What I learned about virtual worlds by helping found OpenSim
When we started OpenSim many years ago (back with MW, lbsa71 and many others who have since drifted on), we had grand ambitions. Yes, it started as a fun tinkering project that we spun...
OpenSim
AllCity makes surprise top showing in seventh annual grid survey
Nearly 800 responses came in for this year’s Seventh Annual OpenSim Grid Survey, and after 31 were deleted as invalid, DigiWorldz came out with the most responses, while AllCity received the highest scores, followed by FrancoGrid,...
Grids face mesh issue in next OpenSim release
OpenSim developers are getting ready to release OpenSim 0.9.0, and some grids are already experimenting with the new features by downloading the experimental version of the new release — and they are running into some...
Reader poll: Most say OpenSim needs VR
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...
The path to a VR metaverse
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...
Survey: How do you use OpenSim?
More than 100 people responded to our survey of how people use OpenSim, and the results are in — the majority of people use OpenSim for work and for creative self-expression. The first question...
Cloud offers scalability, monetization and reduced costs for VR startups
Today, many virtual reality applications and experiences are distributed as stand-alone downloads, which makes sense for many types of content and particularly for mobile-based virtual reality headsets with slow connections. But as broadband speeds...
OSgrid, Kitely, DigiWorldz help set new land record
It’s been another record-breaking month for OpenSim, with new heights reached in land area, registered users, and active users. OSgrid, Kitely and DigiWorldz were the biggest gainers in land area, with 678, 340 and...
Second core developer leaves OpenSim
Dahlia Trimble, an OpenSim core developer who’s been with the project since the summer of 2008, announced today that she is leaving. “I am sad to announce that I will be leaving OpenSimulator Core,”...
Admired leader leaves OpenSim for bio research
For many years, former IBMer Justin Clark-Casey has been the eternally-youthful face of OpenSimulator development and the president of the Overte Foundation which oversees OpenSim licensing issues. Then, on Sunday, the Justin Era ended with...
OpenSim is the metaverse 1.0
Someday soon, we will have a virtual reality metaverse. A fantastical place, limited only by our imaginations, where time and space mean nothing and experiences are shared as easily as bit and bytes are...
Second Life is a killer app for Oculus Rift
Second Life is a killer app for Oculus Rift. Here are ten reasons why — and why OpenSim will get there first. 1. Quality, content and creativity Now, before you skip ahead to post...
Oculus Rift better for immersion than action
First impressions of Oculus Rift: Architectural Visualization, Second Life, and beyond I wish I had more time to write out a more extensive review of the Rift, but here are my first impressions: You...
Bitcoin revisited: beware the bubble
I’ve written about Bitcoin before, warning that I was worried about volatility and botnets. Bitcoin has been on my mind again, lately, due to a big bubble spurred in part by the Cyprus financial crisis,...
Vivox makes it easier to get voice for OpenSim
Vivox continues to expand OpenSim support, after offering their voice service for free in December of 2011., when grid owners were asked to personally contact Kamal Jain, Vivox’s director of network operations. Last summer, Vivox...
Moon sale brings in cash, marketing
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...
5 minutes, 5 clicks, one new world
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...
Avination, Singularity create “export” permission
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...
Army scalability test finds login bottleneck
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...
MyOpenGrid releases free Web interface
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...
Avination donates multi-attach code
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...
5 lean business tips for OpenSim startups
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...
HG Status Checker script
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...
March numbers show solid growth
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...
Wish list for a Web viewer
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...
PixieViewer puts OpenSim in browser
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...
OpenSim passes 200 grid milestone
Today, we counted exactly 200 public grids running on some version of the OpenSim software that were active this month, totaling 23,190 regions, 269,783 registered users, and 18,217 active monthly users. This does not include regions and users...
OpenSim grids pass 20,000 regions
The top 40 public OpenSim grids now have 20,551 regions, a record high.
A modest proposal for hypergrid security
As John Rogate pointed out today, the 4096 bug — which limits hypergrid teleports to no more than 4,096 regions in any direction — is a significant impediment to hypergrid travel and to the...
It’s time to move all grids south
Hypergrid is probably one of the greatest and unifying features for OpenSim, and virtual worlds in general. Basically, virtual worlds cannot be what they should be without the hypergrid. It is the same unifying...
5 tips for pro builders moving to OpenSim
Second Life builders and designers coming over to OpenSim might think that it’s the same thing, except for the lack of support for some high-end vehicle physics scripting commands — and bigger prims. In...
OpenSim needs an installer bundle
I attended UMass in the early eighties when access to DARPAnet first became available to students. In the beginning, all we had was terminal-based FTP access to download TeX markup documents that we could...
