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Update: Island Oasis grid co-founder Karl Dreyer tells me that he’s keeping an eye on new developments in OpenSim that allow grid owners to filter content before it’s saved into an OAR file — and customers may soon be able to export their Island Oasis regions.  “I surely will beRead More →

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New Voice — the company that brought us $5.95 regions on OSGrid and its own Nova grid — just dropped the starting price for regions even lower. To zero. That’s right. These are full regions. On the Nova grid, which runs the Aurora-Sim version of OpenSim, they can hold 80,000Read More →

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Vehicle physics topped the list of missing features in our survey of OpenSim hosting providers this week. Because of the holiday — and the short notice — only 70 people responded to the survey, compared to last year’s 114. Of those, 52 percent said that vehicle physics was among theRead More →

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Kitely became the second commercial OpenSim grid to roll out Vivox voice today. Boston-based Vivox Inc. is currently the gold standard of in-world voice, used in Second Life, EVE Online, EverQuest, Star Wars Galaxies, DC Universe Online and in many other massively online multiplayer games. The company reported 60 millionRead More →

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The top 40 OpenSim grids gained 915 new regions since this time last month, bringing the total number of regions on these grids to 21,595, a new record high. OSGrid was the single biggest gainer. The non-profit grid, which allows users to connect regions running on home computers at noRead More →

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Press release: WonderBuilders and STCC Awarded NSF Grant to Develop Virtual ESL Learning Environment Boston, MA— WonderBuilders, Inc., an Open Wonderland 3D virtual world platform and services provider, is partnering with Springfield Technical Community College (STCC) to create an English as a Second Language (ESL) learning environment. Funded by aRead More →

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Press Release: ‘Virtual Learning for Dummies’ Available From Virtual Communications Leader SAN FRANCISCO, CA — ON24, the global leader in webcasting and virtual event solutions, today announced the availability of “Virtual Learning for Dummies,” a free booklet that explains virtual training in a no-nonsense style. Available via ON24’s website, “VirtualRead More →

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Two new social worlds announced launches today — SmallWorlds, which is live, and Interactive City, which still seems to be the process of getting off the ground. SmallWorlds is a cartoonish, Flash-based, 2.5D, Lively-style virtual world more closely akin to Farmville than of Second Life. Built by New Zealand’s Outsmart,Read More →

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Press release: ITE and EON Reality to Set-Up Centre for Virtual 3D Learning in Singapore IRVINE, CA — EON Reality, Inc., the world’s leading interactive 3D software provider, today announced that ITE — Institute of Technical Education, Singapore, has signed a MOU — Memorandum of Understanding — to collaborate inRead More →

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Press Release: Training Expert Randy Hinrichs to Present a Free Online Seminar: “Thinking and Learning in 3D—How to Create Successful Virtual Learning Experiences” Author of the new book “Transforming Virtual World Learning” will join 40 attendees in VenueGen for an interactive, small-group discussion of how immersive virtual classrooms can improveRead More →

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Press release: UBM Partners with the Abu Dhabi Centre for Technical and Vocational Education and Training to Produce iCampus, the First Digital University in Middle East CHICAGO and LONDON — UBM Built Environment’s Client Solutions and UBM Studios today announced that they are partnering with the Abu Dhabi Centre forRead More →

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Cloud-based OpenSim vendor Kitely Ltd. rolled out two features today aimed at improving the social aspects of the grid — a list of publicly-accessible regions, and a maturity ranking system. “While many people use their virtual worlds for private activities, almost a third of all the Kitely worlds people haveRead More →

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Press Release: BAE Systems Invest in Daden to Develop Data Visualisation System Birmingham, UK — BAE Systems has signed an agreement with Birmingham based Daden Limited (Daden) to accelerate the development of a versatile 3D immersive visual analytics application which can be used for the collaborative analysis and understanding ofRead More →

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Press Release: ANCC Expands Virtual Poster Hall in 2011 Using the Digitell, 3D, Immersive Platform, ANCC Doubles the Number of Poster Sessions From Last Year Jamestown, NY– The American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) has contracted with Digitell for a second year to expand their 3D, Virtual Poster Session Hall. TheRead More →

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Press Release: 3rdRockGid.com launches Occupy World Peace Virtual Initiative The owners of 3rdRockGrid.com have thrown their support and solidarity behind the efforts of the Occupy protest movement sweeping the world. “From our collective position, this is not only a noble step, but a necessary one in order to bring theRead More →

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Press Release: Discover the Innovation Behind Some of the Industry’s First Virtual Clinical Trials ProtonMedia and Microsoft to host workshop at Microsoft’s Technology Center featuring industry leaders discussing the impact of virtual clinical trials LANSDALE, Pa.–ProtonMedia and Microsoft will be hosting an interactive workshop focused on innovation in clinical trials.Read More →

