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Kitely became the second commercial OpenSim grid to roll out Vivox voice today. Boston-based Vivox Inc. is currently the gold standard of in-world voice, used in Second Life, EVE Online, EverQuest, Star Wars Galaxies, DC Universe Online and in many other massively online multiplayer games. The company reported 60 millionRead More →

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Second Life had the potential to be the 3D AOL, to usher in a new age of immersive 3D environments. It failed not because it was too complicated or difficult to use or tried to do too much at once. After all, AOL also was a one-stop-shop: shopping, forums, email,Read More →

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The top 40 OpenSim grids gained 915 new regions since this time last month, bringing the total number of regions on these grids to 21,595, a new record high. OSGrid was the single biggest gainer. The non-profit grid, which allows users to connect regions running on home computers at noRead More →

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Press release: WonderBuilders and STCC Awarded NSF Grant to Develop Virtual ESL Learning Environment Boston, MA— WonderBuilders, Inc., an Open Wonderland 3D virtual world platform and services provider, is partnering with Springfield Technical Community College (STCC) to create an English as a Second Language (ESL) learning environment. Funded by aRead More →

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Press Release: ‘Virtual Learning for Dummies’ Available From Virtual Communications Leader SAN FRANCISCO, CA — ON24, the global leader in webcasting and virtual event solutions, today announced the availability of “Virtual Learning for Dummies,” a free booklet that explains virtual training in a no-nonsense style. Available via ON24’s website, “VirtualRead More →

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Two new social worlds announced launches today — SmallWorlds, which is live, and Interactive City, which still seems to be the process of getting off the ground. SmallWorlds is a cartoonish, Flash-based, 2.5D, Lively-style virtual world more closely akin to Farmville than of Second Life. Built by New Zealand’s Outsmart,Read More →

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[Editor: Joe Essid teaches a class about Edgar Allen Poe’s “Fall of the House of Usher” for the department of English & Rhetoric & Communication Studies at the University of Richmond, using virtual space on the JokaydiaGrid.] With some glitches along the way, six groups of students completed their finalRead More →

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The premise: I believe that we’re about to see the massive growth of a metaverse in which people can easily travel from one public world to another. Over time, the technology will become increasingly easy to use and realistic — and we will see an explosion of companies offering productsRead More →

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Press release: ITE and EON Reality to Set-Up Centre for Virtual 3D Learning in Singapore IRVINE, CA — EON Reality, Inc., the world’s leading interactive 3D software provider, today announced that ITE — Institute of Technical Education, Singapore, has signed a MOU — Memorandum of Understanding — to collaborate inRead More →

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I belong to a business group in my area that recently expressed interest in setting up a virtual space for its members. The idea is that they could have meetings there, and individual members could get office space to use for their own projects and collaboration. I was pleasantly surprisedRead More →

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Press Release: Training Expert Randy Hinrichs to Present a Free Online Seminar: “Thinking and Learning in 3D—How to Create Successful Virtual Learning Experiences” Author of the new book “Transforming Virtual World Learning” will join 40 attendees in VenueGen for an interactive, small-group discussion of how immersive virtual classrooms can improveRead More →

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The results of the 2011 Hypergrid Business grid survey are in, with mid-sized grids serving language communities dominating the rankings. A record 459 people submitted responses this year, with a total of 63 different grids visited — up from 194 respondents and 35 grids last year. The most surprising resultRead More →

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Press release: UBM Partners with the Abu Dhabi Centre for Technical and Vocational Education and Training to Produce iCampus, the First Digital University in Middle East CHICAGO and LONDON — UBM Built Environment’s Client Solutions and UBM Studios today announced that they are partnering with the Abu Dhabi Centre forRead More →

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Cloud-based OpenSim vendor Kitely Ltd. rolled out two features today aimed at improving the social aspects of the grid — a list of publicly-accessible regions, and a maturity ranking system. “While many people use their virtual worlds for private activities, almost a third of all the Kitely worlds people haveRead More →

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Press Release: BAE Systems Invest in Daden to Develop Data Visualisation System Birmingham, UK — BAE Systems has signed an agreement with Birmingham based Daden Limited (Daden) to accelerate the development of a versatile 3D immersive visual analytics application which can be used for the collaborative analysis and understanding ofRead More →

