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Five million Google Cardboard-compatible headsets have been shipping, Google announced yesterday. The accompanying graphic shows a lot of headsets made out of cardboard, and two — the Mattel Viewmaster and the Goggle Tech C1-Glass — made out of plastic. Google didn’t provide any details about how they track these numbers, andRead More →

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Starbreeze will create a virtual reality arcade in Los Angeles later on this year to give the public access to premium  virtual reality experiences with their recently launched StarVR headset, the company announced in a press release. Called Project StarCade, it will feature OverKill‘s Walking Dead virtual reality experience, although the company isRead More →

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Avi-Labs, the OpenSim hosting company affiliated with Alexandro Pomposelli’s AviWorlds grid, has been slowly but steadily expanding its suite of services. Customers now include 4addiktion Grid, Baller Nation Grid, Sinful Grid, and Loff Virtual Worlds. “We are growing and I think it is time you consider placing us on your list,” said Pomposelli,Read More →

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Jessica Lyon, the head of the Firestorm Viewer project, is now recommending the rival Alchemy viewer for OpenSim users. “Alchemy may be the most compatible viewer to OpenSim right now,” she said, thanks to the efforts of viewer developer Cinder Roxley. Lyon was speaking at a taping of the InWorldRead More →

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Samsung, the maker of the Gear VR virtual-reality headset, is opening a New York studio to produce new immersive experiences, CNET reported. Samsung announced the news at the Sundance film festival in Park City, Utah, where virtual reality is emerging as a prominent theme. “One of the biggest trends and themes forRead More →

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Planner 5D, an application that allows home owners, builders, architects and real estate renovators to design homes in 3D, now has virtual reality support for Google Cardboard headsets. The app can be downloaded for free for iOS devices and Android smartphones, but some features require in-app purchases. The application already hasRead More →

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Virtual reality equipment maker Virtuix hosted the first ever multiplayer virtual reality game tournament at CES in Las Vegas. Four gamers played on Omni multi-directional treadmills that formed the Omni Arena, with HTC Vive headsets strapped on and with each player armed with a replica gun. “We feel that active virtual reality is theRead More →

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The total land area of the public OpenSim grids rose slightly this month, and there were nearly 10,000 new registered users, but active user numbers dropped slightly over the holidays. OpenSim now has a record-high of 71,557 standard region equivalents, a record high of 503,152 registered users, and 32,200 activeRead More →

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Merchants continued to expand the number of exportable items listed on the Kitely Market this month, showing an increasing tolerance for selling to the broader metaverse. Meanwhile, the number of items limited to just being used on the Kitely grid shrank for the second month in a row. There areRead More →

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Google Inc, has appointed Clay Bavor as the new boss of its virtual reality team, according to the company’s spokesman Joshua Cruz, in a move seen as the company’s further dive into virtual reality after huge successes with the Google Cardboard. “We can confirm Clay’s new role on the VRRead More →

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The large number of smartphone users in Asia will spur sales of mobile-based virtual reality devices in the region this year, according to SuperData Research in a report released this month. Globally, three out of four early adopters will use smartphones to try virtual reality, according to the report. A totalRead More →

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WakingApp‘s ENTiTi VR is a cloud-based design tool that allows even those without any coding skills to create 360-degree immersive content using a variety of content types. There is also a correspondent viewer for experiencing the content online either on a personal computers or on headsets.  The ENTiTi Creator application isRead More →

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The United States Copyright Office will, from next month, begin taking opinions from the tech industry and members of the public regarding Section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that allows OpenSim grids and other content-sharing sites to take down infringing material and penalize repeat offenders.   The application of the infringementRead More →

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Oculus VR is now taking pre-orders for the Oculus Rift headset, but at $600 it’s about twice as expensive as many expected. The purchase page says the headset will start shipping in May to 20 different countries. By comparison, the developer kit cost about $350. The company says that the headsetRead More →

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Improving virtual reality immersion by increasing the field of view and having more accurate positional tracking will be the battlefield this year, according to a recent report by Digi-Capital. At the moment, the best-in-class of view for virtual reality device screen resolution is 136 degrees diagonally per eye, which is promising given that usersRead More →

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When it comes to investing in early-stage companies, you’re either “friends and family,” an angel investor accredited with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or a venture capitalist. In the past, average people have been shut out of the process because such investments, while potentially extremely lucrative, are also extremely risky.Read More →

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The Adult Metaverse community was the fastest-growing this year, reaching 1,255 members by the end of 2015, followed by OpenSim Virtual, which reached 1,649 members and retained its spot as the top OpenSim-focused community on Google Plus. Four grids made the top-fifteen list growth list: Kitely, OSgrid, DigiWorldz, and the GreatRead More →

