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How do you keep up with industry trends?  You hear from the people setting the trends. On September 24th, FountainBlue held its annual virtual worlds conference on Cisco’s campus in Milpitas, CA. The event featured a session titled “Trends in the Virtual Worlds Industry: An Update on What’s New andRead More →

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Press Release: Daden selected for new genetic screening virtual application Virtual world solution specialists Daden have been awarded a contract to create the laboratory functionality to enable scenario-based training as part of the University of Leicester’s SWIFT project in Second Life. Based on Daden’s open-source award winning software PIVOTE, theRead More →

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Press Release: Virtual World Campus for OpenSim HOUSTON, TEXAS  — FireSabre Consulting, a virtual world developer focused on educational clients, responded this week to the announcement by Linden Lab that the Teen Second Life virtual world product was to be discontinued. FireSabre has launched a program to help K-12 institutionsRead More →

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The lack of mesh imports has long been a problem for enterprise users of OpenSim and Second Life. But Second Life is about to start open beta testing of mesh — and OpenSim won’t be far behind. According to OpenSim core developer Justin Clark-Casey, the OpenSim team will adapt theRead More →

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Update: The Chat-World project has moved back to Second Life. According to the Laura Crane Trust, cancer is the most common form of non-accidental death in teenagers and young adults in the UK. The Trust is the only UK charity dedicated to funding research specifically into cancers affecting young peopleRead More →

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Press release: Wiecha Receives Grant to Study Face-to-Face vs Virtual Health Education for African-American Women BOSTON — Boston University School of Medicine Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs John Wiecha, MD, MPH, in the Department of Family Medicine, has received a National Institutes of Health (NIH) American Recovery & Reinvestment ActRead More →

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The adult-themed Utherverse virtual world platform is in discussions with former developers of the controversial Emerald Viewer for Second Life, the company announced. Prior to recent scandals involving an alleged distributed denial of service attack, privacy violations, and a Second Life ban this Wednesday, the Emerald viewer was primarily knownRead More →

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The world is about to turn nasty. I don’t mean the world is about to turn nasty on you, personally, but its going to be a much harder world to do business in, as economic disruptions throughout Europe make strikes much more likely. Greece already is as close to aRead More →

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Mike Treder, the managing director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, recently asked a loaded question: If you could live in a world that was just the way you wanted it to be, with specifications you’d chosen, customized and personalized to meet your every need and fulfill yourRead More →

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Utherverse, a proprietary virtual world platform known for its adult content, has launched a virtual casino targeting US customers. While the winnings cannot be converted into cash today, that might change if a new gambling bill is able to make its way through Congress. Meanwhile, Utherverse hopes that casino operatorsRead More →

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Hosting providers with previous experience in Second Life are bringing some Second Life terminology with them into OpenSim. For example, Coral Estates draws a distinction between “owning” a region and paying “tier” — and “renting” land. “All of the land in this section of the web site is non rentalRead More →

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Business users choosing virtual environments usually focus on particular features — does it support mesh imports? Are there in-world editing tools? How good is the voice? Is the a web viewer? However, most of these features are time-dependent — eventually, every virtual world platform is going to have mesh importsRead More →

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My company is a small, enterprise user of virtual worlds. Over the past year, we’ve used them for meetings with partners, new hires, internal collaboration, and external business networking. There were plenty of virtual worlds to choose from. But since we wanted to be able to customize our environment ourselvesRead More →

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Update: “As Philip has mentioned, Linden Lab has discontinued the Second Life Enterprise development program,” Adam Nelson, Linden Lab’s Executive Director of Monetization, told Hypergrid Business. “We will continue to honor our beta customer commitments and contracts, but will not be accepting new customers for the beta product. Second LifeRead More →

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The latest versions of OpenSim support Second Life Viewer 2 and, over the next couple of months, grids and hosting providers will be upgrading their OpenSim server software to make Viewer 2 usable everywhere on the hypergrid. I’ve spent the last five weeks heavily using SL Viewer 2 in SecondRead More →

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The TeenGrid has low traffic compared to Second Life’s mainland, and its primary renters — educators — pay half of what Second Life’s other customers do for land. It makes sense for them to close it down, from the standpoint of basic economics, but bad in another sense. The educationalRead More →

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Press Release: CyberWatch Launches Virtual World Environment for Learning, Training and Global Meetings Second Life environment will extend services to national members in virtual space. Washington, DC., August 15, 2010 — The CyberWatch organization announces today the launch of a 3D online virtual environment in Second Life. The virtual islandRead More →

Philip Rosedale at Second Life Community Convention 2010.

