Press release: Leading universities worldwide join OSVR Open Source Virtual Reality hardware dev kits to be given to more than 20 higher education labs and research facilities SAN FRANCISCO – Organizers of the Open Source Virtual Reality, a software platform designed to set an open standard for virtual reality inputRead More →

DigiWorldz launched this week, a new filtered grid from one of the founders of 3rd Rock Grid and digital worlds hosting and consulting company Digital Worlds Group. There were more than 30 new grids in the latest Hypergrid Business monthly stats report, but DigiWorldz stands out not only in the caliberRead More →

The new official release of OpenSimulator — OpenSimulator 0.8.1 — came out this week, with only minor changes compared with the preview release. “The most significant being a fix for a regression where script state was being lost for hypergrid transfers,” core developer Justin Clark-Casey said in an announcement. Compared toRead More →

The exportable content on the Kitely Market grew ten times faster than non-exportables over the past month, continuing a trend that began late last summer. The market added 245 new exportable items, compared to 23 non-exportable ones, for a new total of 7,950 different variations of 3,898 products. A singleRead More →

This was another record-breaking month for OpenSim, with new highs in regions, users, and active users on the 323 active worlds. For those who are new readers, OpenSim is a free, open source virtual world platform that’s compatible with the Oculus Rift. It allows people with no technical skills toRead More →

Press Release: Explore thousands of years old sites with Oculus Rift AMSTERDAM — ArcheoScan has launched a 10,000 Euro (US $10,500) Kickstarter campaign to convert a scanned archeological site for virtual reality. “Imagine yourself exploring mysterious tombs and secret places built even before the Roman Empire started. Picture yourself walking around, jumpingRead More →

Press release: Next Galaxy to Develop Virtual Reality Applications for Miami Children’s Hospital MIAMI BEACH, Fla. — Next Galaxy Corp, a leading technology and content solutions company developing dynamic, innovative consumer Virtual Reality experiences and technology, is pleased to announce the signing of an agreement with Miami Children’s Hospital (MCH)Read More →

Press release: Avination required to stop transfer of Linden Dollars London – Due to recent interaction with Linden Labs, the Avination grid is announcing that the transfer of Linden Dollars to Avination is no longer available, including payment for Avination regions via the Avination ATMs. “Following discussions with Linden Labs they have advised that anyRead More →

Mountain Dew has produced the Dew VR Snow Experience, a live-action snowboarding virtual reality experience that takes fans on a 360 degree adventure through the Utah backcountry. The on-site experience will debut at the Burton US Open of Snowboarding in Vail, Colorado and South by Southwest in Austin, Texas and willRead More →

I don’t usually go around telling people what the best grids are. I run surveys, or I punt the question and just say, “What ever grid works best for you” or “Your own private grid” or something like that. The thing is, everybody is looking for something different. Some peopleRead More →

This week, OpenSimulator released a security fix to protect content on public grids. All public grids should either install the fix, or configure an HTTP proxy to protect important ports, said OpenSim core developer Justin Clark-Casey in the announcement. But the danger goes beyond protecting the data on grid servers, ifRead More →

Cirque du Soleil Media has partnered with Samsung to produce a live action virtual reality aerial show to be viewed on its flagship Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge smartphones in combination with the Gear VR headset. Read full article at The Hollywood Reporter.Read More →

Icelandic article Björk is making a music video for the Oculus Rift. “It’s easy to get really intimate [with virtual reality],” she said in a recent interview. “It’s almost more intimate than real life. It also has this crazy panoramic quality. I think it’s really exciting.” Read the full article atRead More →

This past week’s Game Developers Conference in San Francisco featured more female speakers than ever before, according to new analysis from Vocativ. According to the report, the number of women speakers at the conference has doubled, from 10 percent in 2011, to 20 percent this year. Read full report here.Read More →

The RobStock team have set the date for the 8th annual RobStock Charity Event for the last weekend in March, from Friday, March 27 to Sunday, March 29. “We are asking artists to give an hour of their time free, all tips going to the charity,” the organizers said in a pressRead More →

Game development studio Epic has just announced that their engine, the infamous Unreal Engine, will be completely free for everyone to use starting immediately. This is a full version of Unreal Engine, and not just a demo or trial version. Those who choose to use Unreal Engine will still beRead More →

