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Press release: Plenary Sessions at Serious Play Conference To Tackle Major Challenges of Serious Games SEATTLE – Some of the best minds in serious games are coming together to discuss the major challenges facing the use of games for training and learning at Serious Play Conference, Tuesday through Thursday, August 23Read More →

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Avination may deploy the Havok physics engine for its grid. This is the same physics engine used by Second Life. “It is being considered and talks with Havok have started,” Avination grid manager Melanie Thielker told Hypergrid Business. “The content of these talks are under NDA [non-disclosure agreements.” OpenSim grids normallyRead More →

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Press Release: InWorldz, LLC and CariNet Inc. To Power Virtual World Technology and Hosting Through Joint Venture Venture to focus on quality of service, scalability, and core software to promote growth and technical innovation NY and SAN DIEGO, CA – InWorldz, LLC a leading provider of virtual world services, and CariNetRead More →

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OSGrid, the largest grid running on the OpenSim software, is celebrating its fourth birthday this weekend with parties, games, tours, and training classes. OSGrid currently has 6,896 regions and more than 63,000 registered users. By comparison, the next-largest grid, ScienceSim, has around 1,800 regions — but many of those are scalabilityRead More →

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Aurora-Sim is a hot, fresh, new distribution of OpenSim that promises some nice features for grid managers (see story here) but, until this weekend, its users were cut off from the rest of the metaverse. That compatibility problem has been solved, and residents of OSGrid, FrancoGrid, and most other gridsRead More →

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Press release: Daden creates Chatbot Business Case Calculator to help companies understand potential savings Birmingham, U.K. – An innovative business case calculator has been created by technology company Daden Limited to help organisations understand the potential savings that using an interactive virtual agent – or chatbot – can deliver. Chatbots are computerRead More →

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It’s been a record-breaking months for OpenSim, with the top 40 grids passing 16,000 regions and 200,000 users for the first time in history. The total number of regions on these 40 largest public grids was 16,959, an increase of 1,669 regions since mid June — the biggest single-month increaseRead More →

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People pay the same amount of attention at virtual and physical events, says a  new report from the Professional Convention Management Association, UBM Studios, and the Virtual Edge Institute, detailing the behaviours of people in regards to virtual events that will be released Monday. “Too often the argument centers onRead More →

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Press Release: ProtoSphere Lync Edition to support Office 365 and associated online functionality LANSDALE, Pa.–ProtonMedia, a Silver Unified Communications Microsoft partner, today announced its ProtoSphere Lync Edition application will support Microsoft Office 365. This will provide users the benefits of Microsoft’s Lync high-quality VoIP and Office 365 platform through ProtoSphere’s engaging virtual collaborationRead More →

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Second Places announces the name of their long anticipated virtual world platform — Unifier. A new web based platform presents opportunities to developers, a more immersive experience to users and a simple easy to manage interface for those who wish to control their own virtual world. Unifier takes virtual worldRead More →

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Kitely, a company that offers virtual worlds on demand, plans to make virtual worlds more accessible to all, said company CEO Ilan Tochner in an interview last week. The interview was conducted at the MetaMeets 2011 conference in Amsterdam, Netherlands, by the blog MixedRealities. Kitely plans to make “the existing SecondRead More →

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Intel’s Distributed Scene Graph — the technology that allows OpenSim to handle thousands of avatars on a single region – is now available for download. In the future, the technology will become part of the standard distribution of OpenSim, core developer Justin Clark-Casey told Hypergrid Business. “No timeframe on this, though,”Read More →

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The number of OpenSim grids accepting the multi-grid, hypergrid-enabled Open Metaverse Currency (OMC) has continued to grow in the first half of this year, now at an all-time high of 29 grids. Meanwhile, the number of registered users has tripled since the start of the year. In addition, the totalRead More →

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Press Release: Cubic Delivers COMBATREDI Virtual Training System to the Florida National Guard ORLANDO, FL — Cubic Simulations Systems, the virtual training systems business of Cubic Corporation CUB +0.62% , has delivered a cutting-edge virtual training solution to the Florida National Guard (FLNG) that will provide the most advanced virtualRead More →

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Press Release: Virtual Library of Birmingham opens its doors for public exploration Birmingham, U.K. — The Virtual Library of Birmingham, built by Daden Limited, has opened its doors to the public allowing access two years before the real life building is ready for occupancy. The Virtual Library of Birmingham allowsRead More →

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Press Release: Virtway creates immersive 3D iPad application for Spain’s Ministry of Science and Innovation Oviedo. SPAIN – Virtway, in collaboration with IECISA, has created a 3D interactive tour of the most representative centers of the Ministry of Science and Innovation, including the National Museum of Science and Technology in A Coruña.Read More →

