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For a limited time, Kitely‘s “Mega Worlds” region packages are on sale again, for $90 a month, the company announced today. A “Mega World” is a variable size region the size of 64 standard region that can hold up to 150,000 prims. That works out to about $1.40 per standardRead More →

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The total land area of OpenSim’s public grids jumped by more than 33,000 region equivalents this month, with the addition of a large new grid to our list. However, the total number of active users was down by nearly 1,500, due to several grids not reporting stats this month. MissingRead More →

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Kitely, a leading OpenSim grid, has announced a significant upgrade to its virtual world hosting service, implementing an enhanced version of OpenSim 0.9.2.2. This update comes on the heels of a recent system-wide upgrade that doubled world performance. According to an announcement earlier this week, the new version of OpenSim includesRead More →

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OpenSim active users are up by 1,039 this month, reaching a new all-time high of 48,234. The total land area also increased, by 489 standard region equivalents. However, the total number of registered users on all the public OpenSim grids fell by more than 10,000 since May. The biggest reasonRead More →

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Kitely, a leading OpenSim grid, has announced a significant upgrade to its virtual world hosting service, doubling the performance of all Kitely regions without increasing prices. The company has achieved this by adopting the latest Amazon server technology, the M7i generation, while maintaining its existing pricing structure. “This upgrade enablesRead More →

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I don’t personally agree with the dystopian visions of the metaverse as presented by sci-fi writers. But if you want to understand where the inspiration for platforms like Second Life — and OpenSim — comes from, these books are a must-read. Plus, they might give us some tips about whatRead More →

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The total land area in OpenSim fell this month by over 3,000 standard region equivalents, the total number of registered users fell by just over 1,000, and the number of active monthly users dropped by 425 compared to this time last month. The region loss was due to the factRead More →

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Today was the last day of 3rd Rock Grid, one of the oldest grids in OpenSim. The grid announced that it was closing back in March, and, since then, many of the former residents have found their way to other grids, with ZetaWorlds being a popular destination. Start at Sirocco,Read More →

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One of my interests is the relationship between the real world and the virtual. If the virtual can inspire or inform the real, it then transcends its technical isolation. Curating an art exhibition is just such an opportunity. In the physical realm, curating is labor intensive, so decisions on placementRead More →

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The total land area on OpenSim’s public grids reached the equivalent of 138,831 standard regions this month, an all-time high — and the fourth month in a row that OpenSim land area has broken this record. That’s an increase of more than 5,000 regions since last month. The biggest gainerRead More →

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The total land area on OpenSim’s public grids reached the equivalent of 133,076 standard regions this month, an all-time high — and the third month in a row that OpenSim land area has broken records. There was an increase of 1,196 standard region equivalents compared to last month. Meanwhile, theRead More →

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The seventeenth annual Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education Conference, beginning on Thursday, March 14, 2024, will be an online distributed conference happening in multiple virtual spaces. This conference focuses on the use of immersive virtual environments for educational purposes including virtual and augmented reality. This year we are returningRead More →

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I cover artificial intelligence at my day job. Every week, I talk to the experts building the technology and deploying it, and to companies already finding value in it. The AI-powered transformation is bigger than anything I’ve ever covered before, in my two-plus decades of technology journalism. And it’s movingRead More →

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The total land area on OpenSim’s public grids reached the equivalent of 131,880 standard regions this month, an all-time high, with an increase of 369 standard regions compared to last month. Meanwhile, the total number of registered users went up by more than 2,100 and the number of active usersRead More →

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The organizers of OSFest 2024, an annual festival that will be held this coming October, recently opened voting for this year’s theme to their Discord community. Festival participants can vote by reacting with a specific emoji to indicate their preferred theme from a selection of options, either via the OSFestRead More →

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The total land area on OpenSim’s public grids reached the equivalent of 131,511 standard regions this month, an all-time high, on an increase of more than 1,000 standard regions compared to last month. However, the total number of active users went down by over 3,500. Part of the decrease wasRead More →

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I’m giving two presentations tomorrow at the OpenSim Community Conference. First, I’m giving my usual state of the hypergrid talk at 3:30 p.m. Pacific time. I’ll be doing a roundup of this year’s top news and OpenSim statistics. Then, at 4 p.m. Pacific, I’ll be talking about how generative AIRead More →

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As usual this time of year, activity on OpenSim grids is up as people spend more time inside on the computer, and grids ramp up for holiday events. Compared to last month, the number of active users is up by nearly 1,700. The total land area is down, however, byRead More →

