ScanSpace, in collaboration with Paracosm, launched a Kickstarter campaign for an online service that lets users scan and upload real-world environments, turn them into game levels, and share with other players. The company is hoping to raise $125,000, and will add virtual reality support as an $800,000 “stretch goal.” Multiplayer supportRead More →

Trick 3D has released Floorplan Revolution, software which converts traditional floorplans to virtual reality environment. The tool, first announced in September, supports both mobile virtual reality headsets, including Google Cardboard and Gear VR, and traditional views such as personal computers, tablets, and smartphones. The Atlanta-based company is also planning to create a virtual homeRead More →

The total land area of the public OpenSim grids increased this month, as did the number of registered users and active users. OpenSim now has the equivalent of 56,933 standard regions, 521,735 total registered users and 33,707 active users on 313 different grids. Kitely was the biggest gainer this month, withRead More →

The Kitely Market is now offering more than 12,500 different items, 64 percent of which are exportable to other grids, with exports growth continuing to outpace Kitely-only content. “We’re very happy with Kitely Market’s current growth,” Kitely CEO Ilan Tochner told Hypergrid Business. “Last month we reached a record highRead More →

In mid-December, we were tracking 117 active Google Plus communities related to OpenSim and the hypergrid. As of today, that number has hit 166, of which 53 are new to our list. The largest new communities, with more than 100 members each, are Blender for OpenSim, Opensim Technical, ARiELSIG, Immersive World LearningRead More →

Press release: VR Sociable Network vTime is Now Available for Google Cardboard in Early Access Liverpool, UK – vTime, the first virtual reality sociable network on mobile, today opens its network to millions more users as it launches for Google Cardboard. The app launches in early access for a limitedRead More →

Press release: Virtual Reality in a refugee camp: The hopelessness is visible and tangible Next week, the war in Syria will enter it’s sixth year. The conditions in which most refugees find themselves are inhumane and degrading. VR Gorilla and Stichting Vluchteling, a Dutch refugee foundation, show this with four portraits, in virtualRead More →

Press release Immersv Introduces a Mobile Virtual Reality Ad Platform Dedicated to Helping Consumers Discover Great VR Apps and Content Former Tapjoy and RockYou execs launch innovative platform for the distribution and monetization of mobile VR content LOS ANGELES – Today, Immersv  announced the public launch of its mobile virtual reality advertisingRead More →

Last month, I wrote a review of the Baofeng Mojing 3, which immediately became my favorite Google Cardboard-compatible headset. Last week, GearBest sent me a new version of the same headset, the Baofeng Mojing 4, so that I could do a review. Disclosure: I got the $44 headset for free,Read More →

Alchemy Beta 4.0.0 was released this week, with an updated Web browser, a better chat bar and numerous bug fixes. In addition, the viewer now has automatic updates to make it easier for users to stay current. The old built-in Web browser was the Qt Webkit Browser Engine, and it hasRead More →

Press release: AT&T, Samsung and Carnival Corporation Launch Virtual Reality Cruise Vacation Experience National Initiative Debuts Feb. 19 in 133 AT&T Stores in 37 States, Highlighted by Experiential Event Feb. 27 at the AT&T Flagship Store on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile For most, tropical breezes and beaches are out of reachRead More →

Press release: AP launches virtual reality and 360 video channel in collaboration with AMD The Associated Press will launch a virtual reality and 360 video channel in collaboration with AMD (NASDAQ:AMD) to feature the news organization’s latest advances in immersive journalism. Virtual reality and 360 video transport users into the middleRead More →

Kitely released a new starting template for customers renting land, the Kitely Evergreen Island, optimized for virtual reality viewers. “Virtual reality requires a high frame rate to maintain the feeling of presence without causing the user to start feeling VR sickness,” Kitely CEO Ilan Tochner told Hypergrid Business. VR sickness, similarRead More →

Uphold, a Charleston, South Carolina-based virtual currency and cloud payments company, is “seriously studying” the possibility of extending support to OpenSim, Uphold founder Halsey Minor told Hypergrid Business.  The company considers OpenSim to be a significant potential virtual currency market, Minor said. “I’m studying OpenSim closely and consider it very important,Read More →

Voxelus is planning to expand its virtual reality creation platform with a deal to bring 7,000 3D assets to its marketplace during the second quarter of this year, and 16,000 more during the second half of the year, company co-founder and CEO Martin Repetto told Hypergrid Business. “This is huge news forRead More →

The total land area of the public OpenSim grids fell by 16,771 region equivalents after Virtual Worlds Grid took down its variable-sized regions, but the total number of active users rose by 1,374 to 33,574 this month. Without the Virtual Worlds Grid statistics, OpenSim would have gained a net of 1,589Read More →

