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A virtual walkthrough of the new planned Pentecost Church of Lumberton in North Carolina has been built in Tangle Grid in order to show parishioners what the final building will look like. The virtual build was commissioned by the senior reverend to help the church raise money for construction andRead More →

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OpenSim grids added a total of 1,574 standard region equivalents to their land area in the last one month, while the number of active users increased by 375. On a further positive note, OpenSim gained an additional 4,000 registered users. OSgrid gained the largest land area in terms of theRead More →

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Grids around the OpenSim metaverse are gearing up to celebrate Halloween, and some have already started the festivities. Tag Grid holds Halloween build contest The Halloween Build contest on the Tag Grid started on Wednesday, October 7, and will run until Friday, October 31. To participate, a builder chooses a ten-by-tenRead More →

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OpenSim grew by more than 1,700 regions over the past month while active users increased by more than 1,400. There is usually a seasonal uptick in the fall as students and teachers return back to school. This year, that may have been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, as well. OpenSimRead More →

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“Garden of Eden,” the first in a series of three live VR art explorations, concerts, and shows organized by HBO, kicks off today at 10 p.m. Eastern time on VRChat, a social VR platform. Those without a VR headset can watch the “Garden of Eden” livestream on YouTube and will beRead More →

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OpenSim stats are down this month by a little over 1,000 active users — but Tag Grid, OpenSim’s largest closed grid, did not report stats this month, and had over 1,500 active users this month. Active users are expected to increase again next month, as students return to school. CraftRead More →

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Craft World has seen a 25 percent increase in the number of school regions and more teachers attended lessons in immersive education at the grid as a consequence of the coronavirus lockdown, grid owner Raffaele Maci told Hypergrid Business. “At the moment, we have about 140 teachers, 350 students —Read More →

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VRCollab, a remote meeting and collaboration app that lets users in the construction industry coordinate and collaborate on projects in real-time from different construction sites and offices, has witnessed a twice-and-a-half increase in monthly signups during the coronavirus pandemic related lockdowns. Because many people have been unable to go toRead More →

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The number of active users on OpenSim dropped by around 3,500 users this month, mostly due to stats problems on the adult Brazilian 3D Love grid, which reported more than 3,000 active users last month but none this month. Another big drop was a loss of over 1,000 actives onRead More →

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It is four times faster to train employees soft skills when using virtual reality than when using traditional in-person classroom or online training, according to a new study by PricewaterhouseCoopers. And it’s cheaper, too — organizations spend about $195 per trainee when using virtual reality, compared to the $207 to $265Read More →

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The coronavirus pandemic is accelerating the use of virtual reality and augmented reality, experts say, especially in retail, education and health. “The trajectory is clear that this technology is set to become the next ubiquitous computing platform, much like we saw with mobile devices and personal computers,” Taylor Freeman, founderRead More →

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The number of active users on OpenSim increased by more than 3,000 this past month, and land area grew by over 2,000 regions as people continue to wait out the pandemic. Meanwhile, if OpenSim users are wary of attending real-world Fourth of July events, OpenSim grids, including Tag Grid and Littlefield,Read More →

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For the past few years, virtual reality meetings, events, and classrooms haven’t taken off the way that proponents expected, due to inconvenience, usability issues, bandwidth requirements, the need for high-end computers, and expensive headsets, new software, and more. Nothing works right — it’s easier to have a phone call orRead More →

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All stats — area, registered users, active users — went up this month on the public OpenSim grids. In addition, we have hit the highest number of active grids in the history of this report, 365, as well as the highest number of grids reporting stats, at 293. Many ofRead More →

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Sinespace, a Unity-based virtual world platform from former OpenSim core developer Adam Frisby, has a new ready-to-go virtual world for meetings and education, called Breakroom. The world requires that users install desktop — mobile versions are in the works. The platform starts at $500 a month for up to 50Read More →

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With the pandemic, educators around the world are finding out first-hand that most virtual meetings don’t provide the same kind of educational benefits as in-person classes. Students don’t have the sense of being together that allows them to learn collaboratively. So when a group of teaching colleges in Israel wasRead More →

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OpenSim land area continued its four-month growth streak this month, and the number of active users in OpenSim is up this month by over 2,400 users, mostly due to the fact that the Tag Grid released numbers this month, but not last month. But some of the increase could alsoRead More →

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In another blow to the viability of VR-based virtual worlds, Linden Lab has sold off its next-gen Sansar virtual world to an unknown startup called Wookey Project Corp. Wookey has no information on its website except for the names of three employees. In a press release late last month, Linden LabRead More →

WorkLink usecase

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Enterprises are optimistic about the potential of virtual and augmented reality, according to a recent report by Perkins Coie in collaboration with XR Association trade group and venture capital firm Boost VC. Two-thirds of companies expect to increase spending on immersive technologies this year compared to 2019, the report said, withRead More →

Vive Pro Eye Office

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With businesses, schools and other organizations sending many employees to work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic, this could be a good time for organizations to take another look at virtual reality. And VR manufacturers have just released some nice new high-end headsets. Earlier this month, HTC announced two business-orientedRead More →

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The COVID-19 pandemic seems to be turning a corner in China, with no new cases reported today, but the virus is still spreading aggressively around much of the world, including the U.S. and Europe. For a glimpse of what it was like on the ground in China, check out thisRead More →

WorkLink usecase

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Scope AR’s WorkLink platform, an augmented reality tool that provides AR-enabled remote assistance and step-by-step work instructions, is helping factories by having maintenance experts provide real-time remote assistance and work instructions to factory workers in geographies where Chinese experts are no longer allowed to travel due to COVID-19, previously knownRead More →