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ReactionGrid was the early favorite in the race to provide a stable and safe OpenSim environment for educators and corporations. Over the last couple of years, however, the company has been falling behind the rest of the OpenSim universe, sticking with an old version of OpenSim as newer versions cameRead More →

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Press Release: ANCC Expands Virtual Poster Hall in 2011 Using the Digitell, 3D, Immersive Platform, ANCC Doubles the Number of Poster Sessions From Last Year Jamestown, NY– The American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) has contracted with Digitell for a second year to expand their 3D, Virtual Poster Session Hall. TheRead More →

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Press Release: 3rdRockGid.com launches Occupy World Peace Virtual Initiative The owners of 3rdRockGrid.com have thrown their support and solidarity behind the efforts of the Occupy protest movement sweeping the world. “From our collective position, this is not only a noble step, but a necessary one in order to bring theRead More →

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Press Release: Discover the Innovation Behind Some of the Industry’s First Virtual Clinical Trials ProtonMedia and Microsoft to host workshop at Microsoft’s Technology Center featuring industry leaders discussing the impact of virtual clinical trials LANSDALE, Pa.–ProtonMedia and Microsoft will be hosting an interactive workshop focused on innovation in clinical trials.Read More →

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Press release: Fashion Research Institute Announces ScienceSim Land Grant Program Awardees New York, NY  – Fashion Research Institute has been collaborating with Intel Labs since 2009, helping to push the limits of content development, and overseeing the Science Sim Land Grant Program. The program consists of awards of campuses of fourRead More →

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Press release: Virtual Tradeshows Provide Affordable, New Marketing Opportunity for the Building Industry Exhibitors can save up to $100,000 or more with online events compared to physical tradeshows, according to new white paper Seattle, Wash. — In an era of tight marketing budgets, virtual tradeshows provide a cost-effective way forRead More →

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Press Release: Unity Powers Army OneSource Virtual World Service Helps Soldiers and Loved Ones Connect From Anywhere Around the World SAN FRANCISCO, CA — Unity Technologies, provider of the Unity development platform for games and interactive 3D on the web, iOS, Android, consoles and beyond, is pleased to announce thatRead More →

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Press Release: Ten-Day “Be Fearless!” Online Festival Combines Art and Music with Education and Awareness-Raising for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Wiscasset, Maine — Fearless Nation PTSD Support, the world’s only nonprofit using virtual reality to help people with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), will hold its third annual PTSD educationRead More →

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Even as OpenSim implementation continues to grow, a constant remains: there is no viewer tailored specifically for OpenSim as it comes direct from OpenSimulator.org. It’s discouraging, and it’s easy to cite the nearly million lines of code that are simply too complex to unravel as the culprit, yet the reasonsRead More →

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AMSTERDAM — Chatbots.org, the Industry Catalyst of Intelligent Virtual Characters, reveals a business directory of almost 300 companies in conversational AI, (3D) avatar animation, speech synthesis and speech recognition and visual biometrics, and an additional Vendor Selector tool to select providers, designed for corporations in the middle of their buyingRead More →

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Three years ago today, on Oct. 26, 2008, Crista Lopes fired off the email that marked the birth of the hypergrid. Lopes, an OpenSim core developer, is also a professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine, and came up with a peer-to-peer system that allowed people to teleport fromRead More →

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The Island Oasis social grid has rolled out a custom fishing game, a vampire role playing game, an urban combat system and a speedway, and turned on hypergrid connectivity last week as part of a grid-wide revamp. That’s a lot of activity for a small grid — Island Oasis isRead More →

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Press release: RSNA Selects Digitell for First Virtual Event RSNA to Engage Members at Their Annual Meeting with a 3D/2D Virtual Platform Jamestown, NY — The Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) and Digitell, Inc. have signed an agreement to create the first 3D RSNA Virtual Event. As a focalRead More →

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Today’s OpenSim grids all have a static idea of a world map. So does Second Life. There’s nothing wrong with that — I love having a virtual environment that I can navigate, that makes geometric sense. Room-based environments, where any room can connect to any other room, and all theRead More →

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OpenSim developers are discussing ways to combat damaging patent litigation, including changing the OpenSim license to deter potential patent trolls. The Overte Foundation, which holds the OpenSim licenses, recently released a contributors’ license agreement for its developers. One possible anti-troll protection measure would be to change the agreement so thatRead More →

