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Press release: ImmersiON announces strategic fusion with VRelia IRVINE, Calif. — Irvine-based ImmersiON has announced a partnership with Spain’s VRelia to combine ImmersiON’s head-mounted display technology with the Professional Head Mounted Display business unit of VRelia to provide the user with an unparalleled experience. “This is ground breaking news,” said Kevin Williams, chairman of International ImmersionRead More →

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The first image of Samsung’s new virtual reality headset, the Gear VR, have been leaked online. Gear VR is basically a more comfortable and durable version of Google Cardboard, though with one significant difference. Both headsets work by putting two lenses in front of a customer’s own smartphone. In theRead More →

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William Warren’s research group is advancing virtual reality technology in the service of studying the science of the swarm: how patterns of crowd movement emerge from individual behaviors. He described his work June 29 in a keynote address to a conference in Vancouver. PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] —The cognitive scientistsRead More →

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OSgrid became the second OpenSim grid to hit 100,000 registered users today. OSgrid is the leading testing and development grids for OpenSim, one of the oldest grids, and the second-largest grid by land area. The grid is celebrating its seventh birthday later on this month. InWorldz, the most popular commercialRead More →

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OculusVR, the company behind the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset that was acquired by Facebook for $2 billion this year, will hold a virtual reality conference in September. Oculus Connect will be held on September 19 and 20 in Hollywood, California and is aimed at virtual reality developers, engineers andRead More →

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Press release: Virtual Reality in Gaming Market Expected to Reach USD 5,839.9 Million Globally in 2019: Transparency Market Research ALBANY — According to a new market report published by Transparency Market Research, Virtual Reality in Gaming Market, the global virtual reality in gaming market was worth USD 466.6 million inRead More →

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The OpenSimulator Community Conference has begun running scalability tests on its grid every Tuesday at noon Pacific time. The hypergrid address is cc.opensimulator.org:8002:Keynote 1. Load testing doesn’t just help the conference organizers. “All related performance improvements are fed directly back into the OpenSimulator code base so will help everybody using the project,” saidRead More →

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There’s a number of things to be said about the publicity Linden Lab recently attracted for moving developers towards a next-generation version of Second Life. It’s bad for OpenSim. OpenSim still draws the majority of its users from Second Life due to the fact that it uses the same interface.Read More →

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The Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign for Control VR, a globe-based virtual reality motion control system ended successfully Saturday with $442,227 raised. The company had asked for $250,000. Delivery of the devices is scheduled to begin in December. A rig that includes both hands, arms, fingers and body cost $600 through theRead More →

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Press release: ‘Avatar Hookup’ Serves as Social Media Portal for Avatars A new social media platform is providing a safe space for avatars to connect. Avatar Hookup allows people to create anonymous identities to meet people with similar interests, add friends, post status updates, invite friends to events, place classified ads,Read More →

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I recently contracted with a builder to do some work on the Hyperica hyperport, and created a new provider agreement for the project. At the start of the project, before we had negotiated any terms, there were a bunch of options to pick from. The ones that were relevant to our project areRead More →

Screen shot of the WWII role play sim. (Image courtesy Suzan de Koning.)

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InWorldz residents are circulating a petition demanding the removal of a World War II-themed role playing build from the grid. “I cannot support a grid that makes it possible for people to play a role playing game based on World World II,” resident Suzan de Koning told Hypergrid Business. “ThereRead More →

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I’ve recently switched my advertising management platform from AdSpeed to Google’s DoubleClick for Publishers Small Business. It was a big change — I’d been using AdSpeed almost since Hypergrid Business was first launched five years ago. Since grids — especially commercial grids — can offer advertising to their customers onRead More →

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OculusVR announced this week that the first batch of the new, higher-resolution development kits, known as DK2, have left their manufacturing facility and are on their way to customers. “We expect to ship roughly 10,000 DK2s from the factory in July, with just over half of the units through distributionRead More →

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Oliveira Virtual Lands, an OpenSim hosting company known for its OSgrid regions, now allows its customers to save backups of their regions directly to Dropbox. “Oliveira Lands customers may make their backups at our server, they may choose to download to their own computers or save it to their DropboxRead More →

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A little more than two weeks ago, AviWorlds came back from its fifth official grid closing — not counting temporary outages due to technical issues — to announce that they will be running the grid by themselves from now on, with no outside help. Portuguese-language messages on the grid’s FacebookRead More →

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Press release: DreamNation Establishes Own Virtual Currency, DNCoins NEVADA — DreamNation has established its own virtual currency, DNCoins (DN$). DN$ was successfully and smoothly rolled out over the last two weeks of June, and has been adopted by members of the grid with enthusiasm. DreamNation previously used Virwox’s OMC$ as its internal currency prior to adoptingRead More →

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OpenSim grids are gearing up for the 4th of July and other summer events this coming month. OSgrid holds giant birthday bash OSgrid, the world’s most popular non-profit OpenSim grid, is having its seventh birthday celebration this month. The event will be held on July 26 and 27, and twoRead More →

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I’m a big believer in OpenSim. One reason is that I get to hear about large projects and deployments that use OpenSim that I’m not allowed to talk about. There are organizations out there paying sizeable sums for OpenSim builds and custom development work. Meanwhile, I also talk to vendorsRead More →