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Philip Rosedale who recently returned to the helm of Linden Lab, gave his first major speech of his second term as CEO on Saturday with a couple of bold announcements — Second Life was definitely rolling out meshes, and the Teen Grid will soon close. Rosedale gave no firm deadlineRead More →

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Would be sim-commerce millionaires gathered at the Hypergrid Entrepreneurs Group meeting Thursday night on the Trombly Grid to discuss recent innovations in OpenSim hosting, currency systems, and selling real homes and real furniture in virtual environments. Towards the end of the meeting, the conversation somehow turned to virtual sex (okay,Read More →

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Wagner Au and Gwyneth Llewelyn have recently posted thought-provoking pieces about how to make virtual worlds more engaging. Au proposed an achievement system to encourage new users to make friends and visit new locations. “Turning social networking more competitive resulted in people getting more engaged with it,” added Llewelyn, explainingRead More →

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Editor’s introduction: Machinima refers to animations filmed inside virtual worlds or video games. Machimina is cheaper and faster than the alternatives — traditional filming using real actors and sets, hand-drawn animation, or computer-generated animation.    Many people see machinima as a documentation of the virtual life — a bridge that allowsRead More →

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Linden Lab developer Qarl Linden reported that he was laid off yesterday. The developer — known as Karl Stiefvater outside of Second Life — was responsible for such innovations as scupties and flexi prims, making the in-world environment richer and more realistic. “He is widely recognized as a competent andRead More →

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Earlier this year, Linden Lab released Second Life Viewer 2 which, though it had a large number of usability problems, also offered one huge advantage for business and education users: the ability to put a live webpage or any other media onto any in-world surface. This means that a groupRead More →

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Ever since Second Life made virtual world a common reality, people have been trying to find ways to utilize this new-found platform for unimaginable reasons. Soon enough other companies cropped providing quick similar features. These include Active Worlds and Entropia Universe. They all mainly started as a virtual social gameRead More →

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For the past year that I’ve been attending meetings in Second Life and OpenSim, I’ve been thinking of the virtual platforms as another kind of collaboration tool. I compare it to Web-based conferences and seminars. A few days ago, however, I read a blog post by Avril Korman, where, inRead More →

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Press release: Linden Lab Announces Management Changes SAN FRANCISCO, June 24 — Linden Lab®, creator of 3D virtual world Second Life®, announced today that company founder Philip Rosedale has been named interim CEO, and CFO Bob Komin has assumed the additional role of COO.  Linden Lab also announced that MarkRead More →

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Press Release: VenueGen Offers Free Migration Solution for Second Life Business Customers RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC- –  VenueGen, provider of a 3-D virtual meeting platform for collaborative meetings, training, and events today announced a migration solution for users of the Linden Labs Second Life virtual world platform. Linden Labs Second LifeRead More →

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Press Release: Citizant and Cranial Tap Partner to Develop 3-D Environments for Collaboration, Training and Data Visualization In Federal Agencies Second Life environments will add new dimension to transparency and performance CHANTILLY, Va. — Citizant, a leader in federal information sharing and business modernization solutions, has partnered with Cranial Tap,Read More →

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Linden Lab announced 30 percent staff cuts today, and also promised a Web-based viewer for Second Life. While a Web-based viewer would be a significant benefit for companies interested in using virtual worlds for quick meetings and public conferences, a more sobering note is that the announcement of  “strategic restructuringRead More →

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The Second Life and OpenSim platform are the best bet for educators, according to a white paper released today by virtual worlds research firm Daden Limited. “It is the only one offering reasonable graphics with in-world building tools, and as a result high levels of flexibility,” wrote author David Burden.Read More →

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There are three ways in which a particular platform or service can be considered to be “open.” One is whether it runs on multiple systems, or is locked into a system from one particular vendor. For example, Apple’s Leonard operating system only runs on Apple computers. The Windows operating systems,Read More →

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Virtual worlds have been offered up in recent weeks as alternatives to physical events because they are disaster-proof. No volcano or tsunami can take down the whole Internet. And virtual events are particularly budget-friendly during that other kind of recent disaster — a financial crisis. But virtual worlds are proneRead More →