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Roundme virtual tour application allows photographers and brands to create, upload and share 360 degrees immersive paranomic photos and multimedia content of real spaces, which users can then visit virtually using Google Cardboard on the web browser or on Android and iOS devices. The application, which already hosts a numberRead More →

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OpenSim gained a record-high 10,013 active users in 2015 — more than double the increase of any previous previous year. By comparison, last year, OpenSim’s public grids gained 2,189 active users last year, 3,652 in 2013, 2,652 in 2012, and 2,671 in 2011. OpenSim also gained 80,702 registered users thisRead More →

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Mozilla, which helped pioneer WebVR last year, is making virtual reality development even easier with this month’s release of A-Frame, a tool that allows developers to create experiences for the desktop, the Oculus Rift, and smartphones with Google Cardboard headsets, Mozilla said in its announcement last week. “WebVR has shippedRead More →

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Just in time for the holidays, Exo-Life Virtual World has released a set of IAR inventory export files, to accompany its collection of ten free OAR region export files. The IAR files include three fully-functional in-world calendars featuring Exo–Life‘s staff and residents. There is also an IAR file of women’s dresses, andRead More →

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The on-demand Kitely grid passed 10,000 regions this month for the first time, and the Great Canadian Grid hit the 1,000 region mark. They helped boost OpenSim to a new record high of 71,360 standard region equivalents, an increase of 326 regions since last month. Overall, OSgrid, Kitely, the Great Canadian GridRead More →

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The Kitely Market saw the first downturn in its listing numbers this month, a result of some housekeeping on the part of management. “We were forced to remove the listings of several merchants who repeatedly failed to follow our product listing guidelines despite our detailed instructions on what needs toRead More →

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Presence Capital Launches With Close Of World’s First Virtual Reality And Augmented Reality Focused VC Fund The team of leading VC, games, VR and tech industry veterans announce their inaugural fund of $10 million SAN FRANCISCO – Presence Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm focused on virtual reality and augmented reality startups,Read More →

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The consumer release of HTC’s Vive headset is delayed until April 2016, HTC announced last week. “We will be starting the new year by making an additional 7,000 units available to developers, with pre-orders from the end of February followed by commercial availability in April 2016,” the company said. InRead More →

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The number of OpenSim-related communities on Google Plus is growing, in part due to simple subscription options, easy calendar updates, and Google allowing pseudonymous accounts. Altogether, there are 20 new communities on our list. The five biggest, that are specifically focused on OpenSim are OpenSim, OpenSim Everything, OpenSim Standalone, Collaborative Hypergrid, andRead More →

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Samsung launched a virtual reality web browser last week, Samsung Internet optimized for Gear VR, allowing users to surf the Internet without taking off their virtual reality headset. The app allows users to check email and social media news feeds and read online articles and also supports 360-degree and 3D video streaming, as wellRead More →

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The 2015 Terasem Annual Colloquium on the Law of Futuristic Persons, themed “Moral and Legal Imperatives for Sentient AI,” will take place in Second Life, on the Terasem region, on Thursday, December 10, 2015, with a stellar list of speakers. The four-hour event will start at 9 a.m., Pacific Time, noonRead More →

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Frame, a company that can run any software in a cloud-based browser window — for a fee — is taking over Texas-based Bright Canopy, which offers browser-based access for Second Life and OpenSim viewers. Bright Canopy founder Bill Glover has told Hypergrid Business that he has accepted a position fromRead More →

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San Francisco-based Gameface Labs, the company behind the all-in-one Gameface virtual reality headset, will be part of the Valve ecosystem, CEO Ed Mason told Hypergrid Business. The headset will also support Google Cardboard applications, he said, and will have a virtual world browser that will be compatible with both SecondRead More →

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Kitely, OpenSim’s largest commercial grid by land area, announced today that it will switch all multi-region islands to varregion mode. Currently, customers renting these larger islands on the Kitely grid can choose to have them arranged as a simple group of regions, or in Kitely’s version of the megaregion format, which doesRead More →

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Press release: TrendForce Forecasts VR Market Value to Hit US$70 Billion in 2020 as Innovative Apps Enrich This Industry Consumers’ relentless pursuit for richer audiovisual experience has propelled the popularity of virtual reality devices and drawn in more companies to invest in this market. Furthermore, the competition among the increasingRead More →

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A new Paris-based grid, Utherworldz, is holding its grand opening today —  the second commercial gaming grid in a row to be hypergrid-enabled. In October, Neon Evolution held its grand opening with a fund raiser for the Susan G. Komen Foundation to fight breast cancer, and a $7 special on region rentals. UnlikeRead More →

