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Avination, a closed commercial grid, announced a switch to a new currency yesterday, as a result of a previous theft of $126,000 from the grid. Back in the summer of 2011, crooks stole a bunch of US credit card numbers and used them to buy $126,000 worth of Avination’s C$Read More →

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CloudServe, which originally launched as a low-cost OpenSim region hosting provider, has shifted to serving the wholesale market instead. Instead of selling regions to individuals, the company now focuses on serving grid owners and land resellers. “We have been for a while,” said Frank Corsi, the company’s chief technology officer. OneRead More →

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There’s never been a better time to stock up on low-cost OpenSim land. Sure, you can run regions or mini-grids at home for free, but then you’re responsible for all your own tech support, backups, and upgrades — and the number of visitors is limited to what you home connectionRead More →

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In a paper released today, neuroscientists from Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet have used virtual reality to find out how people feel when they think their body is invisible. “This experience affects bodily self-perception and social cognition,” the authors wrote. A person was primed to think they’re invisible by wearing a virtual reality headset,Read More →

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Press Release: CyberLightning Charts Path to Intelligent Internet of Everything With New Release of CyberVille Platform CyberVille 2.0 Enhances Smart-Node to Cloud Scalability, Establishes Basis for Self-Learning Industrial IoT Networks Espoo, Finland – CyberLightning Ltd. today announced release 2.0 of the CyberVille software platform, which provides a “see it atRead More →

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I’ve gotten a little wary of trying new virtual reality applications because some of the best ones, graphically, do the nastiest job on my stomach. There was that one swimming-with-sharks simulations that made me seasick, that I still remember well. AltspaceVR has figured out how to put people in aRead More →

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Since last September, the lowest-price regions in the metaverse were on the Great Canadian Grid. But their $5 region pricing is coming to an end. You can still get a 15,000-prim region, with no limit on visitors, for just CAD $5 — that’s around $4 in US dollars — butRead More →

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One grid was not enough to hold all the drama that is AviWorlds — so now we have two. And they are at war. In one corner, there’s Alexandro Pomposelli’s AviWorlds grid, at aviworlds.us, with 61 regions and 83 active users. In the other corner, there’s Mike Hart’s AviWorlds grid,Read More →

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OSgrid lost a chunk of new inventory items over the course of this past month, but the problem doesn’t affect other grids. “It appears that for the last month or so, the asset server was unable to write assets to the database,” OSgrid administrator Allen Kerensky said in yesterday’s announcement. The grid hasRead More →

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There are many reasons to go into the freebie business on OpenSim: Create brand-name recognition for yourself as a designer in order to sell premium content Create brand-name recognition in order to do custom work To attract people to your grid, community, role playing group, casino, or event venue To helpRead More →

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There is a new destination guide available for any hypergrid-enabled grid: Hyperica Destination Guide. To add the Hyperica Destination Guide as the default guide for your grid, simply edit your Robust.ini or Robust.HG.ini file. In the “[LoginService]” section there is a “DestinationGuide” parameter which can be used to communicate aRead More →

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$15 a month for a 16,000-prim region on the hypergrid-enabled DigiWorldz grid, no setup fee. Private grid hosting also available on request.Read More →

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The total number of regions and public grids in OpenSim hit new record highs this month but while more than 8,600 new users registered, the total number of active users fell by 909 to just below the 30,000 mark. For those who are new readers, OpenSim is a free, openRead More →

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As anyone with experience in OpenSim knows perhaps the biggest barrier to having the general public view your work is the requirement to download a viewer and the complexity of using it once you have it downloaded. Google Cardboard is a device that turns smartphones into stereoscopic, 3D viewers. UsingRead More →

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The Kitely Market has passed the 8,000 item milestone, with a new total of 8,300 different items, grouped into 4,116 product listings. Unlike the Second Life Marketplace, where, say, different colors of a dress would each be listed separately, Kitely Market counts these as variations of a common product listing.Read More →