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The Commerce & Marketing Track of the Second Life Community Convention, scheduled for August 12 through 14 in Oakland, California, is looking for presentation proposals from Second Life content and service providers. According to track leader James Neville, one keynote speaker is already scheduled – Rik Panganiban, who will talk about non-profitRead More →

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HGExchange, a new online marketplace for OpenSim goods launched today, with live delivery to OSGrid, MyOpenGrid, and Haven. It is not the first online marketplace to deliver items to multiple OpenSim grids.  Cariama delivers products to 3rd Rock Grid, Avination, InWorldz, Sim World and UFS Grid as well as to SecondRead More →

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Press release: ON24 Survey Shows Growing Corporate Preference; Sodexo Use Case Illustrates Benefits SAN FRANCISCO, CA —  ON24, the global leader in webcasting and virtual event solutions, today announced survey results illustrating the growing acceptance by human resources and training professionals of virtual solutions for corporate training and HR applications. MoreRead More →

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OpenSim’s volunteer developers have launched a foundation, the non-profit Overte Foundation, which expected to solve the licensing problems that keep OpenSim server developers from talking to viewer developers. “One of the main reasons for creating such a foundation is so that we can drop the six month contribution barrier between OpenSimulatorRead More →

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Press Release: PPD and ProtonMedia Win 2011 Microsoft Life Sciences Innovation Award Microsoft recognizes ProtonMedia for the second consecutive year for its innovation in life sciences with its ProtoSphere virtual collaboration technology LANSDALE, Pa. – Microsoft Corp. has named PPD, Inc. and ProtonMedia winners of a Microsoft 2011 Life Sciences Innovation Award, recognizing their innovative useRead More →

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Press Release: TEDxBoston Expands Reach With Avaya web.alive Global Online Auditorium — Avaya web.alive Immersive Web Conferencing Enables Attendees to View Event From Comfort of Their Desktops — TEDxBoston Speakers Live Streamed From Event to Avaya web.alive Audience of Avatars BASKING RIDGE, NJ — Avaya, a global provider of businessRead More →

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Press release: New Learning System for Virtual World Educators Released The creators of Texas State Technical Colleges’ virtual presence in Second Life®, vTSTC, have released a new learning management system created specifically for educators using virtual worlds like Second Life® for teaching and learning. Abilene, TX – The creators of TexasRead More →

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An educator has released a free, 160-page “quick start” guide this week. The guide is a complete instruction manual for schools — or other institutions — looking to set up OpenSim-based environments from scratch. The guide was created by David Deeds, IT manager and teacher at the Changchun American InternationalRead More →

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Washington, D.C.-based grid SpotOn3D is looking for developers to work on gambling-related projects, now that online gambling has been legalized in the nation’s capital. “This opens up many opportunities for metaverse developers,” Philippe Pascal, the company’s developer program manager, said in an announcement today. “SpotON3D is currently on the look-outRead More →

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Press release: Brandman University Research Study Shows Companies Can Better Embrace Virtual Work Force as a Competitive Advantage Managers eager for workers to understand collaboration tools, but still rely on face-to-face contact for building trust IRVINE, Calif. — While businesses increasingly play on a global stage and a work forceRead More →

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Kitely, a popular cloud-based OpenSim hosting provider, rolled out two frequently requested features today — the ability to export regions, and the ability to choose viewers. These two changes should make it much easier for virtual designers to use Kitely for building and design projects. In addition, the Kitely pluginRead More →

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Intel will release the code for its Distributed Scene Graph 3-D — which allows thousands of avatars on a single OpenSim regions — at the end of June, the company told Hypergrid Business today. The DSG code will be available at OpenSimulator.org/wiki/Download And there will be documentation about the code, asRead More →

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Press release: VastPark Launches OpenAvatar for Virtual Worlds and Games Washington, DC & Melbourne, Australia — VastPark, an industry leader in virtual worlds, launches OpenAvatar to create an open source standard generator for avatar development for the virtual world and gaming industry. Frustrated by the lack of high quality 3D avatarRead More →

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Press release: UtherConvention Trade Show Will Showcase Best of 3D Web and Demonstrate Breakthrough Convention Concept Convention highlights: Session with attorney Greg Piccionelli about intellectual property rights in virtual worlds Educational sessions on PhotoShop, running a virtual business, becoming a virtual DJ, and using the Utherverse marketplace Vancouver, BC – UtherverseRead More →

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Press release: Intel Announces New Research and Partnership Efforts at Annual R&D Event Will release open source packages: To increase avatar capacity on an OpenSim region 20 times, allowing thousands of simultaneous visitors To accelerate rendering of photo realistic images by 100 percent on Intel systems MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. –Read More →

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Press release: InteSolv Announces Virtual Show Partnership with ON24 InteSolv will deliver ON24’s Virtual Show and Virtual Briefing Center products into several key markets, including government, manufacturing, high tech, healthcare and multi-level marketing organizations, just to name a few. Visalia, CA – InteSolv, a leading national virtual business solutions and servicesRead More →