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After Europe’s new data privacy regulations, GDPR, went into effect on May 25, OpenSim users saw a flurry of requests from grid owners asking them to agree to new privacy policies. Sometimes, those messages would pop up in the middle of a hypergrid trip, hindering travel. DigiWorldz, for example, hasRead More →

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Twice as many grids now use Gloebit-powered payments compared to an older service, Podex, due to Gloebit’s easier set up and overall lower costs. Gloebits reports that it now has close to 2,000 account users and is on more than 50 grids, and the cumulative value of transactions reached more thanRead More →

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The public OpenSim grids lost the equivalent of nearly 4,000 regions, for a new total land area of 80,671 standard region equivalents. The number of active monthly users dropped by 2,580, to reach a total of 35,399. Most of the land area losses were due to a regular cleanup on OSgrid,Read More →

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Interested in taking a flight without worrying about the engine blowing out? You can now fly virtually, on an airplane filled with other passengers, on the Kea Nation enclave on the DigiWorldz grid. Kea Nation has brought in several airplanes recently, including the KNVV Douglas DC, which can carry up to 12Read More →

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OpenSim land area and users rose slightly this month, despite outages and maintenance on several grids. Atek was down for a while before later resuming, as was Virtuality Grid, while Kinky Grid also went under construction temporarily. Tangle Grid is currently still down for maintenance. And Gevolution was doing loadRead More →

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Child avatars are a sensitive topic in virtual worlds. For some users, the presence of child avatars opens the possibility of inappropriate sexual roleplay, which is at best extremely creepy and, at worst, illegal. For other users, child avatars are a necessity for grids with an educational focus. And forRead More →

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This year’s Virtual World Best Practices in Education 2018 conference, which ended last week in Second Life, was shorter than last year — three days, instead of four — and attracted about 1,100 attendees, down from a high of around 4,500 in previous years. Attendance was up slightly over lastRead More →

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OpenSim land area continued to increase gaining a total of 3,400 standard region equivalents this month — after gaining more than 9,000 regions last month. The number of active users also increased by 1,300. OSgrid is still the biggest grid with a total of 20,203 standard region equivalents, followed byRead More →

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LSL Editor, software that helps users write scripts more easily for Second Life and OpenSim objects, has been updated with more support for OpenSim functions. With the new version 2.56, users can also create scripts that run other scripts, LSL Editor developer Frank Rulof told Hypergrid Business, and the testingRead More →

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OpenSim active user numbers hit a new high of 34,908 users this month. Land area also went up and is now at the equivalent of 80,175 standard regions, reversing a couple of months of declines. However, it still falls short of the 88,225 regions last November. Much of the movement isRead More →

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The Sacrarium grid has taken down illegal content after receiving complains from users through emails and forums, and removed users who allegedly engaged in illegal behavior with child avatars. Neustadt, a region in Sacrarium grid and which was selling naked child avatars and had children avatars moving around naked, wearing BDSMRead More →

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About a week ago, a social media post accused a region on the Kitely grid of distributing infringing content. Strictly speaking, any infringement complaint needs to be made by the original content creator, through official channels. That wasn’t the case here. It was a pseudonymous user, DMCA GridSkipper, claiming that the FashionistasRead More →

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Keng City will open a new museum on Wednesday, February 1 on the DigiWorldz grid to celebrate Black History Month. The museum will showcase African-American accomplishments and events throughout history starting with the slave trade to present day inventors and innovators. Although they will not exhibit everything owing to space limitationsRead More →

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OpenSim’s longest-running live music venue – Maritime Club Belfast — is celebrating its tenth anniversary this weekend. The party starts at the club location on OSgrid on Sunday, January 28, at 1 p.m. Pacific Time. The club is a virtual recreation of a blues club opened and run by Van Morrison in 1964 inRead More →

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OpenSim land area fell by the equivalent of  8,667 standard regions, and active users dropped by 3,473 due to combination of school holidays and fewer grids reporting stats than in the last couple of months. In addition to InWorldz, Great Canadian Grid, and The Adult Grid, other grids that did notRead More →

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This May, a major new regulation goes into effect — the European General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR. It affects any company anywhere in the world that collects data on Europeans. And yes, that includes emails and IP addresses, and there’s no minimum company size required. If you’re an organized grid,Read More →

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  YrGrid denies allegations that it is refusing redemptions in order to profit from the recent spike in Bitcoin prices. Instead, the problem is caused by their Bitcoin wallet service provider, said the grid, which is a Hong Kong-based commercial gambling-oriented grid with a Bitcoin-based virtual currency. Residents and users haveRead More →

Hypergrid Business Data December

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OpenSim’s public grids reached a new high in active users this month, as traffic went up more than 7 percent, or nearly 2,500 actives. There are now 34,881 active monthly users on the grids that report these figures. The OpenSim Community Conference last weekend accounted for 335 of the new actives,Read More →

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Second Life, with a much bigger economy than that of OpenSim, also has a much bigger problem with copyright infringement than OpenSim. For instance, copybotters have long been using specialized third party viewers to duplicate creators’ content and offer them for sale, lowering demand for the legitimate versions of theRead More →

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The submission deadline for Tangle Grid‘s Winter Picture Contest has been extended to Sunday, December 17 following an outage that saw the grid offline for more than a week. The previous deadline was December 1. The grid came back up yesterday after a series of technical issues that included aRead More →

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Apple has lagged behind in the virtual and augmented reality race so far. Their phones can be used for some low-end VR, via the Cardboard platform from Google, but they haven’t had anything of their own to match the higher-end Samsung Gear VR and Google Daydream View headsets. Its latestRead More →

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Grids are getting an early start on the holidays this year, with a number of winter-themed regions already up and ready to visit, and a full calendar of events planned across the hypergrid. Skiing and Winter Expo in Tangle Grid This year’s Tangle Winter Expo will run from December 1 toRead More →