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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 →

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Press release: Virtual reality specialist Daden awarded £230,000 by Innovate UK Daden Limited – a virtual reality specialist based at the Innovation Birmingham Campus – has been awarded nearly £230,000 by Innovate UK for its Virtual Field Trips as a Service initiative. The funding has been awarded in phase two of InnovateRead More →

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UK supermarket Asda has launched a virtual reality Halloween experience on its YouTube channel, and the video quickly became the second-most-watched video on the supermarket’s channel, with more than a million views in just a week. The 360-degree video can be watched on a traditional screen, where viewers can scroll theRead More →

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According to Virtual Reality Brand Power Index released this morning by YouVisit, 75 percent of the Forbes World’s Most Valuable Brands have created some form of virtual or augmented reality experience for customers or employees, or are themselves innovating and developing these technologies. The tech sector is in the lead inRead More →

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Many grids, especially those with unique or specialized content, struggle with content protection issues. Both closed and open grids have problems with copybotters, while hypergrid-enabled grids also have the additional risk to scripts. Grids with large quantities of unique or high-end content are particularly at risk. So, for example, SecondRead More →

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Press release: Kaleidoscope VR Film Festival awards jury prize to Tomas Mariancik for Sightline: The Chair San Francisco, CA –Virtual reality agency Kaleidoscope in partnership with Broad Green Pictures, today unveiled the Jury Prize winner of the Kaleidoscope VR Film Festival (KVRFF). Presented by Vrideo, KVRFF is a multi-city tourRead More →

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Framingham, Mass.-based research firm International Data Corp. announced today that augmented and virtual reality is one of six key “innovation accelerators” the company will be devoting additional research focus to. “Innovation accelerators are the next wave of 3rd Platform technologies that are critical to digital transformation,” said Crawford Del Prete,Read More →

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UK-based AuraVisor launched a Kickstarter campaign Wednesday to raise $153,000 for a new all-in-one virtual reality headset that requires neither a PC nor a smartphone, and already raised more than $100,000. The headset is expected to sell for around US$450, and includes an external game controller. Early backers were able to orderRead More →

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Sunnyvale, California startup LucidCam promises to make virtual reality filming accessible to anyone with a $600 hand-sized camera that films in 180 degrees. And the company just launched a crowdfunding campaign on IndieGoGo offering the camera to early supporters at a 50 percent discount. LucidCam hopes to raise $100,000 with itsRead More →

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Press release: Next Galaxy Corp and EON Reality Join Forces to Expand CEEK The Partners will Share Technical Expertise and Combine Sales and Marketing Efforts Miami Beach, FL. – Next Galaxy Corp., a leading developer of innovative content solutions and immersive consumer virtual reality technology, and EON Reality Inc., theRead More →

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3rd Rock Grid is proud to announce the hand-over of its management to the Stichting 3rd Rock Grid Foundation, a not-for-profit corporation registered in the Netherlands. The foundation’s six-member board of unpaid directors, comprised of involved citizens, includes previous owners, together with dedicated volunteers.Read More →

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The Army’s Research Laboratory Simulation and Training Technology Center has begun work on a browser-based viewer for OpenSim that uses WebGL, HTML 5 and Javascript technology. “The initial work was done using our MOSES Grid Manager that laid down the interfaces to the Open Simulator needed for this task,” said Douglas Maxwell, the scienceRead More →

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Games, immersive videos, and branded marketing experiences will drive adoption in virtual reality next year, according to a panel of experts hosted by We are Wearables last week in Toronto. Gaming markets will lead other markets in adopting commercial virtual reality, according to Milan Baic, founder of Pinch VR, a smartphone-based virtual reality headset maker.Read More →

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HTC will be holding demos of its Vive headset tonight and tomorrow in fifteen cities across the United States as a promotion for the new Paranormal Activity movie. I have tried the Vive headset, and it was significantly farther along than any other virtual reality headset I’ve tried. If youRead More →

