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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 OpenSim, but it is still too early to tell whether it will be able to deliver.Read More →

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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 long-overdue housekeeping on OSGrid. But the big story was from Avination, which rocked to second place thisRead More →

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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, or Open Metaverse Currency, is a virtual currency from Austria-based VirWoX  that can be used to buyRead More →

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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 making cars here.” The school, which was founded four years ago, is affiliated with an autoRead More →

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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 Pascal, the company’s developer program manager, told Hypergrid Business. “We plan to offer a certification processRead More →

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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 permission system for content that will help abate this fear, and open more of the OpenSimRead More →

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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 we started gathering the statistics in the summer of 2009, a possible indication of a seasonalRead More →

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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 worlds for various types of enterprise needs. If you’re looking for a high-end, Fortune 500-caliber virtualRead More →

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Press Release: Novell Announces Winners of First Annual ‘Dister’ Awards Radical Breeze’s ‘Illumination Software Creation Station’ and Anderware’s ‘Hypergrid to Go’ win $10,000 prizes in showcase for creating innovative software appliances WALTHAM, Mass. — Novell today announced the winners of its First Annual ‘Dister’ Awards, handing out two $10,000 grandRead More →

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SpotOn3D will hold a benchmark test on Wednesday, December 15 to determine the difference in performance of OpenSim version 0.7.1 and OpenSim 0.6.9 when they run in the cloud. According to SpotOn3D co-founder and COO Tessa Kinney-Johnson, the test will be conducted from 2 to 3 p.m. SLT (Pacific time)Read More →

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San Francisco-based Tipodean Technologies will open its Canvas Web-based viewer next week to a select group of beta testers, but Hypergrid Business got a sneak peek this week. A test version of the viewer will go live on Monday. “We will see how big of a load it is,” saidRead More →

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ReactionGrid released a groups module for OpenSim this week and announced plans to upgrade to the next version of OpenSim “early next year.” According to its announcement, ReactionGrid’s group module will be rolled out to all region on ReactionGrid over the next two weeks. ReactionGrid doesn’t just run its oneRead More →

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Press Release: Tipodean launches Canvas, a Web-based viewer for Second Life and OpenSim, which is built using Unity 3D Tipodean Technologies is pleased to announce the preview launch of Canvas, a web-based viewer for both Second Life and Opensim. Licensed from IBM, Canvas is unique in that it is highlyRead More →

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The OpenSim economy continued to grow this month, with both the OMC currency and the I’z currency from InWorldz growing in users and transactions. The OMC, a convertible currency from Austrian virtual currency exchange operator Virwox, is now accepted on 18 different grids — AnSky Grid, Avatar Hangout, FrancoGrid, GermanGrid,Read More →

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Investors in virtual companies listed on the Second Life Capital Exchange lost most of their money, according to a new research report. The report, which covered the time period between May 2007 and December 2009, showed that investors bought US$145,000 worth of shares in initial public offerings of virtual companies.Read More →

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OpenSim grid hit a new peak this month, with 13,564 regions on the top 40 grids, a 9 percent increase from last month’s 12,425 regions — a gain of 1,139 regions. Meanwhile, total registered users on these grids grew 8 percent from 129,797 in mid October to 140,053 today. OSGridRead More →

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The Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable, a group of educators working in Second Life, is expanding to a new grid on the OpenSim platform. The group — originally called the Second Life Education Roundtable — began looking for expansion locations earlier this fall after Second Life announced the shut down ofRead More →

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I spent the last few days reading Virtual Justice by Greg Lastowka. Lastowka outlined some legal issues that arise in virtual environments. Who owns what? What rights — if any — do you have when buying or creating digital content? It is important reading for anyone involved in virtual digitalRead More →

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Ever since Crista Lopes, professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine invented the hypergrid in 2009, people have been debating whether grids should be on or off the hypergrid. On the one hand, the hypergrid is very cool. You can teleport from one grid to another, hopping aroundRead More →

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The majority of OpenSim grid residents said that their grids were “excellent” overall, with community and support getting the highest marks across the grids. Technology and content of the grids scored slightly lower, however, with the majority of users rating these two factors “pretty good” or “just okay.” In addition,Read More →

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Exactly how many people can a region in OpenSim support? How many people could meet for business meetings or presentations in an OpenSim region? Allow me to illustrate with this piece of string and a tape measure. There are unfortunately many variables to consider, so much so that it isRead More →

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OpenSim users overwhelmingly said that they would “absolutely” recommend the platform to others. Out of 114 people who responded to our survey this week and answered this question, 84 percent said they would “absolutely recommend” it, with only 1 percent saying they would “absolutely not recommend” the platform. Of theRead More →

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OpenSim hosting company New Voice offers full OpenSim regions for just $9.90 per month. So what do you actually get for this amount of money? A region in Second Life, after all, costs $300 — not to mention a $1,000 setup fee. There are no setup fees with New Voice.Read More →

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Here at Hypergrid Business, we’re in the process of launching a virtual events directory (now that the vendor directory is up and working). And the question comes up — what times do we list events under? The Second Life events directory shows everything as SLT time — which is theRead More →

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A new book by Coventry University professor Maggi Savin-Baden offers practical advice to educators interested in virtual worlds. According to Coventry University, professor Savin-Baden is one of the UK’s leading academics on the subject and has used virtual technology extensively as a teaching resource. Some recent developments in Second Life,Read More →

