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At Hypergrid Business, we’ve been covering OpenSim and other desktop-based virtual environments since 2009, and began covering virtual reality extensively in 2014. Our goal has been to promote an open-source, distributed metaverse, and to help the little guy and gal with navigating that landscape. Specifically, the people running OpenSim-based virtualRead More →

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Hi, everyone. This is me, Maria, your friendly local technology reporter and blog editor. You might know me from such things as my annual OpenSim stats presentations at the OpenSimulator Community Conference, my various attempts to run an OpenSim grid on my home computer, or the fact that, since 2009,Read More →

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After ChatGPT was released on Nov. 30, 2022, the world changed. Whatever you might personally think about AI, the events of last year showed that AI was capable of human-level creativity in art, music, writing, and coding. And, for the first time, AI demonstrated common sense. Or, at least, somethingRead More →

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Prices start at $80 per month for a two-region private grid, with $50 setup fee. Includes voice, currency, hypergrid, and a user registration website.Read More →

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Samsung, in partnership with Qualcomm and Google, has announced plans to develop a new extended reality product. XR is a term that encompasses virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality technologies. I myself switched from Apple to Samsung in 2015 specifically for Samsung’s Gear VR headset. But when Samsung cancelledRead More →

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Last Friday, AltspaceVR announced that will be shutting down its virtual environment in March. AltspaceVR was a consumer-focused immersive space that could be accessed either via the desktop or through a virtual reality headset. Since its launch in 2016, the platform has hosted big names and quickly became the go-toRead More →

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On Nov. 30, OpenAI released a beta of its ChatGPT chatbot to the public — for free. It is currently, hands-down, the best text and code generator out there. Within the first six days, more than a million people signed up to use it. They’re using it to write workingRead More →

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A new art installation has its grand opening today, Monday, Sep. 12, at 1 p.m. Pacific time on the Craft World grid, the second contribution to the Ukraine Borderland Art Project. The installation, Ukraine Victory 2025, is by artist Rage Darkstone. The hypergrid address is craft-world.org:8002:Ukraine The installation is a “lyricalRead More →

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If you want to try high-end consumer virtual reality headset, one that’s not part of Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta ecosystem, the best options are the headsets that you tether to a PC. One that I haven’t tried yet is the HP Reverb G2 VR headset. And it’s discounted today, from $599Read More →

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OSgrid, the largest grid in land area and active user numbers, will celebrate its 15th birthday starting on Monday, July 25. The celebration will run through July 31. “We’ll have live music and DJs to entertain us as we celebrate everything that is OSgrid,” grid president Wizard Atazoth. Former presidentRead More →

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The Metropolis grid will shut down on midnight on June 30. But before one of the oldest OpenSim grids closes for good, it will be the site of the premiere performance of a play by Reiner Schneeberger. The play is titled “The Art Giantess Is The Work: Thea von Harbou,”Read More →

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Last night, Google sent me a message that I could have one of its virtual AI-powered voices record my audiobooks for me. I wrote an article about for MetaStellar here: Google offers free AI-powered audiobook narration. You can edit the finished file to fix pronunciation mistakes and then download theRead More →

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Just like Brandon Sanderson, I, too, have been busy during this pandemic. In fact, I’ve written more than ten new books. Take that, Sanderson! Okay, most of them are really short. His books are 400 pages long. My books are shorter. Krim Deeds, for example, is 150 pages. But, onRead More →

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The educational play “We Are Going to Lviv” is back for a single performance tonight on the Meta region of the OpenSim Community Conference grid. The trip was originally part of the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education 2022 conference and is an artistic journey that spans the past andRead More →

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So I just got a warning in my email inbox from a “touche@1studi.ru.” The domain name is associated with a company that runs a couple of Russia-based OpenSim grids. Apparently, the flag of Ukraine is now a “Nazi” flag. Now, I mean sure, there are Nazis in every country —Read More →

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“Metaverse” is a word thrown around a lot lately, and its meaning seems to mean whatever anyone wants it to mean. Here’s a breakdown of the most common definitions. Metaverse as virtual reality The term “metaverse” was first coined in Neal Stephenson’s 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash. He usedRead More →