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The 2015 OpenSimulator Community Conference, scheduled for Saturday, December 5, has been extended into Sunday. “On the second day the OSCC grid will be open,” said Crista Lopes, hypergrid inventor and OpenSim core developer. “There are five breakout areas and the expos, so there’s plenty of room for everyone over aRead More →

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Press Release: Kennesaw State Students Release Virtual World Production Kennesaw, Ga. – An experiment in journalism storytelling debuts today with the public release of the virtual world machinima “The Kid, The Cop, The Punch.” The story is narrated by Xavier McElrath-Bey, a youth justice advocate, telling of a childhood encounterRead More →

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SAN ANTONIO – Merge VR has announced that its soft, foam goggles are available for pre-order through Amazon, and will ship before holidays. The Merge VR Goggles are among the top tech products debuting in the consumer entertainment market this holiday season. Compatible with any iOS or Android smartphone from the lastRead More →

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New Zealand-based virtual reality startup 8i has received $20 million from Samsung and other investors to enable virtual reality users to immersively engage with realistic 3D video captures, or holograms, of people. “Wellington is the perfect place to scale this company,” 8i CEO and co-founder Linc Gasking said in a statement. “There are so many world leadersRead More →

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Press release: Emergent VR Raises $2.2 Million To Build The First Mobile Experience Sharing Platform San Francisco, California – Emergent VR announced it has raised $2.2 million in funding from Accel Partners, Google Ventures, and Rothenberg Ventures to build the first mobile platform for capturing and sharing moments using virtualRead More →

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Cowboys and Indians captivated the country when Buffalo Bill’s Wild West rolled through America in the late 1800s and early 1900s. More than a century later, Ball State digital artists have re-created the legendary showman’s outdoor exhibition.Read More →

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WeMakeVR.com and Tommy Hilfiger launch VR Runway Show Experience Hosted in select ‘Tommy Hilfiger’ stores and wholesale partners globally, consumers can watch WeMakeVR’s “Fall 2015 ‘Hilfiger Collection’ VR experience” from a VIP seat in 360 degree 3D virtual reality – and then immediately shop the collection. AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS – WeMakeVRRead More →

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AvaCon announced the third annual OpenSimulator Community Conference 2015, to take place virtually on the OpenSimulator Conference Center grid on December 5, 2015. The OpenSimulator Community Conference is an annual conference that focuses on the developer and user community surrounding the OpenSimulator software. Organized as a joint production by Core DevelopersRead More →

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The casino-themed YrGrid, also known for its Bitcoin-based currency, announced today that it has opened its doors to the wider metaverse by granting hypergrid access to around forty other virtual worlds. Those grids include 3rd Rock Grid, AviWorlds, DigiWorldz, Dorena’s World, Dreamscape, Great Canadian Grid, Japan Open Grid, Kitely, Littlefield, Lost Paradise,Read More →

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Starting October 9 on the Japan Open Grid, the Planet Treasure Hunt, which is apart of the Bunkasai Festival, begins. The Planet Treasure hunt is a scavenger hunt for solar systems scattered around the school region. The objective is to collect eight planets hidden around the school to win a prize. TheRead More →

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Epic Games has released a new video, Sense of Presence, that tries to explain why virtual reality is so compelling and inevitable. The video, which is the first episode of a series that will seek to explore the power of virtual reality, features renowned experts Palmer Luckey, the founder Oculus Rift; KimRead More →

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It’s been another record-breaking month for OpenSim, with new heights reached in land area, registered users, and active users. OSgrid, Kitely and DigiWorldz were the biggest gainers in land area, with 678, 340 and 255 regions added, respectively. There are now the equivalent of 68,941 standard regions on OpenSim’s 302Read More →

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San Antonio, Texas-based Merge VR has announced that it’s purple virtual reality goggles, made out of soft foam, will be available at 320 UK retail outlets in time for the holidays. The Google Cardboard-compatible goggles will be available in the U.K. for £49.99 exclusively from GAME, the country’s leading games retailer.Read More →