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Press release: 360Fly to speak at first-ever 360-degree and virtual reality film school  360fly, the world’s only single-lens camera capturing stitchless 360-degree video with interactive and virtual reality viewing capabilities, will send team members to guest speak at the first-ever 360-degree film school at the University of Irvine in OrangeRead More →

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The 2015 OpenSim Community Conference starts this Saturday, leaving just three days to register. Registration is free here, but you can also choose to make a tax-deductible donation to support OpenSim development and get some extra benefits. For example, the “Exclusive Access” ticket, at $35, includes an invitation to a VIP Q&ARead More →

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Select Verizon wireless retail stores will give away a limited number of Google Cardboard viewers to Verizon customers, the company announced today. The giveaway starts tomorrow, December 2, with four different designs featuring BB-8, R2-D2, Kylo Ren, and the new First Order Stormtrooper. There are also companion apps for iOSRead More →

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Crista Lopes has released a new update of the Diva Distro version of OpenSim, used by many individuals and small groups for private OpenSim deployments and hypergrid-enabled mini-grids, to accompany the recent general release of OpenSim 0.8.2.0. Lopes, also known as Diva Canto in-world, is one of the core developersRead More →

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CtrlAltStudio viewer developer David Rowe said he plants to stop work on the viewer, which is the only OpenSim viewer that currently supports the Oculus Rift. Linden Lab has an experimental viewer for the Oculus Rift, but it does not currently work with OpenSim. “I developed CtrlAltStudio viewer as a stop-gapRead More →

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WoofbertVR launched a Samsung Gear VR app this week that will allow users to take virtual tours to marque museums around the world. Powered by Oculus VR, the app is already available for download and first users will enjoy an offer to visit the Courtauld Gallery, which houses one of London’sRead More →

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Quantum Bakery LLC has released an iPhone case that doubles as a virtual reality viewer for iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus, but most importantly, one that could turn out as very competitive since it  makes it possible to fit a virtual reality viewer into your pocket.Read More →

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At AVATARFest 2015, a virtual festival celebrating life on the hypergrid, HYPEvents.net launched a website that lists events from all over the hypergrid so avatars can find out what is going on right now, and where. The website scrapes the web and parses event info from grid event calendars. The site provides a singleRead More →

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OpenSim crossed the 70,000 region milestone this month, with a new land area total of 71,034 standard region equivalents. It also crossed the 34,000 active users mark for the first time. OSgrid, Metropolis and Kitely were the biggest gainers in land area, with 1,272, 305 and 297 regions added, respectively. There are nowRead More →

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There are now 6,097 different products listed on the Kitely Market, in 11,847 product variations — 7,189 of which are exportable. Kitely groups items together, so that, say, a red version of a dress and a blue version of the same dress are listed as variations of the same product.Read More →

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Greenlight VR and Touchstone Research released the results of their survey of over 2,000 respondents this past week about attitudes towards virtual reality. Here are some highlights. 1. Gen-Z Rules Despite a perception among some of our readers — or maybe just in my house — kids aren’t all that blase andRead More →

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More than 100,000 students have participated in virtual reality field trips through Google’s Expeditions, and the program is now expanding to 15 additional cities, Google announced Monday. Benefiting from the new move are Alexandria, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Detroit, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, New Orleans, Orlando, Phoenix, Salt Lake City and Washington DC,Read More →

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Second Life’s economy has a GDP of around $500 million, CEO Ebbe Altberg told The Next Web. According to Altberg, users cashed out a total in excess of $60 million last year. One user has sold around 300,000 virtual dresses at roughly $4 each. By comparison, in 2009, Second Life reported aRead More →

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Press release: Veterans United Foundation and Jaunt Inc. Release Honor 360 Virtual Reality Experiences Bringing National Memorials to Those Aging and Disabled Military Veterans Who Cannot Make the Trip This Veterans Day, Veterans United and Jaunt Bring Immersive, Virtual Honor Flights to US Military Veterans Everywhere COLUMBIA, Mo. – Jaunt Inc.,Read More →

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Virtual Life is now home to a couple of new skill-based games that offer visitors a chance to win real money, grid founder and CEO Keith Sparkman told Hypergrid Business. Froggy Leisure, a gaming company known for its presence in Second Life, and also active on the Avination and YrGrid,Read More →

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It’s back to the past for AviWorlds this week, as the grid has moved to turn off hypergrid connectivity and start charging for uploads. By our count, this is the fifth time the grid has turned off hypergrid connectivity after turning it on. The previous time was last winter, notRead More →

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YouTube has updated its Android app, the company announced yesterday, with better support for virtual reality. The app first added an option to watch videos in immersive 3D with the Google Cardboard-compatible headset back in June. The platform already had thousands of 360-degree videos, where people could use a mouse orRead More →