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Press release: Improve Patient Care with Virtual Reality Mindfulness GLEN ELLYN, Ill. – Cubicle Ninjas‘ relaxing virtual reality application for the Oculus Rift, Guided Meditation VR allows patients to experience an exotic vacation, wherever and whenever they choose. The Beta demo app has surpassed 25,000 downloads and is already helping improve the overallRead More →

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My name is Tyler Brabo, and, ten days ago, I was hired to research hypergrid destinations for Hyperica. This required that I create an account in OpenSim, get an avatar, and figure out how to surf the hypergrid. My boss, Maria Korolov, asked me to keep track of what problemsRead More →

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The Firestorm Viewer is the most popular on the hypergrid by a wide margin, according to today’s analysis of Hyperica server logs. More than half of the last 3,600 visitors to Hyperica used the Firestorm Viewer. Less than a third used Singularity, and CtrlAltStudio, Cool LV, and Replex were all aroundRead More →

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Virtual Desktop is a free Windows application that instantly makes the entire Windows operating system accessible via the Oculus Rift. Anything that you can use on your monitor, such as a word processor or a browser, you can use in virtual reality. Read a very thorough review at Road to VR.Read More →

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Stray Cats — The Game opened its doors to beta testers at the start of this month. It’s an OpenSim grid dedicated to breedable cats. The owners say that users will be able to buy cats, sell them, breed them, train them, and enter them in competitions, and that thereRead More →

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The latest releases virtual world viewers, such as Firestorm, Singularity, and Kokua can provide access to a “Destination Guide” for your OpenSim grid for both local and hypergrid visitors. And this guide can feature both local and hypergrid destinations. But the grid owner first has to enable this feature in their configurationRead More →

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I’ve heard a lot of complaints about Linda Kellie while traveling the hypergrid. Okay, not about her per se — she’s probably done more for OpenSim than any other creator out there. But the fact that Linda Kellie’s content collection is licensed CC0, which is as close to public domainRead More →

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For those interested in learning how to work with mesh objects, there’s a new series of Blender tutorials available online from Ontario-based retired artist Aine Caoimhe — also known as Mata Hari in-world. Blender is a free but powerful 3D modeling and animation program available for download here. It supports theRead More →

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Merrie Schonbach’s new grid’s business model is a mystery. Literally a mystery — Pillars of Mist will offer both self-paced and group murder mystery events. It is the newest example of a trend we’re seeing on the hypergrid, of focused, niche grids that don’t try to be all things to all people,Read More →

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As everyone who has ever tried to set up a hyperport well knows, hypergrid destinations change frequently. Regions move, grids close — staying up to date can be a nightmare. Especially if you’re doing it all by hand. To help people out, and to avoid unnecessary duplication of work, I’veRead More →

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The Adult Metaverse Google Plus community continued to attract members over the past six weeks, growing by 146 members from 444 members last month to 590 members today. At the start of the year, it only had 282 members. Second Life and other Virtual Worlds saw the next-highest growth, with 130Read More →

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Press release: Leading universities worldwide join OSVR Open Source Virtual Reality hardware dev kits to be given to more than 20 higher education labs and research facilities SAN FRANCISCO – Organizers of the Open Source Virtual Reality, a software platform designed to set an open standard for virtual reality inputRead More →

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DigiWorldz launched this week, a new filtered grid from one of the founders of 3rd Rock Grid and digital worlds hosting and consulting company Digital Worlds Group. There were more than 30 new grids in the latest Hypergrid Business monthly stats report, but DigiWorldz stands out not only in the caliberRead More →

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The new official release of OpenSimulator — OpenSimulator 0.8.1 — came out this week, with only minor changes compared with the preview release. “The most significant being a fix for a regression where script state was being lost for hypergrid transfers,” core developer Justin Clark-Casey said in an announcement. Compared toRead More →

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The exportable content on the Kitely Market grew ten times faster than non-exportables over the past month, continuing a trend that began late last summer. The market added 245 new exportable items, compared to 23 non-exportable ones, for a new total of 7,950 different variations of 3,898 products. A singleRead More →

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This was another record-breaking month for OpenSim, with new highs in regions, users, and active users on the 323 active worlds. For those who are new readers, OpenSim is a free, open source virtual world platform that’s compatible with the Oculus Rift. It allows people with no technical skills toRead More →