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Hypergrid inventor Crista Lopes, professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine called today on big public grids to begin a mass migration to lower regions. The reason is that Second Life-compatible viewers don’t handle jumps of more than 4,096 regions in any direction — causing problems both forRead More →

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Press release: ACSM: Weight loss success in a 3-D virtual world Bloomington, Indiana — Participants in two weight-loss programs — one involving traditional health club sessions and the other delivered online in a 3D virtual world — lost similar amounts of weight and body fat, but the online contingent reportedRead More →

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Press release: Immersive Virtual Classrooms Boost Engagement and ROI for Instructor-Led Training: VenueGen Execs to Discuss at eLearning DEVCON and ICELW VenueGen CEO David Gardner and President Jeff Crown will explore the potential of virtual environments to make enterprise distance education as powerful as face-to-face instruction Research Triangle Park, NCRead More →

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People who remember the last dot-com boom, and are thinking of launching a virtual worlds business so that they can take part in the next one, need not worry that their memories of the 1990s mean that their too old to succeed. In fact, according to a new study, olderRead More →

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Press Release: Designing Digitally, Inc. Wins 2011 Air Force Research Lab Virtual World Contract FRANKLIN, OH– Teaching students how to build airplanes, robots and simulations is serious business, but Designing Digitally, Inc. plans to make it a game — literally. Designing Digitally, Inc., the web-based training firm that specializes in e-learning, virtualRead More →

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Press release: Virtual Edge Institute and ROI of Engagement’s Multi-Year Study Reveals Effectiveness of Hybrid Events Survey Reveals Different Motivations for Attending Events In Person or Online Virtual Extends Attendance: If no virtual option was available, 93 percent of virtual attendees would not attend the in-person event whereas 78 percentRead More →

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Developers of the Aurora Sim version of OpenSim are building a hypergrid bridge to mainline OpenSim, said Enrico Ranucci, head of New Voice, d.i., an Italian technology company that’s been in business since 2005. Aurora Sim uses a different version of hypergrid, called IWC — InterWorldConnector — to allow teleportation betweenRead More →

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The closed, commercial social grid AvWorlds has abandoned its high price strategy — at least for now. When the grid was launched earlier this spring, a single region was priced at $145 a month. (See full story here.) While a bargain compared to Second Life, this price made it theRead More →

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Customers looking for a high-end grid management service for their OpenSim worlds similar to that offered by PioneerX Estates now have another hosting option — Germany’s TalentRaspel virtual worlds Ltd. has licensed the RCI grid management technology from PioneerX and is now offering it to its customers. “We have finishedRead More →

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Press Release: Virtual Obama, Palin & Trump Set Stage for Most Entertaining Political Season Yet Utherverse Re-Creates Popular Political Figures As 3D Characters For Fun & Free Speech On Virtual Wide Web Vancouver, BC – If the recent friction between President Obama and Donald Trump is any indication, the 2012 political season promisesRead More →

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Press Release: Avatar Meets Superman At Miami Science Museum NASA Astronaut Leland D. Melvin to lead presentation in Miami Science Museum’s NASA funded Youth EXPO Virtual World Island Sat., May 21st at 10 a.m. Presentation will be projected in the Museum Theater so that the public can observe & participate.Read More →

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Press Release: Daden creates World Finder, a virtual world selection tool Birmingham, U.K. – A simple virtual world selection tool, World Finder, has been created by virtual world specialist’s Daden Limited to help businesses and organisations choose between competing platforms for their projects. World Finder is based around 12 key virtualRead More →

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The top 40 OpenSim grids gained a total of 1,199 new regions over the past month, for a new record total of 15,765 regions. The biggest growth was on OSGrid, the non-profit grid which allows people to connect regions for free — or rent them from hosting companies for asRead More →

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Press Release: Huzutech’s Paperworld Takes Social Gaming To New Virtual Worlds HuzuVirtual is a new technology which takes social gaming and community into whole new virtual worlds. GLASGOW —  HuzuVirtual is a brand new technology from HuzuTech, which promises to revolutionize the rapidly evolving social gaming market. The technology allowsRead More →

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Virtual worlds like Second Life can successful be used for creative learning activities but only if the students understand the purpose of their activities in the virtual world, and aren’t overwhelmed by the learning curve, according to a researcher at Indiana’s Ball State University. Otherwise, students will feel frustrated withRead More →

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Press Release: Virtual Edge Institute Launches Extensive Survey about Work-Related Uses of Virtual Technologies Giving away two free iPads to participants Pleasanton, CA – The Virtual Edge Institute (VEI) announced today that it is launching a comprehensive survey to understand the work-related uses of virtual technologies and digital environments. The ProfessionalRead More →