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The 2021 OpenSimulator Community Conference is next weekend, and registration is now open — and free. This year’s conference features more than 65 speakers leading presentations, workshops, panel sessions, music, and social events across the diversity of the OpenSimulator user base. See the full schedule here. Attending the conference event isRead More →

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The impending loss of Vivox voice in OpenSim is putting stress on educational institutions and other groups and organizations that need in-world voice. Vivox was integrated into the viewer and required no additional work on the part of the users. Other systems, such as Skype or Discord, typically require thatRead More →

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More than 300 valid responses came in for the Twelfth Annual OpenSim Grid Survey, and Wildwood Bayou received nearly perfect scores in all categories, with Utopia Skye, Enchanted Grid, Craft World and Kitely close behind. Wildwood Bayou, Utopia Skye, and Enchanted Grid were all write-in grids. Most years, there’s at leastRead More →

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After AviTron reported Gloebit payment problems on Saturday, other grids also seem to be having the same issue. Today, Gloebit confirmed that there’s an issue. “It appears that starting Sep. 27, some grids had some notifications of completion of transaction not make it back to the grid,” Gloebit CEO ChrisRead More →

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  The AviTron grid is reporting an outage in the multi-grid Gloebit payment system. “I have been emailing these guys for two weeks now,” AviTron grid owner Alex Pomposelli told Hypergrid Business. “No response yet.” According to Pomposelli, the problem is that the Gloebit DLL needs to be updated. TheRead More →

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Russia-based OpenSim company Caprica is now hosting private grids starting at just $20 a month. The company also runs its own grid, also called Caprica, That grid, which was founded in early 2018, currently has 310 regions and reported 300 active users in the last 30 days. Caprica’s new privateRead More →

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To celebrate the completion of my most recent novella, Time of the Meatheads, the first novella in set in the Krim virtual world, Krim Times, is free this weekend. And it’s got a new cover, too. The book made the Amazon category bestseller list when it was released back inRead More →

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Update: Free service still available, but needs integration work. See full story here. Vivox, the voice service acquired by Unity two years ago, is discontinuing its free OpenSim service. “As of May 25, 2021, the Free Virtual World Voice service has been deprecated and we will no longer be acceptingRead More →

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Two grid owners have successfully enabled Podex for hypergrid visitors to their grids. Discovery Grid owner Rene Vega, also known as Balpien Hammerer in-world, and AviWorlds owner Josh Boam have allowed hypergrid visitors to buy and use Podex-based local currencies while visiting their grids. “Thanks to Josh Boam as wellRead More →

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A few OpenSim grid owners have contacted me about price updates, and there have been some dramatic drops out there fueled by improved management tools on the part of the grid owners and lower hosting prices by infrastructure providers. That inspired me to review all the grid prices on theRead More →

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Update 5/19: AnSky is switching away from Gloebit, possibly to a local currency on the jOpenSimMoney module. The Gloebit payment services is back up this week, kind of, after more than a month of downtime, but many grids and users are still reporting issues with the payment system. “We restoredRead More →

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DigiWorldz, a leading commercial OpenSim grid, is giving away a years’ free rent for 25 regions, each one a two-by-two varregion with 25,000 prims, The drawing is free to enter and its open to both local residents and hypergrid visitors — applicants just need to fill out a form beforeRead More →

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The Hypergrid Hoppers, a club for the explorers of the OpenSim hypergrid, is going to Vulcanicus Tuesday to meet the Gods of Second Life. The trip will start at 12:30 p.m. Pacific time on the HG Hoppers region on Craft World on Tuesday, March 23. The hypergrid address is craft-world.org:8002:HG Hoppers.Read More →

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Podex, the second-largest OpenSim payments provider, has suffered a fire at its data center and services are temporarily down, but no user money has been lost. “The Podex system is on OVH servers based in Strasbourg and fire destroyed some of their data center,” Podex CEO Jacek Shuftan told HypergridRead More →