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The premise: I believe that we’re about to see the massive growth of a metaverse in which people can easily travel from one public world to another. Over time, the technology will become increasingly easy to use and realistic — and we will see an explosion of companies offering productsRead More →

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The premise: I believe that we’re about to see the massive growth of a metaverse in which people can easily travel from one public world to another. Over time, the technology will become increasingly easy to use and realistic — and we will see an explosion of companies offering productsRead More →

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Back when I incorporated my first company a few years ago, I tried to learn as much as I could about the entrepreneurial process and mind set. I joined entrepreneurial organizations and attended events and seminars. One tool that stuck with me after all this time — and which IRead More →

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The premise: I believe that we’re about to see the massive growth of a metaverse in which people can easily travel from one public world to another. Over time, the technology will become increasingly easy to use and realistic — and we will see an explosion of companies offering productsRead More →

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Freebies are plentiful throughout OpenSim grids, where uploads are free and land is cheap — anyone can put up a freebie store. But most freebie stores can’t guarantee the provenance of their content. Grid owners and content creators fight to remove infringing content, but that’s no comfort to a businessRead More →

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On-demand hosting provider Kitely Ltd. has eliminated a major OpenSim scalability obstacle by moving its asset database to the Amazon storage cloud. “This is the most significant change we’ve made to our system since our beta started,” Kitely CEO Ilan Tochner told Hypergrid Business. Because of the upgrade, Kitely wasRead More →

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The premise: I believe that we’re about to see the massive growth of a metaverse in which people can easily travel from one public world to another. Over time, the technology will become increasingly easy to use and realistic — and we will see an explosion of companies offering productsRead More →

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Several major OpenSim features, including mesh, which were previously available only in experimental releases of OpenSim are now part of the standard OpenSim release, numbered 0.7.2. “Despite having a minor point release number, it actually contains a very large number of features and fixes,” said OpenSim core developer Justin Clark-Casey inRead More →

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According to statistics released Friday by InWorldz co-founder Beth Reischl, in-world residents have been cashing out, on average, more than $15,000 a month over the past year. “Overall, I’m really pleased with the numbers, and while this is supposed to be fun, and hence our lower prices, it’s nice to seeRead More →

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The premise: I believe that we’re about to see the massive growth of a metaverse in which people can easily travel from one public world to another. Over time, the technology will become increasingly easy to use and realistic — and we will see an explosion of companies offering productsRead More →

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Press Release: Practice Greenhealth selects Digitell for Live Streaming, Conference Capture, 3D Operating Room, Virtual Event and Webinars Jamestown, NY — Practice Greenhealth (PGH), a membership association aimed at helping companies focus on “Green” initiatives has selected Digitell to meet their multimedia needs for 2011 and 2012. Digitell will handleRead More →

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Press release: Second Places becomes Bronze Reseller of Unity Technologies Cheshire, UK – Second Places, a leader in development of virtual worlds, today announced that during Unite 11 in San Francisco, the company was named a Bronze Level Reseller. “This allows us to sell our virtual world platform Unifier packaged withRead More →

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The premise: I believe that we’re about to see the massive growth of a metaverse in which people can easily travel from one public world to another. Over time, the technology will become increasingly easy to use and realistic — and we will see an explosion of companies offering productsRead More →

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Press release: EON Reality Releases EON Mycube, a Surround Immersive Desktop 3D System IRVINE, CA — EON Reality, the world’s leading interactive 3D solutions provider, today announced the release of EON Mycube, a 3 screen immersive desktop system. The EON Mycube will complement the successful EON Icube as a smallerRead More →

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Second Life has recently rolled out support for mesh objects. One key benefit is realistic clothing and accessories. However, Second Life’s implementation of mesh does not automatically adjust to the size of avatar bodies — and OpenSim, which is still heavily dependent on Second Life-compatible viewers — is limited inRead More →

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There’s a new immersive platform in town. HostaVirtualEvent.com is focused on business users — like Venuegen and Web.alive. But it’s based on Unity, like ReactionGrid’s Jibe and Second Places’ Unifier. The advantage of Unity is that millions of people already have the Unity plugin, there’s no need to open portsRead More →

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The premise: I believe that we’re about to see the massive growth of a metaverse in which people can easily travel from one public world to another. Over time, the technology will become increasingly easy to use and realistic — and we will see an explosion of companies offering products andRead More →