Wevr has raised $25 million from investors such HTC Corp, Samsung Ventures and Evolution Media Partners to fund the launch of its Wevr Transport, a YouTube-like virtual reality platform that will help virtual reality creators to publish their work and find an audience. The platform will support Google Cardboard, Samsung GearRead More →

Two years ago, Google gave away a free Google Cardboard kit to all 6,100 attendees at its I/O conference. This week, Valve founder Gave Newell announced that all 1,400 attendees at the sold-out Vision Summit 2016 will get free HTC Vive headsets — each worth several hundred dollars each. Ticket pricesRead More →

Second Life adult toy merchant Crystal Delights has opened its first retail outlet, in Port Townsend, Washington, and plans to expand into non-adult product lines and use Second Life to help market the non-adult products, company co-founder Andrew Schwartz told Hypergrid Business. “We do not use Second Life currently for market testing, but we still have plans to renewRead More →

UK teens are ready to buy virtual reality technology, according to a new research report from Greenlight VR, with 71 percent saying that they’ll either buy it on their own or ask their parents to buy it for them. “Surprisingly, 25 percent will spend their own money,” the researchers said.Read More →

Island Oasis, a three-year-old closed commercial grid, is turning on hypergrid connectivity today. The transition will be discussed at a Town Hall Meeting today. As part of the transition, the grid will also be hiring a part-time events coordinator. Island Oasis’ transition brings the total number of active OpenSim gridsRead 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 →

Starbreeze will create a virtual reality arcade in Los Angeles later on this year to give the public access to premium  virtual reality experiences with their recently launched StarVR headset, the company announced in a press release. Called Project StarCade, it will feature OverKill‘s Walking Dead virtual reality experience, although the company 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 →

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 →

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 →

Planner 5D, an application that allows home owners, builders, architects and real estate renovators to design homes in 3D, now has virtual reality support for Google Cardboard headsets. The app can be downloaded for free for iOS devices and Android smartphones, but some features require in-app purchases. The application already hasRead More →

Virtual reality equipment maker Virtuix hosted the first ever multiplayer virtual reality game tournament at CES in Las Vegas. Four gamers played on Omni multi-directional treadmills that formed the Omni Arena, with HTC Vive headsets strapped on and with each player armed with a replica gun. “We feel that active virtual reality is theRead 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 →

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 →

Google Inc, has appointed Clay Bavor as the new boss of its virtual reality team, according to the company’s spokesman Joshua Cruz, in a move seen as the company’s further dive into virtual reality after huge successes with the Google Cardboard. “We can confirm Clay’s new role on the VRRead More →

The large number of smartphone users in Asia will spur sales of mobile-based virtual reality devices in the region this year, according to SuperData Research in a report released this month. Globally, three out of four early adopters will use smartphones to try virtual reality, according to the report. A totalRead More →

WakingApp‘s ENTiTi VR is a cloud-based design tool that allows even those without any coding skills to create 360-degree immersive content using a variety of content types. There is also a correspondent viewer for experiencing the content online either on a personal computers or on headsets.  The ENTiTi Creator application isRead More →

The United States Copyright Office will, from next month, begin taking opinions from the tech industry and members of the public regarding Section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that allows OpenSim grids and other content-sharing sites to take down infringing material and penalize repeat offenders.   The application of the infringementRead 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 →

Improving virtual reality immersion by increasing the field of view and having more accurate positional tracking will be the battlefield this year, according to a recent report by Digi-Capital. At the moment, the best-in-class of view for virtual reality device screen resolution is 136 degrees diagonally per eye, which is promising given that usersRead 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 →

Roundme virtual tour application allows photographers and brands to create, upload and share 360 degrees immersive paranomic photos and multimedia content of real spaces, which users can then visit virtually using Google Cardboard on the web browser or on Android and iOS devices. The application, which already hosts a numberRead 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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

Presence Capital Launches With Close Of World’s First Virtual Reality And Augmented Reality Focused VC Fund The team of leading VC, games, VR and tech industry veterans announce their inaugural fund of $10 million SAN FRANCISCO – Presence Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm focused on virtual reality and augmented reality startups,Read 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 →

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 →

Samsung launched a virtual reality web browser last week, Samsung Internet optimized for Gear VR, allowing users to surf the Internet without taking off their virtual reality headset. The app allows users to check email and social media news feeds and read online articles and also supports 360-degree and 3D video streaming, as wellRead More →

The 2015 Terasem Annual Colloquium on the Law of Futuristic Persons, themed “Moral and Legal Imperatives for Sentient AI,” will take place in Second Life, on the Terasem region, on Thursday, December 10, 2015, with a stellar list of speakers. The four-hour event will start at 9 a.m., Pacific Time, noonRead More →