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Press Release: Explore thousands of years old sites with Oculus Rift AMSTERDAM — ArcheoScan has launched a 10,000 Euro (US $10,500) Kickstarter campaign to convert a scanned archeological site for virtual reality. “Imagine yourself exploring mysterious tombs and secret places built even before the Roman Empire started. Picture yourself walking around, jumpingRead More →

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Press release: Next Galaxy to Develop Virtual Reality Applications for Miami Children’s Hospital MIAMI BEACH, Fla. — Next Galaxy Corp, a leading technology and content solutions company developing dynamic, innovative consumer Virtual Reality experiences and technology, is pleased to announce the signing of an agreement with Miami Children’s Hospital (MCH)Read More →

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Press release: Avination required to stop transfer of Linden Dollars London – Due to recent interaction with Linden Labs, the Avination grid is announcing that the transfer of Linden Dollars to Avination is no longer available, including payment for Avination regions via the Avination ATMs. “Following discussions with Linden Labs they have advised that anyRead More →

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Mountain Dew has produced the Dew VR Snow Experience, a live-action snowboarding virtual reality experience that takes fans on a 360 degree adventure through the Utah backcountry. The on-site experience will debut at the Burton US Open of Snowboarding in Vail, Colorado and South by Southwest in Austin, Texas and willRead More →

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I don’t usually go around telling people what the best grids are. I run surveys, or I punt the question and just say, “What ever grid works best for you” or “Your own private grid” or something like that. The thing is, everybody is looking for something different. Some peopleRead More →

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This week, OpenSimulator released a security fix to protect content on public grids. All public grids should either install the fix, or configure an HTTP proxy to protect important ports, said OpenSim core developer Justin Clark-Casey in the announcement. But the danger goes beyond protecting the data on grid servers, ifRead More →

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Cirque du Soleil Media has partnered with Samsung to produce a live action virtual reality aerial show to be viewed on its flagship Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge smartphones in combination with the Gear VR headset. Read full article at The Hollywood Reporter.Read More →

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Icelandic article Björk is making a music video for the Oculus Rift. “It’s easy to get really intimate [with virtual reality],” she said in a recent interview. “It’s almost more intimate than real life. It also has this crazy panoramic quality. I think it’s really exciting.” Read the full article atRead More →

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This past week’s Game Developers Conference in San Francisco featured more female speakers than ever before, according to new analysis from Vocativ. According to the report, the number of women speakers at the conference has doubled, from 10 percent in 2011, to 20 percent this year. Read full report here.Read More →

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The RobStock team have set the date for the 8th annual RobStock Charity Event for the last weekend in March, from Friday, March 27 to Sunday, March 29. “We are asking artists to give an hour of their time free, all tips going to the charity,” the organizers said in a pressRead More →

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Game development studio Epic has just announced that their engine, the infamous Unreal Engine, will be completely free for everyone to use starting immediately. This is a full version of Unreal Engine, and not just a demo or trial version. Those who choose to use Unreal Engine will still beRead More →

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Press release: HTC unveils strategic partnership with Valve; announces VR developer edition available in Spring and consumer edition available by end of 2015 BARCELONA, Spain – HTC, a pioneer in innovative, smart technologies, today announced plans to bring mass-market virtual reality (VR) one step closer. Through a strategic partnership with Valve, HTCRead More →

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Sony says its Project Morpheus will be released for the PlayStation 4 in the first half of 2016, bringing virtual reality to its game console. The manufacturer revealed a new design for the headset as well as improved hardware specifications, as it prepares to release the PS4-powered VR headset inRead More →

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MindMaze Announces $8.5 Million in Angel Funding; MindLeap Game System Driven by Players’ Brainwaves SAN FRANCISCO — GAME DEVELOPERS CONFERENCE – Today MindMaze, a neurotechnology company, unveiled the industry’s first thought-powered virtual reality (VR), augmented reality and motion capture game system, MindLeap. The system is based on MindMaze’s proprietary, medically-provenRead More →