SpotON3D to talk patents in SL forum
SpotON3D will address the patent issue in a discussion on the first day of its Content Creators Expo in Second Life. Philippe Pascal, SpotON3D’s developer program manager, invited Hypergrid Business readers to attend the Expo,...
Five steps to OpenSim at your school
I have been using OpenSim since October, 2008. The software is still in an alpha stage of development, but it has come a long way, and its usage has exploded, and will continue to...
NPCs are coming to OpenSim
Thanks to a “small bounty” from Birmingham, U.K.-based Daden Limited, OpenSim has new NPC functionality — otherwise known as non-player characters or bots. “Having this functionality broken was becoming a real pain for us, as...
Grids reach new peak with moderate growth
The top 40 OpenSim grids now have a total of 18,498 regions — up by 1,539 regions from a month ago. Meanwhile, total registered users grew by almost 12,000 to 206,098. Avination, InWorldz lose ground Both...
SpotON3D forum ends in tears
SpotON3D attempted to address the controversy over its plans to patent technology for putting an OpenSim viewer on a webpage in an outreach event this morning, but some of the company’s toughest critics failed...
5 reasons why OpenSim is innovating faster than Second Life
In recent months, the amount of innovation coming out of the OpenSim community has been staggering. Hypergrid travel is not only more secure, but now supports cross-grid friendships, messages, and landmarks. OpenSim providers are...
AvWorlds to have Facebook integration this week
AvWorlds has announced that the company will be releasing a Facebook plugin this week, allowing users to quickly create avatars based on their existing Facebook identities. Those without Facebook accounts — or who don’t...
Kudos to SpotON3D for viewer plugin
A lot of folks sit around complaining about not having a decent Web-based viewer for OpenSim and Second Life. (Okay, maybe just me.) The existing stand-alone viewers require that users download and install the...
SpotOn3d releases browser plugin for OpenSim
There have been several attempts over the past year to create a viewer for Second Life and OpenSim based virtual environments that would run in a browser. I’ve tried to write about them all,...
Aurora-Sim bridges gap to the hypergrid
Aurora-Sim is a hot, fresh, new distribution of OpenSim that promises some nice features for grid managers (see story here) but, until this weekend, its users were cut off from the rest of the...
5 reasons not to rush to Unity from OpenSim
Update: Please people, stop linking to this post! Unless you are actually an OpenSim user this is not relevant to you at all! This article is about a very, very, narrow niche use of Unity...
OpenSim grids break records for regions; users
It’s been a record-breaking months for OpenSim, with the top 40 grids passing 16,000 regions and 200,000 users for the first time in history. The total number of regions on these 40 largest public...
Cariama vs. HGExchange
If you’re launching a new grid, your number one problem is lack of content. Whether your grid is a corporate office complex for your employees, a campus for your students, or a large social...
3Di scales back on OpenSim
Japan’s 3Di Inc., the first vendor to release a business-friendly Web-based viewer for OpenSim, has cut back its development work on the platform in favor of Flash-based virtual environments. “Apart from our existing deployments,...
OMC users triple since start of year
The number of OpenSim grids accepting the multi-grid, hypergrid-enabled Open Metaverse Currency (OMC) has continued to grow in the first half of this year, now at an all-time high of 29 grids. Meanwhile, the...
OpenSim devs launch foundation, put OpenSim on solid legal footing
OpenSim’s volunteer developers have launched a foundation, the non-profit Overte Foundation, which expected to solve the licensing problems that keep OpenSim server developers from talking to viewer developers. “One of the main reasons for...
Five top metaverse blogs
I subscribe to a lot of virtual world-related blogs in my RSS reader (click here for the bundle) , and follow a lot more on Twitter (click here for the list). Here are the five that I...
Jibe vs. OpenSim
Jibe is a new, Unity 3D-based virtual environment created by ReactionGrid, one of the leading OpenSim hosting vendors. Many people confuse the two platforms, but they are very different environments. In fact, Jibe has...
OpenSim cleans out old regions; new grids emerge
The top 40 OpenSim grids lost a net total of 475 regions since mid May, for a new total of 15,290 regions, but all of that decline — and then some — is accounted...
Intel increases OpenSim avatar capacity 20-fold
Press release: Intel Announces New Research and Partnership Efforts at Annual R&D Event Will release open source packages: To increase avatar capacity on an OpenSim region 20 times, allowing thousands of simultaneous visitors To...
How to hijack the metaverse
We all remember the Microsoft-Netscape battle. Okay, maybe some people don’t, so here’s the summary: Netscape was a company that made a free Internet browser and and a not-free commercial Web server. (The latter...
Educator calls for college enclave on OSGrid
I am looking for volunteers for an OSGrid Academic Consortium — somewhere between four to eight schools who want to have free regions in an education-oriented community located near to one another on the...