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Now that we’ve got our new vendor directory ready to launch (see the test page here and give us your opinions!) we’re taking a second look at what exactly customers are looking for when they’re deciding on an OpenSim hosting platform or design vendor. With the recent changes at LindenRead More →

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I have lost track of the number of times over the last few weeks that I have been somewhere in the OpenSim grid and heard someone say “This is like Second Life in the early days – I love it.”  This resonates for me – and I have been thinkingRead More →

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Like the World Wide Web that preceded it, the new 3D Web has its own vocabulary. We try to make it easier to keep up. [anchor id=”avatar”]avatar A representation of a user, usually as a three dimensional cartoon character. Avatars can be realistic, based on actual photos of the user,Read More →

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Teesside University is piloting a quarter million pound (US $400,000) citizenship education project in OpenSim this year. The project, which will eventually involve as many as 900 high students in the UK, will be officially launched in January. The entire project is scheduled to run for 18 months and isRead More →

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The Immersive Education Initiative, a Boston-based non-profit coalition, announced today that it will offer free land, and free migration services, for educators working in Second Life’s Teen Grid. The Initiative currently provides thousands of OpenSim regions to members around the world through its Education Grid project,  Aaron Walsh, founding directorRead More →

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The world’s forty largest public OpenSim grids gained 1,605  regions over the past 30 days, and added 10,530 new users. This brings the total region counts on these grids to 12,425, an 15 percent increase over last month’s total of 10,820 regions. The 15 percent monthly growth rate is alsoRead More →

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Just a day after Second Life launched its mesh beta, OpenSim already has experimental mesh in the latest test release, and people have begun trying the technology out on OSGrid’s experimental Danger Grid. According to OpenSim core developer Justin Clark-Casey, the OpenSim implementation of mesh leverages the work done byRead More →

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This month, the Youth for Christ charity celebrates its second year in Second Life. But the big party will be held in OpenSim, the charity’s new home. The reason? The Second Life Teen Grid, where the YFC has been offering support and mentoring programs for at-risk youth, is closing atRead More →

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There are a lot of different kinds of OpenSim grids out there — it can get a little confusing. Well, a lot confusing. Here’s a quick primer. Social grids Social grids attempt to replicate the experience of Second Life. They don’t make up the majority of grids running on theRead More →

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In response to rising land prices at Second Life — and a need for increased control and scalability — the MuniGov association of local governments has launched the GovGrid project, and OpenSim-based virtual world environment for local government agencies. Prices start at just $25 a region, with a $50 setupRead More →

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NASA’s OpenSim-based Moon World — a quarter-million-dollar project –  will go live on December 1, allowing students to experience what it’s like to live and work on a NASA moon base. “It helps students understand the geography of the moon,” said Charles Wood, executive director for the Center for EducationalRead More →

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Marketing guru Seth Godin wrote a short piece today about the five stages of users, which applies to OpenSim as well as to any other product or technology: Novice: wants to be given a manual, told what to do, with no decisions possible Advanced Beginner: needs a bit of freedom,Read More →

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I was a guest on Tonight Live with Paisley Beebe on Sunday, October 10 and had a great time talking about hypergrid and OpenSim. Other guests that night included singer-songwriter Senjata Witt, who performed live,  and Dusan Writer, CEO of Remedy Communications and prolific blogger about Second Life.Read More →

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UPDATE: TalentRaspel has lowered its price for exporting Second Life regions. It now starts at US $273 (200 Euros)  per region, and is based on the complexity of the build. Vendors are offering full-region migrations from Second Life to OpenSim at prices starting at as little as $80 a region.Read More →

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In the wake of the closing of Second Life’s Teen Grid, and the price hike to educators and non-profits, many organizations are considering moving to OpenSim. The first question they usually ask themselves is, “Which grid should we join?” But the more important question should be: “Should we join aRead More →

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• Clients three times as likely to complete virtual treatment program as face-to-face program • Outcomes ‘as good or better’ as at physical treatment centers • Private OpenSim grid operated by ReactionGrid, more stable than Second Life Preferred Family Healthcare, Inc., is a substance abuse treatment organization with headquarters inRead More →

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When I first rezzed in January 2007, educators were investing heavily in Second Life, both its Teen and Main Grids. Throughout the “hype” era that ended the next  year, and amid the inevitable backlash against SL by mainstream media, many of us in education defended Linden Lab and its platform.Read More →

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Updated May 4, 2013 Yes, you can run OpenSim for free on your own computer -  you can even run it on a USB stick. But do you want to? Here’s a question — would you run your own Apache Web server for your website, or would you use aRead More →

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Today, Linden Lab announced that the price of land for educators and non-profits will double in January. As a result, the price differential between Second Life land and OpenSim becomes even more significant. You can pay as little as $10 for a single region, but for the highest performance andRead More →

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Press release: NYIT Receives $1 Million Grant from the National Science Foundation Project to Enable Teachers to Use Information and Communications Technologies in the Classroom New York, N.Y.  – New York Institute of Technology (NYIT) was awarded with a grant for $1 million from the National Science Foundation (NSF) forRead More →

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I’m ending it. Beset by criticism on all sides — okay, just one side — I am officially going cold turkey on “real life.” The phrase, that is, not the living itself. I’ve never been a big fan of the wording “in real life,” but haven’t noticed to what extentRead More →

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Last week, Laura Crane Trust, a non-profit which provides support to teenage and young adult cancer patients in the U.K., had decided to build its virtual world in OpenSim. Jonathan Tyreman, the charity’s online development coordinator, originally wanted to go with Second Life but decided to recommend OpenSim to theRead More →