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Press Release: UK Company wins U.S. Federal Virtual Worlds Challenge Birmingham, UK — UK Virtual Worlds solution provider Daden Limited has won first place and second place prize respectively in two categories of this years inaugural U.S. Federal Government’s Virtual World Challenge (FVWC). Birmingham-based Daden entered both its PIVOTE andRead More →

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Press Release: Murrow Center 3D Newsroom Debuts in Second Life A Shared Media Experience and Citizen Journalist Training Center Sponsored by the McCormick Foundation PULLMAN, Wash. – The Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University and the McCormick Foundation are partnering for the creation of the MurrowRead More →

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If you’re a business manager considering rolling out virtual workspaces, you may think that an avatar identity is nothing more than yet another user account, the login credentials for a particular piece of virtual world software. At second look, you might think that avatar identities are closer to email addresses.Read More →

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Former Linden staffer Meadhbh Hamrick has vowed to continue her fight for virtual worlds interoperability. However, the commitment on the part of Linden Research is unclear, and the project is currently being overshadowed by the success of the hypergrid, an alternative method of bridging worlds. Hamrick — also known asRead More →

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Educators in primary schools, colleges, and other institutions looking for lower costs, better controls, and no age restrictions are considering switching from Second Life to its open source alternative, the OpenSim virtual world server platform. The OpenSim server software can be used to power an entire public grid, or aRead More →

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Clever Zebra is about to roll out its Campus toolset for educators in OpenSim, company president Nick Wilson tells Hypergrid Business, with work already underway for the first beta customers. OpenSim is an open source platform for creating and serving virtual worlds, which uses the same viewers and interface asRead More →

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New Orleans law firm Jones Walker has been conducting meetings and training programs in Second Life, the company announced this month. “We created office space where we could conduct meetings, make presentations, provide training, and explore the applications of Second Life to the law firm environment,” said chief marketing officerRead More →

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Press Release: Queen’s University Faculty of Law will host Canada’s first virtual law conference on March 18. Roughly 20 academics from Canada, the U.S. and around the world will gather at the Queen’s University Faculty of Education Island in the virtual world of Second Life to discuss the relationship betweenRead More →

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Coca-Cola’s virtual presence in There.com is now history, but few other enterprises will be affected by the loss of this virtual world, experts say. “Unfortunately, There.com ceased operations,” Coca-Cola said in a statement. “As CCMetro is part of the larger There.com environment, CCMetro closed as well.” The company said itRead More →

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One of the great things about the Internet is that it connects people who, in the past, have had a hard time keeping in touch. In researching the phenomena of medical amputees rehabilitating and re-integrating into their home communities, it has been shown that peer support is a real keyRead More →

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Enterprises rolling out new OpenSim grids are often concerned about security issues of running OpenSim, and justifiably so. OpenSim is alpha software and still poses some security challenges. However, the security level of a particular OpenSim deployment depends quite a bit on how it is configured. Here are the mostRead More →

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OpenSim moved one step closer to full support for Second Life Viewer 2 media on in-world surfaces this week, with the completion of an extensive project to rearchitect the way the open-source software works. Last week, Linden Lab released a new viewer for Second Life — and compatible worlds likeRead More →

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Anders Gronstedt, president of the Gronstedt Group, presents a case study about how high-level executives make some of their biggest decisions in Second Life today at 2 p.m. Pacific, 5 p.m. Eastern time at a live taping of the Virtual Worlds Keynote program. Anders Gronstedt, someone with tremendous experience bothRead More →

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Press Release: ThinkBalm’s “The Distillery” — an immersive technology selection experience Source: ThinkBalm What do whiskey and enterprise immersive software have in common? Not much, unless you’re on ThinkBalm Island in Second Life (or, shortly, the ThinkBalm region of ReactionGrid). We are excited to announce that construction on The DistilleryRead More →

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Two major things happened before the World Wide Web took off in a big way. One was the fact that individuals were able to create Web sites and link them to other Web sites. Once individuals did it — individual researchers, individual teachers, individual hobbists, individual company employees — theyRead More →

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Last summer I decided to open a virtual office for my company. I don’t just write for Hypergrid Business — I run a company with staff in China and India, among other locations, providing outsourced editorial services to U.S. business magazines. Basically, we run foreign news bureaus for our clients.Read More →

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OpenSim users will have to wait before they are able to use the new Second Life viewer on their grids because the core OpenSim software is currently being rebuilt, developers say. The are compatibility issues between Second Life Viewer 2 (Beta) and the current OpenSim virtual world server software, butRead More →