Hypergrid inventor calls for mass grid migration
Hypergrid inventor Crista Lopes, professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine called today on big public grids to begin a mass migration to lower regions. The reason is that Second Life-compatible viewers...
Second Life vs. OpenSim
You cannot compare Second Life and OpenSim. One is a social world. The other is an open source piece of server software. You can’t even compare Second Life to individual grids using OpenSim as...
Army extends MOSES to other researchers
MOSES, an OpenSim-based environment built by the U.S. Army, is now available to researchers both in and out of the defense industry.
Why pay for OpenSim?
With OpenSim hosting prices dropping fast and features and stability improving, it surprises to me that people still ask why anyone should pay for OpenSim. Yes, OpenSim is free. You can go to OpenSimulator.org...
What virtual content creators can learn from Netflix
Netflix now accounts for the largest share of Internet traffic. According to a new report from Sandvine, Netflix movies and television episodes are now more than 22 percent of the stuff traveling through the...
Daden creates world selection tool
Press Release: Daden creates World Finder, a virtual world selection tool Birmingham, U.K. — A simple virtual world selection tool, World Finder, has been created by virtual world specialist’s Daden Limited to help businesses and...
One university’s pioneering OpenSim journey
The last four months have been tumultuous ones for our university. With the end of educational discounts for our island in Second Life, we faced a tough decision. Second Life’s steep learning curve and...
Mesh may accelerate OpenSim migration
I’ve been reading lately about how great mesh will be for Second Life. But I’m wondering whether it won’t actually be better for OpenSim, instead. Off-world content versus in-world content In Second Life, the...
OMC currency gains popularity in the first quarter of the year
The number of OpenSim grids accepting the multi-grid OMC virtual currency reached a record high in the first quarter of this year, as has the number of users of this hypergrid-enabled currency from Austian...
OpenSim grids reach record high
The top 40 OpenSim grids gained a total of 1,199 new regions over the past month, for a new record total of 15,765 regions. The biggest growth was on OSGrid, the non-profit grid which...
FireSabre launches Starlight grid for educators
Educators looking for OpenSim alternatives to Second Life are currently limited to ReactionGrid or Jokaydia Grid, which is operated by ReactionGrid — unless they want to set up their own grid or join a...
The business case for OpenSim
A reader asked me today about the OpenSim business case — are there enough users on any of the grids to make it worthwhile for a business to set up a presence there instead...
Major OpenSim upgrade adds security, meshes
OpenSim’s new 0.7.1 release supports meshes, media-on-a-prim, and adds additional security features for grid owners and content creators. The upgrade also promises increased stability and less lag. However, hypergrid teleports are not backwards compatible...
Researcher tracks virtual movement
A researcher at the University of California in San Diego is seeking participants for a large-scale study of avatar movement in Second Life and OpenSim. The study involves both online questionnaires and in-world movement...
At the Second Life tipping point
Second Life is a tipping point, and has been precariously balanced there for months. Average daily concurrency has been slipping since the start of 2010, according to data from Metaverse Business. In fact, according...
Outage underscores the need for backups
Ten Kitely users lost 13 regions this week because of a bug in the company’s software. The bug has been fixed, users compensated for their losses, and a new automated backup system is in...
RealXtend Association formed
The developers behind the realXtend branch of the OpenSimulator virtual world platform announced the formation of the realXtend Association today. “The purpose of the association is to be a place for realXtend users and...
OpenSim 102: Running your own sims
(Last updated April 26, 2013) There are plenty of reasons to run OpenSim on your own computers. If you’re a content creator, you can have as many regions as you want, for free, and...
Clouds help propel OpenSim growth
The top 40 public OpenSim grids gained more than a 1,000 new regions since this time last month, propelled partly by low-cost cloud-based regions from a new hosting provider, Kitely. There are now a...
OpenSim 101: Renting land
Latest update: April 8, 2013 This is a primer for folks considering moving into OpenSim who have never used OpenSim before and who don’t have much of a technical background. First look at OpenSim...
Survey: Slow erosion of educators from Second Life to OpenSim
In March, I asked educators on the SLED and EDUCAUSE Virtual Worlds lists to tell me how their ownership of land in virtual worlds compares to their holdings a year ago. Here are the...
Waiting for an OpenSim content marketplace
Update: There are now two marketplaces, Cariama and HGExchange, that deliver items to multiple OpenSim grids. Read more here: Where to get content for OpenSim. As a business owner — and someone who is very...
Second Life, OpenSim hosts can learn from Kitely
Kitely offers OpenSim hosting in the cloud — ridiculously easy to use and ridiculously cheap for low-traffic regions. Now, anyone can have their own sim up and running in less than two minutes, at...
