Press release: University of Notre Dame and NextVR Deliver Football in Virtual Reality for the First Time Legendary collegiate football program teams with leading virtual reality content provider to present highlights from Oct. 15 Notre Dame vs. Stanford game NOTRE DAME, Ind. — University of Notre Dame football and NextVR,Read More →

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 →

Press release: IMAX and ODEON & UCI Cinemas to launch first IMAX VR center in Europe Groundbreaking Agreement Ushers in Next-Generation of Immersive Entertainment Experiences to ODEON’s Printworks Multiplex in England LONDON – IMAX Corporation today announced an agreement with leading European exhibitor, ODEON & UCI Cinemas Group, to installRead More →

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 →

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 →

Fox gave away 25,000 virtual reality viewers to fans of The Simpsons to celebrate the show’s 600th episode this week. They went quick. They were Google Cardboard viewers, made of cardboard, and made by Knox Labs, one of the best-known of the companies making Google Cardboards. Fox Broadcasting Company andRead More →

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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

More brands are likely to engage in using 360 degree video advertising, 2D digital billboards, 2D video, and even TV spots inside virtual reality environments over the next two years, the Interactive Advertising Bureau said in a report released Monday. At the same time, heat mapping analytics, emotional and story telling experiences willRead More →

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 →

The first lecture of Harvard’s CS50 introductory programming class, can now be viewed as a 360-degree video. It was filmed using the professional-level Nokia OZO VR camera, which costs around $45,000. This is the first time that the class is available in a format that can be viewed immersively on a virtualRead More →

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 →

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 →

Virtual reality ad platforms continue to evolve, with vendors now offering analytics for advertisements placed inside 360-degree videos, virtual reality games, and other virtual experiences. Vendors are also trying to make the ads less annoying for users by experimenting with ad types and placements. VirtualSky Denver-based VirtualSky recently rolled out the ability toRead More →

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 →

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 →

If you spent the summer enjoying the doors and avoiding the news, then you’re one of the fortunate ones who was able to avoid the mess that is U.S. politics — but you might also have missed the flood of VR-related announcements. The amount of virtual reality news coming outRead More →

Unity Technologies is organizing series of events in US and Canada to talk to young women who are curious about careers in game development. The company behind the popular Unity game platform engine used to develop video games for PC, consoles, mobile devices and websites. Unity is also one of the most popularRead More →

Press release: Greenlight Insights’ Virtual Reality Strategy Conference 2016 to Address Growth and Monetization Challenges VRS 2016 takes place Nov. 1-2, in San Francisco, and will feature new research findings from Greenlight’s fall 2016 VR Industry Report SAN FRANCISCO – Greenlight Insights’ Virtual Reality Strategy Conference 2016, will take place Nov. 1-2,Read More →

The car industry has long been at the forefront in introducing new technology and has often developed new technologies from within, putting them quickly into production mostly with huge safety and ecology benefits. Sceptics might argue that much of this progress has been at the hard-fought insistence of regulators, toRead More →

Press release: The World Chess Championship Match 2016 to become the first of any sport to be broadcast in 360-degree Virtual Reality The World Chess Championship Match, to take place in New York in November of 2016, is to be broadcast live in 360-degree virtual reality, a global first for any sport.Read More →

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 →

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 →

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 →

Press release: MyDream Announces LightVR, a Customizable and Interactive Virtual Reality Desktop Explore and Build Your Ideal Virtual Environment for Operating Your PC With LightVR’s Virtual Room Simulator SEATTLE, WA – Virtual Reality company and development studio MyDream Interactive Inc. today announced the early access release of LightVR, a multi-windowRead More →

Filming a 360-degree video of a model train set isn’t like filming life-sized events and requires special techniques and equipment, according to a team of Norwegian entrepreneurs. Special cameras are needed to film in extreme close-ups, and extra work is required to compensate for the parallax effect. The filmmakers – PointMediaRead More →

I got into writing about OpenSim back in 2009 because it seemed to be, at the time, the best path to an open-source, peer-to-peer metaverse. I want to see a future where anyone could put up a virtual environment, and have people teleport in and out from other people’s environments. ARead More →

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 →

Sony Music Entertainment will launch its Littlstar Japan VR video services next month, the company announced Wednesday. New York-based Little Star Media Inc. will provide the VR delivery platform, Sony said in the announcement. Content will be delivered via the browser, and to a variety of virtual reality headsets including theRead More →

Press release: Penn State Athletics Launching Virtual Reality Channel Nittany Lions fans to have access to exclusive virtual reality content; will receive free VR headset to watch content from all 31 programs UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa.– Penn State Intercollegiate Athletics and EON Sports VR today announced a partnership to create aRead More →