Press release: HTC unveils strategic partnership with Valve; announces VR developer edition available in Spring and consumer edition available by end of 2015 BARCELONA, Spain – HTC, a pioneer in innovative, smart technologies, today announced plans to bring mass-market virtual reality (VR) one step closer. Through a strategic partnership with Valve, HTCRead More →

Sony says its Project Morpheus will be released for the PlayStation 4 in the first half of 2016, bringing virtual reality to its game console. The manufacturer revealed a new design for the headset as well as improved hardware specifications, as it prepares to release the PS4-powered VR headset inRead More →

MindMaze Announces $8.5 Million in Angel Funding; MindLeap Game System Driven by Players’ Brainwaves SAN FRANCISCO — GAME DEVELOPERS CONFERENCE – Today MindMaze, a neurotechnology company, unveiled the industry’s first thought-powered virtual reality (VR), augmented reality and motion capture game system, MindLeap. The system is based on MindMaze’s proprietary, medically-provenRead More →

OpenSim core developer Melanie Thielker is donating a new cluster storage solution to the community. Called FSAssets, it is designed to replace the MySQL databases or the RAID storage arrays used by other grids. FSAssets is also the new asset storage for OSgrid, which had previously relied on RAID storage. Any gridRead More →

Monthly pageviews for Hypergrid Business crossed the 100,000 milestone for the first time in its six-year history, according to today’s Google Analytics report. Visitors viewed 101,371 pages in February, up from 97,036 pages in January. Both of these numbers are a significant increase over last year, when monthly pageviews typicallyRead More →

US $10 (8 Euro) for a 15,000-prim region. Includes Bullet physics, hypergrid, Vivox voice, backups, choice of six starting OARs.Read More →

$15 per month for a 15,000-prim varregion region on the Tag Grid, no set up fee.  Can hold up to 100 avatars. Can be sized as a single standard region, a 2×2 varregion or 4×4 varregion. Grid has own online content marketplace. No hypergrid. Read More →

An open grid is one that allows outside people to connect their own regions. Those regions could be hosted for free on home computers, or be provided by third-party hosting companies, such as Dreamland Metaverse, Zetamex, CloudServe, Oliveira, or any other grid-agnostic vendor on our hosting list. Here is theRead More →

John Vechey, the cofounder of Bejeweled maker PopCap Games, has created a new startup, Pluto VR, to take advantage of the opportunity that the resurgence of virtual reality has created. Seattle-based Pluto VR will focus on the software needed to make virtual and augmented reality environments more social and connected. ReadRead More →

Press release: CommonFloor Introduces Virtual Reality for consumers in Real Estate – CommonFloor Retina Bangalore – CommonFloor.com, India’s leading online real estate platform introduces CommonFloor Retina, world’s first virtual reality innovation in real estate that is available to the masses. This technological breakthrough offers ‘real’ property experience for the seekers allowing them toRead More →

Inventory exports, or IARs, became a heated topic of discussion in Google Plus communities yesterday, with one grid even disabling its IAR exports temporarily as a result. Much of the debate is due to a misunderstanding of how IAR backups work — and of how thieves steal content. What isRead More →

Press release: 360Heros announces new technology for producing 4K virtual reality 360° videos Supports Oculus Rift, Samsung Gear VR, Google Cardboard headsets Offers super high-definition video Olean, NY – 360Heros Inc., a company specializing in virtual reality 360 video technology, creates camera systems that can capture 4K (4,000 x 2,000 pixels)Read More →

Ready Player One is a best-selling novel by Ernest Cline set in the year 2044, a time when nearly the entire human population is tapped into a metaverse called The Oasis. There’s also a movie currently in development. The book is a love letter to 1980’s culture, but it stillRead More →

Augmented and Virtual Reality Devices to Explode from 3 Million Units in 2015 to 55 Million in 2020 Scottsdale, Arizona – ​The augmented (AR) and virtual reality (VR) markets are seeing much action, from new devices and new content, to existing content adapting to make use of the new medium. HeadRead More →

