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Last month, Entropia Universe “discovered” a new moon. Today, the company announced that the moon “sold” for $150,000 to a player-led group of investors. This isn’t the first time the company has “sold” virtual property — a virtual setting called “Treasure Island” went for $26,500 in 2004. In 2005, “ClubRead More →

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Press release: Utherverse Launches Newest 3D Internet Version: ‘WebWorlds.com’ Vancouver, BC – Utherverse Digital Inc., the architects behind the 3D internet platform, today announced it is expanding its contribution to the 3D web space with the launch of its newest version, WebWorlds.com. Similar to the company’s 2009 Virtual World WebRead More →

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I beta-tested the latest version of the New World Studio today. It took me exactly five clicks to have a new OpenSim-based world up and running on my computer. And the whole process took five minutes. Though probably half of it was spent taking pictures of my computer screen, resizingRead More →

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Adminotech Ltd., a realXtend vendor, began publicly testing its WebRocket browser-based viewer for its Meshmoon virtual world today. The viewer is in its very early stages, however. It supports text chat and basic movement controls, but has no in-world building tools, avatar customization, user inventories, or voice. “This is not aRead More →

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Press release: WebGL Momentum Creating the Industry’s Most Secure and Portable 3D Platform Multiple WebGL implementations now fully conformant on desktop and mobile; WebGL 1.0.2 being ratified for stricter behavior and functionality extensions SAN FRANCISCO — The Khronos Group today announces that multiple WebGL 1.0.1 implementations are now fully conformantRead More →

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Metaverse security took a big step forward today as Avination donated OpenSim code implementing an “export” permission setting. The company also worked together with Singularity viewer developers to add support for this new permission to the viewer. Today, OpenSim has three permissions — copy, transfer, and modify — that determine whatRead More →

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Only 65 out of more than 110 participants were able to log into an OpenSim scalability test conducted last Friday by the U.S. Army Simulation & Training Technology Center. “Real-time inspection of the logins indicated messages were queuing — getting backed up — by the firewall,” said Douglas Maxwell, the center’s science and technology managerRead More →

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Press Release: U.S. Army and Intel team up making training virtually a reality Orlando, Fla. – The U.S. Army’s Research Laboratory’s, Human Research and Engineering Directorate, Simulation and Training Technology Center (STTC) and Intel Corporation entered into a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement to collaborate and optimize research in virtual trainingRead More →

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OpenSim hosting company MyOpenGrid has released the preview version of its free, open source front end for OpenSim grids, called Mwi. It is designed to more easier to install than most other web front ends available today, but with more functionality than the Diva Distro WiFi interface. Mwi is a content management system,Read More →

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When it comes to graphics, I’m not much of a power user. I mostly stick with cropping and scaling in Paint. People who know what they’re doing using Photoshop or its free, open source alternative — GIMP. When I absolutely positively need to use GIMP for something, I Google howRead More →

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Avination, a commercial grid running on the OpenSim software, donated its multi-attachment code today to the OpenSimulator project. Avination rolled out the multiple attachment feature on its grid earlier this month. “Avination’s developers worked hard to clean up and test this code for integration with OpenSim and so it’s possible to makeRead More →

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In virtual worlds, the question of free stuff — free content, free software, free land — comes up a lot. Some people love free stuff. Some people hate it. Some people say that all content should be free because there are no distribution costs. Some people say that content should cost moneyRead More →

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Starting a new company doesn’t have to take a lot of money, and you don’t have to make the big splash on your first day of operations. Instead, you can apply these tips from the world of lean business to start small and grow fast. 1: Identify a market needRead More →

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Sick and tired of the inaccurate statistics in Hypergrid Business every month? You know who you are. You’re sure you can do better. Well, I’m going to help you out. We’re running far behind on updating the Hyperica directory and I was thinking of automating some of the tasks, suchRead More →

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As Linden Lab gradually loses landmass in its virtual world, as shown so graphically in Tyche Shepherd’s Grid Survey data, the Lab turns again to a dog it kicked repeatedly in 2010: educators. Hamlet Au broke the story that the Lab is “quietly” reaching out to selected schools and nonprofitsRead More →

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The top 40 OpenSim grids gained 1,458 regions this month, for a new total of 24,040 regions on these grids, the second highest total since we began tracking these numbers in the summer of 2009. These grids also reported a total of 18,061 active users.  A total of 224 gridsRead More →

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Looking for an immersive platform for your company, non-profit, educational institution, or government agency? Start with the following list of vendors, all of which have a successful history of serving enterprise customers. Browser-based platforms Running a virtual world in a browser does impose some limitations on the environment. But, onRead More →