PioneerX supports clouds, open to Facebook
Kitely may be turning the OpenSim hosting model upside down with its metered pricing, but other OpenSim hosting providers have already embraced the cloud. “We already utilise cloud based resources to allow for dynamic...
When do cloud-based sims make sense?
With Kitely‘s bill-per-minute, cloud-based OpenSim hosting service now available, non-technically inclined folks now have a real choice in what kind of hosting they’d like to have. Here is a breakdown of common use cases...
Tipodean and Kitely should talk. Seriously, guys!
How’s this for a match made in heaven: One company has a Web-based viewer for OpenSim. Still in early, experimental stages, but fast and responsive. Add avatars, voice, and the ability to sit down...
Tipodean’s Web viewer now in public beta
San Francisco-based Tipodean Technologies launched a public beta today of its BuiltBuy.me Web-based viewer for OpenSim and Second Life. The viewer, formerly known as Canvas, is free, and can be embedded inside a Website,...
Proprietary code is good for OpenSim
A lot of debate about open source code versus proprietary code these days centers on the personalities of the folks involved, or on the politics behind the idea of open source. But, from a...
Kitely brings Facebook, instant regions to OpenSim
In a major step forward for usability of OpenSim, Israel-based startup Kitely has created a Website that allows any Facebook user to create, load and enter an OpenSim world in less than two minutes....
Paper: OpenSim may help fashion industry
Using OpenSim could transform fashion design by saving money, reducing time to market, and cutting the industry’s carbon footprint.
Avination residents welcome Vivox voice
Avination grid owner Melanie Thiekler rolled out Vivox voice to her grid today — at no extra cost to residents or land renters. Residents immediately began trying it out, and it sounded great. Those...
InWorldz develops own scripting engine
InWorldz has taken a further step way from mainline OpenSim Tuesday with the announcement of a proprietary scripting engine, called Phlox, which is expected to enter beta testing this week. The new scripting engine...
Why PioneerX matters
Yesterday, I posted a story (yes, a little on the long side) about a new services from PioneerX Estates where they manage your whole grid for you. Everything — estates, land rentals, voice —...
PioneerX offers no-fuss grid management
Back when 3rd Rock Grid first launched in the spring of 2008, it was one of the earliest OpenSim grids and the owners had to figure out everything on their own. The grid’s managers...
Beware vendors bearing gifts
Resellers of open source software survive by making life easier for their customers. For example, Website hosting providers handle the setup, backups, updates, load balancing and server management for you. Yes, you could run...
Design firm builds virtual tours, 3D learning games, university grid
Working in the space of 3D virtual immersive environments (VIE) is a small, but dedicated group of people who are creating some really wonderful and powerful learning. The other day I had a chance...
Top OpenSim grids gain regions, users
The world’s top 40 public OpenSim grids gained 424 regions and 12,746 registered users since the middle of February, a slightly slower than usual growth rate. However, we’re continuing to see growth in private...
Avination first with Vivox voice on OpenSim
OpenSim’s largest commercial grid, Avination, announced a major new milestone today — it will be offering in-world Vivox voice at no charge to its residents and region renters, as well as to customers who...
Aurora-Sim newest option for OpenSim servers
OpenSim grid owners now have another option for their grid server software — Aurora-Sim. This branch of OpenSim, still in “pre-alpha” stage of development, promises more security features and better vehicle physics than mainline...
Avination explodes; OSGrid sweeps clean
The number of regions of the 40 largest OpenSim grids went down this month for the first time since July, from 15,623 to 13,069, a loss of over 2,300 regions, a result of a...
OMC hypergrid currency gained popularity in 2010
In the past year, the OMC virtual currency has gained both popularity and usefulness, with both the total currency in circulation and the number of grids it’s available for use on growing. The OMC,...
China school programs in 3D
Changchun is a city in northeast China known for its auto plants. “We’re the Detroit of China,” said David Deeds, IT manager and teacher at the Changchun American International School. “Except that they’re still...
SpotOn3D launches developer program
OpenSim grid developers Powersynch, LLC — the folks behind the SpotOn3D group of grids — launched a certified developer program today. The program is “somewhat comparable” to the Second Life solution providers program, Philippe...
Hypergrid permissions coming to OpenSim
Many grids today have hypergrid turned off, for fear that content will be taken from their grid to a less secure grid, copied, and distributed illegally. OpenSim developers are working to create a hypergrid-wide...
OpenSim grids reach new peak
The top 40 OpenSim grids gained 529 regions since mid-December, to reach a new high of 15,623 regions on January 15 of this month. The monthly growth rate, 3.5 percent, was the second-lowest since...
How to pick a virtual platform — revisited
Virtual environments are changing rapidly, and it’s sometimes hard to keep up with everything that’s going on. Here is a quick round up of the best options for the most common uses of virtual...
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