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This year’s Hypergrid International Expo kicks off at 11 a.m. Pacific Time on Friday, October 6 at the HIE’s Auditorium on Craft World, featuring an opening party with music from Zoree Jupiter at 11 a.m., Arianna Nightfire at 1 p.m., and Forest Azure at 10 p.m. Pacific Time. “The three artistsRead More →

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OpenSim land area has passed 130,000 standard region equivalents this month, for a new all-time high. This is the second month in a row that OpenSim has set a land record. The total number of regions grew by over 2,000 over the past month. Registered users also increased, by moreRead More →

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The annual OpenSimulator Festival, known as OSFest, takes place September 15 through September 30 inside the OSFest virtual world grid. The sixteen-day event features live music, exhibits, talks, tours, social spaces, and shopping for attendees across the Hypergrid metaverse. This year’s OSFest offers 94 hours of non-music events at free,Read More →

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StoryLink Radio and Seanchai Library will host a series of Halloween-themed live voice, streamed, and in-world storytelling sessions during the month of October, which is high story-telling season. Virtual world citizens are welcome to listen to the stories at the Halloween Merchant Mall in Kitely. There will also be aRead More →

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The Metaverse Spectrum Business Conference, Expo, and Pitch Fest will highlight expanding business applications for the metaverse at its virtual conference this coming December.  The event, which will be held in the metaverse, will include sessions on marketing, product development, training, and recruiting applications of the metaverse. Speakers will hailRead More →

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OpenSim’s public grids hit a record high this month with its largest land area ever, the equivalent of 127,958 standard regions. This was an increase of 2,252 regions compared to last month. Meanwhile, the total number of registered users on public OpenSim grids increased by 7,440 and the total number ofRead More →

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  AviTron owner Alexander Pomposelli has a long history of closing grids without warning. Back when he ran AviWorlds, I counted more than a dozen times that he closed that grid, often without any warning. Residents complained of losing access to regions, inventories, and in world-currency balances. At one point,Read More →

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AvatarLife is launching its Wild Poker game today, based on Texas Hold’em poker. But it’s more skill-based, said AvatarLife CEO Sushant Chandrasekar. There is also a starting jackpot of 1 million AV$, the grid’s local currency — which translates to about US $4,000. “The launch event will be a threeRead More →

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The Discovery Grid will host its seventh anniversary party on Saturday, July 1 at the Louisville region, featuring a virtual Thunder Over Discovery 2023 aviation event which will coincide with the real-life Thunder Over Louisville aircraft event, showcasing vintage and modern aircraft in action. Both grid residents and hypergrid visitorsRead More →

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AvatarLife grid will host a virtual Pride Week for residents and visitors from other grids starting at 11 a.m. Pacific Time on Saturday, June 24, with events running through Friday, June 30. The Pride Week, which coincides with and has events that match those held during the United Nation’s PrideRead More →

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The public OpenSim grids gained nearly 2,000 regions this past month, and more than 1,300 new registrations, but continued to bleed active users as the weather improves and people spend less time inside at their computers. However, the total number of active public grids has reached a new record highRead More →

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Littlefield grid turns ten on Saturday, April 1, and will host a week-long birthday party on its Anniversary region. There will be a live performance by OpenSim renowned artist Rogue Galaxy at 5 p.m. Pacific time on April 1, followed by a live DJ dance party with Littlefield’s own DJRead More →

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Second Life, the popular virtual world platform that has been around for over two decades, is finally releasing a mobile viewer. The new mobile viewer is currently a work in progress, but the Second Life development team has shared a sneak peek at what users can expect. Watch the previewRead More →

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Florida-based Avalon Corp. has raised $13 million to build a platform for games capable of taking advantage of the metaverse, featuring a universe of interoperable worlds with various intellectual properties, to be built using technologies including blockchain and game engines. According to the press release, Avalon Corp is uniquely experiencedRead More →

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Generative AI is one of the world’s top three geopolitical risks this year — right after Russia and China — according to a report released last month by the Eurasia Group, a US-based risk consultancy. “This year will be a tipping point for disruptive technology’s role in society,” the reportRead More →

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At Hypergrid Business, we’ve been covering OpenSim and other desktop-based virtual environments since 2009, and began covering virtual reality extensively in 2014. Our goal has been to promote an open-source, distributed metaverse, and to help the little guy and gal with navigating that landscape. Specifically, the people running OpenSim-based virtualRead More →

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Hi, everyone. This is me, Maria, your friendly local technology reporter and blog editor. You might know me from such things as my annual OpenSim stats presentations at the OpenSimulator Community Conference, my various attempts to run an OpenSim grid on my home computer, or the fact that, since 2009,Read More →