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Press release: Fashion Research Institute Announces ScienceSim Land Grant Program Awardees New York, NY  – Fashion Research Institute has been collaborating with Intel Labs since 2009, helping to push the limits of content development, and overseeing the Science Sim Land Grant Program. The program consists of awards of campuses of fourRead More →

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Press release: Virtual Tradeshows Provide Affordable, New Marketing Opportunity for the Building Industry Exhibitors can save up to $100,000 or more with online events compared to physical tradeshows, according to new white paper Seattle, Wash. — In an era of tight marketing budgets, virtual tradeshows provide a cost-effective way forRead More →

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Press Release: Unity Powers Army OneSource Virtual World Service Helps Soldiers and Loved Ones Connect From Anywhere Around the World SAN FRANCISCO, CA — Unity Technologies, provider of the Unity development platform for games and interactive 3D on the web, iOS, Android, consoles and beyond, is pleased to announce thatRead More →

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Press Release: Ten-Day “Be Fearless!” Online Festival Combines Art and Music with Education and Awareness-Raising for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Wiscasset, Maine — Fearless Nation PTSD Support, the world’s only nonprofit using virtual reality to help people with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), will hold its third annual PTSD educationRead More →

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AMSTERDAM — Chatbots.org, the Industry Catalyst of Intelligent Virtual Characters, reveals a business directory of almost 300 companies in conversational AI, (3D) avatar animation, speech synthesis and speech recognition and visual biometrics, and an additional Vendor Selector tool to select providers, designed for corporations in the middle of their buyingRead More →

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Press release: RSNA Selects Digitell for First Virtual Event RSNA to Engage Members at Their Annual Meeting with a 3D/2D Virtual Platform Jamestown, NY — The Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) and Digitell, Inc. have signed an agreement to create the first 3D RSNA Virtual Event. As a focalRead More →

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On-demand hosting provider Kitely Ltd. has eliminated a major OpenSim scalability obstacle by moving its asset database to the Amazon storage cloud. “This is the most significant change we’ve made to our system since our beta started,” Kitely CEO Ilan Tochner told Hypergrid Business. Because of the upgrade, Kitely wasRead More →

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Several major OpenSim features, including mesh, which were previously available only in experimental releases of OpenSim are now part of the standard OpenSim release, numbered 0.7.2. “Despite having a minor point release number, it actually contains a very large number of features and fixes,” said OpenSim core developer Justin Clark-Casey inRead More →

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According to statistics released Friday by InWorldz co-founder Beth Reischl, in-world residents have been cashing out, on average, more than $15,000 a month over the past year. “Overall, I’m really pleased with the numbers, and while this is supposed to be fun, and hence our lower prices, it’s nice to seeRead More →

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Press Release: Practice Greenhealth selects Digitell for Live Streaming, Conference Capture, 3D Operating Room, Virtual Event and Webinars Jamestown, NY — Practice Greenhealth (PGH), a membership association aimed at helping companies focus on “Green” initiatives has selected Digitell to meet their multimedia needs for 2011 and 2012. Digitell will handleRead More →

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Press release: Second Places becomes Bronze Reseller of Unity Technologies Cheshire, UK – Second Places, a leader in development of virtual worlds, today announced that during Unite 11 in San Francisco, the company was named a Bronze Level Reseller. “This allows us to sell our virtual world platform Unifier packaged withRead More →

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Press release: EON Reality Releases EON Mycube, a Surround Immersive Desktop 3D System IRVINE, CA — EON Reality, the world’s leading interactive 3D solutions provider, today announced the release of EON Mycube, a 3 screen immersive desktop system. The EON Mycube will complement the successful EON Icube as a smallerRead More →

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Second Life has recently rolled out support for mesh objects. One key benefit is realistic clothing and accessories. However, Second Life’s implementation of mesh does not automatically adjust to the size of avatar bodies — and OpenSim, which is still heavily dependent on Second Life-compatible viewers — is limited inRead More →

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Viewer developers are no longer restricted from working on OpenSim server code, OpenSim core developer and Overte Foundation president Justin Clark-Casey announced Friday. Previously, viewer developers had to wait six months after working on viewer code before they could work on OpenSim. The Overte Foundation — which oversees OpenSim developmentRead More →

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Press release: Dassault Systemes: “Staying Alive”: 3D Experience Helps Save Lives Teaching People How to Administer First Aid Using 3D Online Experience Platform from Dassault Systemes PARIS — Dassault Systemes, a world leader in 3D and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions, today announced the launch of a 3D lifelike experienceRead More →