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With PixieViewer, we’re closer to the dream of a Web-based viewer for OpenSim than we’ve ever been before. This particular viewer, which is built using HTML 5 technology, solves the biggest usability problem that OpenSim has. It requires no download — no plugins, no Java, no configuration, nothing. You goRead More →

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Learning in “simulated worlds” is not a new idea – but the HP Catalyst team at City Academy in Norwich (UK) has a new approach… and some fascinating insights about its impact on at-risk students. Jerome Thompson, a teacher at City Academy Norwich, is one of the lead developers ofRead More →

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PixieTec, a virtual worlds development company based in Germany, released the preview version of its browser-based PixieViewer today, which allows users to visit OpenSim grids without installing any software or plugins. PixieViewer is based on HTML 5 technology, and runs in Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and other modern browsers. It loadsRead More →

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Press release: Coventry University in multimillion pound manufacturing boost using games technology SWINTON, UK — Coventry University’s Serious Games Institute is set to play a leading role in a £1.5 million (US $2.3 million) research project which aims to help manufacturing firms transform their business models using games technology. The project, announcedRead More →

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Avination announced support for multiple attachments today, a feature previously available only in Second Life. Avatars can now wear up to five attachments at each attachment point. “We have long heard from our users that this feature was sorely missed,” said grid founder Melanie Thielker. “Especially non-human avatars were severely limitedRead More →

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On Saturday, in the story  OpenSim grids still adapting to mesh, a couple of folks mentioned that OpenSim offers some advantages over Second Life when it comes mesh. According to OpenSim core developer Melanie Thielker, it’s about more than just not having to pay upload fees. “In Second Life, meshRead More →

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The question of avatar rights may seem to simply be a special case of the consumer rights discussion. But the areas in which avatar rights are different from generic consumer rights is where the biggest problems arise. Many consumers feel that they are in an inferior position – they haveRead More →

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Olivier Battini, the creator of New World Studio, has resumed work on the project. It will soon be available as a free download and as a paid, premium version. New World Studio is the hands-own easiest way to set up an OpenSim mini grid. (My review of it here.) LikeRead More →

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Even though OpenSim had mesh support the very next day after Second Life did — and, in fact, one branch of OpenSim, realXtend, had mesh since 2008 — OpenSim users have been slower to adopt mesh than residents of Second Life. One reason is that most grids do not dictateRead More →

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OSgrid has been incorporated as a non-profit and registered with the state of Texas, grid treasurer J. D. Celko announced Thursday on the grid’s forums. Celko, who is also known as Amy Storm in-world, said that the grid has also received its federal tax ID, and are currently applying forRead More →

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As the number of people using OpenSim grids rises, emotions seem to be rising, as well. I’ve been seeing it the comments on posts lately, and have had to moderate comments or close comments altogether. I want Hypergrid Business to be a place where people debate things in a nice,Read More →

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There was a cover story in Wired recently about how robots are going to take all our jobs. Since I started covering virtual worlds, I’ve been wondering what work was going to look like in the future. I had imagined it to look much like the work we do  now,Read More →

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Press release: CyberLightning Releases New Version of Virtual World Tool for Business Presentations Oulu, Finland –  CyberLightning Ltd. today announced CyberSlide 2.0, a new release of the presentation engine and conversion tool used to integrate business presentations into 3D virtual world environments. The new release adds to the company’s portfolioRead More →

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Hypergrid inventor Crista Lopes, professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine has added out-of-the-box support for groups and offline messages to OpenSim. Previously, grids that needed groups functionality had to install one of two separate third-party groups modules, Flotsam or Simian. “For both Flotsam and Simian you haveRead More →

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In the wake of a massive data loss and ensuing grid shut down at What Virtual World, InWorldz announced yesterday that it will begin offering encrypted inventory backups to its residents. The two events were not connected, InWorldz CTO David Daeschler told Hypergrid Business. He is also known as Tranquillity Dexler in-world.Read More →

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[Editor’s Note: Aurora-Sim branched off from OpenSim in early 2011.] I am very sad to see so many people tell me that I should give up on Aurora-Sim, and that it is a waste. I think it is mostly been placed there because people remember its biggest tank — theRead More →

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Low costs and ease of use are inspiring educators to use the OpenSim virtual world platform to build historical recreations, several of which were presented last fall in Paris at the European Immersive Education Summit. OpenSim is free, open source server software that allows the creation of Second Life-style virtual environments.Read More →