OpenSim developer Dahlia Trimble has won a bounty for her work on fixing llLookAt, a function useful in making objects move better. “Fred Beckhusen has tested the code and is happy with the result,” said Talla Adams in an announcement today. Adams, who is the moderator of the OpenSim VirtualRead More →

OSgrid, the oldest grid running on the OpenSim software, is backup. The news was announced in a tweet a few minutes ago. “OSgrid is opening its gates to direct logins and regions at this very minute,”Melanie Thielker, founder and owner of the Avination grid and an OpenSim core developer, told Hypergrid Business. “It’sRead More →

WizDish‘s ROVR developer kit will cost £395, or about US $610, according to a report today in VRFocus. WizDish is an omni-directional treadmill similar to the $700 Virtuix Omni or the $600 Cyberith Virtualizer and is designed to allow users to walk or run while wearing virtual reality headsets. The device requires special shoes, andRead More →

Valve just announced that it will show off its own virtual reality hardware, SteamVR, at next month’s Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. Valve is the company behind Portal, Team Fortress 2 and the widely-used PC game distribution hub Steam. “At GDC 2015, we’ll be giving demos of the refined Steam Controller,Read More →

Press release: Immersive Technology Alliance Annual Meeting and Affiliated VR Mixer Offers Easy Access From GDC Event Features VR Design Education, Industry Predictions, and Open Standards Discussion TORONTO, ON — Non-profit and non-proprietary, the Immersive Technology Alliance (ITA) is the voice and standards body for technologies such as virtual reality, augmentedRead More →

Ever since the hardware failure took down OSgrid‘s asset database last August, OSgrid residents have been worrying about whether the grid would ever recover — and, if it did, whether their inventories would be restored as well. The wondering is now over. The asset database has been rebuilt, in aRead More →

With the renewed interest in consumer-grade virtual reality systems, it is inevitable that there will be a new sort of “format war” going on for the hearts and minds — and wallets — of the general public. How this will play out is anybody’s guess, but the current positioning of contendersRead More →

When it comes to virtual reality, there are two fronts, two main technical directions that the technology is evolving in that everyone is talking about. But there’s also a third front, that hasn’t been getting as much attention, but which has the potential of being truly revolutionizing. Videos and video games OneRead More →

River Island, a UK-based fashion chain, has released the first-ever fashion app for Google Cardboard-compatible virtual reality headsets. The app was released to promote the launch of the company’s Design Forum x Jean-Pierre Braganza collection, which hits the stores on February 24, and was created in partnership with the British Fashion CouncilRead More →

The drama-plagued AviWorlds grid is back up under its previous ownership with a new domain name, and a new business model. “This will not be a commercial grid and you can only enter by invitation or referral,” grid owner and founder Alexsandro Pomposelli told Hypergrid Business. He is also known asRead More →

Today, the US Patent Office awarded Apple a patent for a virtual reality headset that is, in effect, a case for an iPhone or iPod. The patent application does not mention the iPad — possibly because it was first filed seven years ago, in 2008, two years before the iPadRead More →

Given the choice between selling to Kitely‘s 1,003 local active users or to the 14,075 on the hypergrid, it makes sense that more and more Kitely Market merchants have gone the hypergrid route. In fact, exportables have long been growing at a faster rate than non-exportables for the past eightRead More →

Press release: Open Source Virtual Reality platform gains traction with 13 new partners VR ecosystem is now supported by 38 members; Academia Support Program announced to support developers worldwide CARLSBAD, Calif. – Razer, a world leader in connected devices and software for gamers, and Sensics, a leader in high-performance virtualRead More →

The Adult Metaverse Google Plus group was the fastest-growing OpenSim-related virtual community over the past six weeks. The community, as it sounds, is dedicated to adult content and events on the hypergrid, and has grown from 282 members on January 1 to 444 members today, a growth of 162 members.Read More →

This was another record-breaking month for OpenSim, with new highs in regions, users, and active users on the 303 active worlds. For those who are new readers, OpenSim is a free, open source virtual world platform that’s compatible with the Oculus Rift. It allows people with no technical skills toRead More →

OSgrid has been able to restore the rest of the assets from the recovery disk, OSgrid grid administrator Allen Kerensky announced today. However, he did not provide an estimated date for when OSgrid will be coming back up. He did say that the grid was now working on setting up the networkingRead More →