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If there’s anyone out there who can’t get crowd funding for their virtual world project, you no longer have any excuses. A rock simulator just got funded. Okay, it wasn’t much — its goal was $500 on IndieGoGo. But there’s still 28 days left to go in its fundraising campaign,Read More →

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Now that Facebook has bought OculusVR for $2 billion dollars, the pressure is on Google to do something in this space. This week, Google has released its own headset — and it’s made of cardboard.   Cnet calls Google Cardboard “perhaps one of the most important, quirky, and ingenious advances inRead More →

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Firefox is adding native support for virtual reality devices such as the Oculus Rift to its Web browser, developer Vladimir Vukićević said this week in a blog post. “We are adding native support for VR devices to early experimental builds of Firefox, so that Web developers can start experimenting with addingRead More →

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OculusVR will acquire the Carbon Design, the company behind the Xbox 360 controller, OculusVR announced this week. “The team will officially become a key component of the product engineering group at Oculus, operating from the Carbon studio in the Seattle area,” the company said.     “The Carbon team bringsRead More →

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Press release: Metaio R&D Lab Releases 6D Augmented Reality Holodeck Technology to Developers MUNICH — Metaio, the world leader in Augmented Reality (AR) software and solutions today revealed its 6D Holodeck technology that places virtual environments directly in the real world allowing smartphone users to explore them with their on-board cameras.Read More →

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There are some great companies working in the OpenSim ecosystem. Unfortunately, many of the customers who would benefit from their services never get to know about them because of a lack of outreach and marketing. Everybody suffers. The customer’s needs don’t get met because they settle for a product orRead More →

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ANTVR — a Beijing-based, open source alternative to the Oculus Rift, completed a successful Kickstarter campaign this week. ANTVR is a wireless virtual reality headset that comes with a clever transformable controller. Kickstarter prices started at $270, and delivery is scheduled for this September. Some critics are worried that theRead More →

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There are only four days left to get your proposal in for this fall’s OpenSimulator Community Conference. Last year, around 350 people attended the conference, and more than 3,000 watched the 40-plus videos posted online. The conference was also a great opportunity to network with potential business partners and technology experts.Read More →

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Most virtual reality headsets these days follow one of two paths — they’re either peripherals that plug into a PC or a gaming console, or they’re hollow frames that users drop their smartphones into. GameFace — for now, at least — is unique. The company behind it, San Francisco-based GameFaceRead More →

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As one of five partners in a very small  virtual world software startup, I went in search of patents that may concern my company’s next software product. I had no idea that I would be mired in a sea of legalese. Much of our company’s work involves the OpenSim platform.Read More →

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U.K.-based group Infinite Void is seeking £5,000 — about US $8,500 — for a virtual ride to outer space. The idea is to send a weather balloon with 12 GoPro cameras up to the edge of space — 30 kilometers, or nearly 20 miles, straight up. The recorded video would then beRead More →

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In celebration of the fact that Hypergrid Business has had more than 20,000 readers this month — a record high — I’ve been looking at the design of our advertising sales page. I’d been leaving this for last because for me, like for many people, this is the least fun part.Read More →

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Kitely, the largest commercial OpenSim grid by land area, plans to deliver its Kitely Market content throughout the metaverse — not just to OpenSim grids. “Our goal is to make Kitely Market the main metaverse marketplace,” Kitely CEO Ilan Tochner told Hypergrid Business. “As there are more than one platform vyingRead More →

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The popular Diva Distro version of OpenSim is now available with the latest 0.8 update of the software, supporting variable-sized regions and profiles. “Profiles and varregions both work out of the box for new installations of the Diva Distro,” developer Crista Lopes said in the announcement. Lopes, who is also known as DivaRead More →

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Arch Virtual is putting the finishing touches on a super fun project for the Sacramento Kings to help project stakeholders, fans and members of the community explore the arena long before construction starts. The new $477 million downtown Sacramento Entertainment and Sports Center was approved by the city of Sacramento lastRead More →

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Linden Lab is working on a new virtual world, Linden Lab has confirmed, but urged users not to panic. “Linden Lab is working on a next generation virtual world that will be in the spirit of Second Life, an open world where users have incredible power to create anything they canRead More →

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Linden Lab is working on a next generation virtual world that would not be backwards compatible with Second Life, said Radegast viewer developer Latif Khalifa in a post at SLUniverse today. According to Khalifa, Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg broke the news today at a meeting with third party viewerRead More →

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Over 40,000 orders for the Oculus Rift’s Development Kit 2 have already come in, bringing the total number of headsets sold to over 100,000. The DK2 became available for pre-order in mid-March, and shipping is scheduled to begin next month. “We’ll ship 20 to 30,000 in July,” said Nate Mitchell,Read More →

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The BBC is experimenting with immersive virtual reality, according to today’s blog post by Cyrus Saihan, head of business development for BBC Future Media. “When the BBC started making the world’s first regular public television broadcasts in 1936, there were only about 20,000 TV sets capable of receiving the programming,”Read More →

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Press release: Red Dot Square announces ground breaking Virtual Reality software to help organisations make better, faster, retail and shopper decisions A new development in Virtual Reality technology is changing the way businesses plan, visualise and improve the retail and shopper experience thanks to the creation of the industry’s leadingRead More →

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This is it. This is the kind of moment every democratic citizen argues for: An opportunity to give voice to your demands as a citizen. Don’t waste it. Act now. On May 15, the Federal Communications Commission began seeking public comments on how best to protect an open Internet. The publicRead More →