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The Google Cardboard virtual reality application has been installed 15 million times, Google said in an announcement yesterday. The app, typically one of the first installed when a customer buys a smartphone-based virtual reality headset, is available for download from the Google Play store for Android phones and from Apple’s AppRead More →

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Impression Pi, a headset that combines virtual and augmented reality with gesture recognition, announced this month that it received $5.5 million in funding in addition to its successful $300,000 Kickstarter earlier this year. The company has also said it will be announcing release dates this month. “Being able to attract suchRead More →

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SlotsMillion, an online casino company, has released a virtual reality app for the Oculus Rift and announced that it is giving away ten Oculus Rift headsets to players. For every 100 Euro bet, players get one additional chance to win a new headset. There are currently 40 casino games available inRead More →

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Tangle Grid‘s Halloween Expo opened for business today and will run through November 15. But the grid is still accepting exhibitors. “We are looking for creators that would like to show their creation in this theme or just drop a few items down to give people something to look at,”Read More →

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The Las Vegas-themed Neon Grid is having a grand-opening party tonight at 8 p.m. Pacific at the Landing Strip Club on its Welcome Center region. The grid is among the few — possibly, the only– commercial grid that uses PayPal for games and shopping via the PayPal money module. During theRead More →

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The OpenSim community has come together for a user-focused event next month, AvatarFest 2015. The event will run from November 13 through 16, with the exhibit and performance submission deadline on November 7. See the AvatarFest calendar for more details. Community members were inspired to hold the event by the factRead More →

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Starship, the UK-based innovation studio, unveiled a first glimpse of mobile social virtual reality network, vTime, with the release of a new video and screenshots. Set for launch in November, vTime offers friends and family a compelling new way to spend quality time together in virtual reality.Read More →

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Sierra Club, America’s largest grassroots environmental organization, and virtual reality production studio RYOT today announced the release of the world’s first virtual reality climate change public service announcement. The video, which is being released just two months shy of the international climate negotiations in Paris, aims to not only highlight theRead More →

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This Christmas shopping season promises to be a good one for virtual reality, with a $30 View-Master virtual reality headset hitting the market just about now. This is brightly-colored headset from Mattel that is fully compatible with the Google Cardboard standard and can play any of the hundreds of theRead More →

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Press release: Wargaming Unveils its First Virtual Reality Tank Battle Reenactment Wargaming released 1941 Battle: 360° Reenactment, a unique 360° virtual reality video that teleports the viewer into the heart of battle with four tanks, 40 infantry reenactors, artillery and warplanes for the first time ever. “Wargaming is excited to share ourRead More →

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CNN has teamed up with virtual reality video company NextVR to stream October 13’s US Democratic presidential primary debate in virtual reality, the world’s first live stream of a news event in this new medium. CNN has always tried to bring the audience as close to the action as possible,Read More →

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Trying to find new virtual reality apps? Check out WearVR, which catalogs nearly 1,000 virtual reality applications for all major platforms. Apps can be sorted by newest, highest rated and most popular, and can also be filtered by device, platform, and genre. The site also has a section of virtualRead More →

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Press release: Virtual Reality Adoption in Enterprise and Industrial Markets Will Be Driven by Training, Simulation, Virtual Prototyping, and 3D Modeling Applications According to a new report from Tractica, commercial sector revenue from virtual reality headsets, other virtual reality equipment, virtual reality content, and content creation tools will reach nearlyRead More →

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Three virtual reality hardware products were the focus of attention at the Oculus Connect 2 conference in Hollywood last week. The products included the Gear VR headset, produced in partnership with Samsung, a new Touch control device, and the consumer version of the Oculus Rift headset itself, scheduled for 2016 product release. And,Read More →

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If you don’t have your hands on a Google Cardboard headset yet, you might be able to get one from Air New Zealand if you hurry. The company is giving away 1,000 headsets so that people can try out its virtual reality app for Android devices and for iPhones. It’sRead More →