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Press release: ProtonMedia Announces Release 2.2 of ProtoSphere 3D Virtual Collaboration Cloud ProtonMedia to Showcase ProtoSphere 2.2 at Microsoft Lync Conference 2013® LANSDALE, Pa.–ProtonMedia, the leader in 3D virtual collaboration, announces the availability of Release 2.2, of its award-winning ProtoSphere virtual collaboration cloud. This latest release adds fine-grained moderator controlsRead More →

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The top 40 OpenSim grids gained 1,756 regions this month, the largest one-month increase since last September. It was also the second-largest increase overall, since we started keeping track in August 2008. There are now 22,582 regions on the top 40 OpenSim grids, 269,310 registered users, and 17,602 active users. The number ofRead More →

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Press release: VEI Verifies Digitell as its first Digital Event Solutions Provider Pleasanton, CA – The Virtual Edge Institute, today announced that Jamestown, NY-based Digitell, Inc., is the first to be verified under its new Verified Digital Event Solution Provider program, in which VEI assesses the capabilities of the organization and attests toRead More →

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Press release: CyberLightning and StockSmart Collaborate on ‘Visual Finance,’ 3D Internet Tool Will Empower Individual Portfolio Management Oulu, Finland and Cambridge, MA – CyberLightning Ltd. and StockSmart today announced a collaboration that will bring the power of 3D visualization to investors using StockSmart Apps. StockSmart plans to launch “Visual Finance”Read More →

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Avination, a commercial grid running on the OpenSim software, announced the donation of 800 lines of physics code today, which will help OpenSim users simulate bouncing balls, reindeer pulling sleds, and feathers lightly floating down through the air. The code was pushed to the OpenSimulator core repository on Friday, theRead More →

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Yesterday, I wrote about why sales are important to a company, and, more than that, are a good thing. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t bad ways of doing sales. And some of the worst techniques can actually work. Does that mean that you have to become evil inRead More →

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Update: James Stalling has provided more information about the recent administration changes to the I Live on Science Land blog. And member albertlr Landar has provided a nice overview of the non-profit situation on his forum post, Non-Profit Tax Deductible status of OSgrid & other matters. As we mentioned last month, OSgrid has hadRead More →

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Many regular people have a negative view of the sales and marketing profession. And no wonder. Most of our experience with sales is negative — intrusive telemarketing calls, annoying commercials, rude clerks. It’s no surprise that many beginning entrepreneurs think of sales as either unnecessary — “If someone wants something,Read More →

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OpenSim hosting company SoftPaw Estates announced that it is rebranding as Zetamex, and has launched a new grid running on the Aurora-Sim version of OpenSim. In addition to traditional single-region and mini-grid OpenSim hosting, Zetamex now also offers dedicated server packages. “Dedicated packages are for people who want direct controlRead More →

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Because we’re so passionate and committed to the arena of E-Learning in its many forms – virtual worlds development, 3D training scenarios, serious games, learning management systems and more – we wanted to revisit a subject we blogged about back in June of this year – The Gamification of LearningRead More →

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Press release: Results of Virtual Reality-based Psychotherapy Research at BBU, Romania Using EON Icube are Released Virtual reality therapy as effective, or more effective, than traditional therapy Is less risky for patients Will, in the future, become standard practice IRVINE, Calif. – EON Reality, the world’s leading interactive 3D visualRead More →

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“WOW!”  Seems to be an almost universal reaction to a first experience trying on the new Oculus Rift VR headset.  Watching a player’s first experience with Rift is always interesting to see, as the player gradually becomes immersed, suspending their disbelief, and eventually becomes part of the virtual environment.  With enthusiasticRead More →

Image courtesy curtfleenor.com via Flickr.

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Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2075 Worst day ever. Got hit by a bus yesterday, body a total loss. Now I’m online full time, instead of just visiting. The worst part? All the “little improvements” I’ve had done over the past few years, a little plastic surgery here, a little tinkering withRead More →

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A couple of people have asked me by email what what my definition of a grid is, and there was also some discussion of this in the comments of previous posts, and on other blogs, such as the Elf Clan Social Network. There seems to be a lot of confusionRead More →

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There has been some discussion about the practicality of accepting Bitcoin, but many fewer voices have been explaining the reasons Bitcoin may be a useful tool for your grid. There are at least five reasons that Bitcoin may be right for your grid. 1. Fraud mitigation BitPay, the number oneRead More →

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I recently needed an estimate for how many times OpenSim has been downloaded. Unfortunately, the main OpenSimulator.org site only began keeping statistics a couple of months ago. All we have is Diva Distro stats and Sim-on-a-Stick stats. The total number of Diva Distro downloads to date are about 19,000. TheRead More →