to customize learning environments, allows teachers toRead More →

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OutWorldz founder Fred Beckhusen has posted his collection of 1,000 OpenSim scripts on the open source collaboration site GitHub, as well as the code for his one-click OpenSim installer, called DreamWorld. Like New World Studio before, DreamWorld makes it easy to install a mini-grid on a personal computer, together with the FirestormRead More →

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Have you ever though that wearing your VR headset didn’t make you look dorky enough? I have a solution for you! The Virtual Vizor is a clip-on device that fits on the bill of your baseball cap and lets you enjoy VR experiences hands-free. To be fair, given the techieRead More →

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The White House released a virtual reality video of President Barack Obama touring Yosemite National Park yesterday. Read the full announcement here. But the experience is only available on Facebook and on the Samsung Gear VR headset, with Oculus Rift support coming soon. Facebook owns Oculus VR which also provides contentRead More →

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Intel has announced a new all-in-one virtual reality headset, Project Alloy,  at the Intel Developer Forum 2016 earlier this month. The headset has its own brain, so not does not need to be connected to a computer or smartphone in order to work. There is no word yet on when the headsetRead More →