Next year, all mainstream Windows 10 computers will be able to run augmented and virtual reality applications built for the  Windows Holographic platform, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich announced at the Intel Developer Forum earlier this month. Windows Holographic was originally developed for the HoloLens, Microsoft’s augmented reality headset. Watch demo video below:Read More →

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 →

Lifeliqe, a platform for 3D, VR and AR educational content, has launched a content creator tool that will allow educators to create intuitive and immersive educational content that integrate interactive 3D models in order to make lessons, presentations and e-books more engaging. The creator tool will also be brought into VRRead More →

Press release: THE IMMERSE SUMMIT RETURNS ON TUES. OCT. 11TH AS THE LARGEST IMMERSIVE TECHNOLOGY CONFERENCE & EXPO IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST Now in its 3rd year, IMMERSE (Formerly SEA-VR) will bring together all of the latest Learnings, Companies and Innovations in the Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality Industry BELLEVUE,Read More →

A lot of folks are interested in getting a career in virtual reality these days, and I don’t blame them. The industry is exploding. So I’m getting emails from folks asking me for advice in how to get started. My standard advice is to go to college for a degreeRead More →

Press release: Worldwide Revenues for Augmented and Virtual Reality Forecast to Reach $162 Billion in 2020, According to IDC  FRAMINGHAM, Mass. – According to the new Worldwide Semiannual Augmented and Virtual Reality Spending Guide from the International Data Corporation (IDC), worldwide revenues for the augmented reality and virtual reality (AR/VR) marketRead More →

Disclosure: This headset was provided free by GeekBuying. I like the idea of using all-in-one headsets for things like real estate and auto show rooms, trade shows or roller coaster rides. There’s no point of using an expensive headset or a high-end mobile phone if all you’re doing is showingRead More →

Press release: The Dark Ride Project – Saving classic haunted attractions using Virtual Reality Since the 1970s, hundreds of ghost trains and haunted house rides have closed across the USA and they are now an endangered species. The Dark Ride Project captures the last of the world’s dark rides using virtual reality, sharing theirRead More →

Public speaking is the single most common phobia, according to numerous studies. Now, virtual reality provides a low-stress way to overcome this fear and improve speaking skills. It can also help companies in the business of public speaking training and clinicians whose clients have related challenges. Here some virtual reality applications to try.Read More →

I spent the last two weeks traveling in China visiting virtual reality companies and attending the annual China Joy conference. China has a very active VR ecosystem with a lot to learn but I came away with a clear key thesis: China will be a major first market for VR. High-end VRRead More →

China’s Alibaba online retail giant told China Daily that it is developing virtual-reality-enabled mobile payment technology, which could allow users to pay bills in a 3-D virtual world by nodding their heads or making other gestures to log in payment accounts. Read the full story here. The company. which is known as China’s Amazon,Read More →

If you want to share your OpenSim build online so that people can explore it with a virtual reality headset, consider Sketchfab. The platform, which has half a million registered users and nearly a million VR models, claims to be the largest 3D content sharing site on the web. For example, theRead More →

MetaWorld, a multi-user virtual world, will add virtual reality creation tools and allow exporting of objects and launch a marketplace. The MetaWorld Pioneer Edition is currently in pre-alpha and users can pre-order it for $9.99 for early pioneer access. It will be released later this year with support for the Samsung Gear VR. Later on,Read More →

The smartphone is able to replace a lot of the things we use to need. Alarm clocks, GPS devices, cameras, mail delivery, televisions, radios, tape recorders, record players, calculators, guitar tuners, pedometers — the list goes on and on. The next-generation augmented and virtual reality headset, which looks like aRead More →

While CtrlAltStudio viewer 1.2.6.43412 has provided 3D/VR access for the Oculus Rift in Second Life and OpenSim, there is another way to explore virtual worlds in VR – through VorpX. VorpX allows some applications and games not specifically designed for virtual reality headsets to work in 3D virtual reality mode. With virtual world viewersRead More →

As the virtual and augmented reality space heats up, so does the number of conferences. Check out the latest technologies and network with industry leaders at these coming events. Below are a number of events organized in the virtual and augmented reality industry this year, which will take place inRead More →

New York-based Become Inc., launched a crowdfunding campaign last week for Veeso, which promises to be the world’s first virtual reality headset with built-in cameras that track facial expressions. The $70 Cardboard-compatible headset will work with both iPhones and Androids, with delivery estimated by the end of this year. ItRead More →