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Press Release: Unite 11: Unity 3.5 Demonstrated Live for the First Time Major Additions Mark an Impressive Update to the Award-Winning Development Platform for Games and Interactive 3D SAN FRANCISCO, CA–Unity Technologies, provider of the Unity development platform for awesome games and interactive 3D on the web, iOS, Android, consolesRead More →

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Press Release: Virtual Edge Launches Definitive Online Directory for Digital Meeting, Events, Learning, and Community Solutions Virtual Edge Directory simplifies process for researching, identifying and selecting vendors and service providers for going virtual Pleasanton, CA – Today the Virtual Edge Institute (VEI), an organization dedicated to advancing the development andRead More →

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Press release: 3DLES and virtyou join forces Scherpenzeel, The Netherlands—Germany’s Virtyou GmbH and 3DLES, an OpenSim design and consulting firm focusing on education, have   join forces to provide a stable 3D environment for education and architecture in Europe. “In the past, we were working on several grids,” said 3DLESRead More →

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Press Release: New ProtoSphere v.1.5.4 Now Supports Video and Flash Content Five new features extend ProtoSphere’s lead as the virtual collaboration environment for learning and training LANSDALE, Pa.—ProtonMedia today released ProtoSphere Standard Edition v.1.5.4 with new video and Flash content support. Now large enterprises can train in ProtoSphere using videos,Read More →

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The Subsnapshot Importer Exporter module is now available in the Wonderland Module Warehouse. This was our first completed Wonderland Wednesday project. Community member Bob Potter described the project when we started it almost exactly a year ago in his blog post “Wonderland Wednesdays Subsnapshot Project.” We officially concluded the project at theRead More →

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The top 40 OpenSim grids now have a total of 19,381 regions, a new high — up by 883 regions from a month ago. Meanwhile, total registered users grew to a new record high of 212,452. These numbers do not include smaller public grids, or the unknown numbers of privateRead More →

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One of the great features of Open Wonderland is its application-sharing facility. And one of the benefits this provides is the ability to use OpenOffice in-world to create and edit documents that are compatible with Microsoft’s ubiquitous Office suite. But what if you just want to show a document in-worldRead More →

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New Voice’s Nova OpenSim hosting company has dropped region prices to a new low today — just $5.95 for a region with up to 80,000 prims. The catch? The region is designed for low-traffic residential builds, and can support only five to ten avatars at once. And the 80,000 primsRead More →

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AVWorlds is a brand new grid — at just 26 regions, it doesn’t even make our monthly Top 40 list — but it has big ambitions. The grid launched with the highest priced land in OpenSim, but then abandoned that strategy and is now actually offering more free residential plotsRead More →

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Linda Kellie, whose free content has made her website a go-to destination for folks making their move to OpenSim and needing content, has released her first OAR file (free download here). This complete region includes a small freebie store with starting avatars, animations, and a large collection of textures. ThereRead More →

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The Global Conference on Gifted Education held its eleventh global virtual meeting in Second Life last week, taking advantage of the platform’s global reach. “Information can be accessed from anywhere in the world,”said Leslie Graves, member of the Executive Council for the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children, whoRead More →

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Kitely users will no longer be able to copy and export content that they don’t have copy or transfer permissions for, the company announced today. Previously, users could make full duplicates of entire regions, or save full regions as OAR files, with a simple click of a button. Now, KitelyRead More →

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Two OpenSim grids have been attacked — OpenNeuland and Wilder Westen — and the attackers may be going after others, said Kai Ludwig, director of Germany’s TalentRaspel virtual worlds Ltd. and owner of the two grids. The attack hit Open Neuland yesterday and Wilder Westen today, he told Hypergrid Business. “It’s probably bot-based,Read More →

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Press release: Air Medic Sky One, from University Medical Center Utrecht, the Netherlands, Wins Best of Show at Serious Play Award Competition SEATTLE – Twenty serious games were chosen by a panel of experts, as medal winners at the 2011 International Serious Play Awards, a program distinguishing superior examples of corporate,Read More →

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Role Play Worlds, a 43-region grid dedicated to fantasy-themed role playing, will close next month, the grid announced today. Residents will have until September 23 to make backups, export builds, and cancel orders and subscriptions. “We dont have the time and energy to keep working on RPW as before, that’sRead More →

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Press Release: Finalists Named in International Serious Play Award Competition SEATTLE – A panel of experts have selected 20 games as finalists in the 2011 International Serious Play Awards, a recognition program honoring outstanding examples of corporate, military, health care and school/at home learning titles. The games will be featuredRead More →