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Press Release: U.S. Army and Intel team up making training virtually a reality Orlando, Fla. – The U.S. Army’s Research Laboratory’s, Human Research and Engineering Directorate, Simulation and Training Technology Center (STTC) and Intel Corporation entered into a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement to collaborate and optimize research in virtual trainingRead More →

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OpenSim hosting company MyOpenGrid has released the preview version of its free, open source front end for OpenSim grids, called Mwi. It is designed to more easier to install than most other web front ends available today, but with more functionality than the Diva Distro WiFi interface. Mwi is a content management system,Read More →

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Avination, a commercial grid running on the OpenSim software, donated its multi-attachment code today to the OpenSimulator project. Avination rolled out the multiple attachment feature on its grid earlier this month. “Avination’s developers worked hard to clean up and test this code for integration with OpenSim and so it’s possible to makeRead More →

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The top 40 OpenSim grids gained 1,458 regions this month, for a new total of 24,040 regions on these grids, the second highest total since we began tracking these numbers in the summer of 2009. These grids also reported a total of 18,061 active users.  A total of 224 gridsRead More →

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PixieTec, a virtual worlds development company based in Germany, released the preview version of its browser-based PixieViewer today, which allows users to visit OpenSim grids without installing any software or plugins. PixieViewer is based on HTML 5 technology, and runs in Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and other modern browsers. It loadsRead More →

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Press release: Coventry University in multimillion pound manufacturing boost using games technology SWINTON, UK — Coventry University’s Serious Games Institute is set to play a leading role in a £1.5 million (US $2.3 million) research project which aims to help manufacturing firms transform their business models using games technology. The project, announcedRead More →

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Avination announced support for multiple attachments today, a feature previously available only in Second Life. Avatars can now wear up to five attachments at each attachment point. “We have long heard from our users that this feature was sorely missed,” said grid founder Melanie Thielker. “Especially non-human avatars were severely limitedRead More →

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Olivier Battini, the creator of New World Studio, has resumed work on the project. It will soon be available as a free download and as a paid, premium version. New World Studio is the hands-own easiest way to set up an OpenSim mini grid. (My review of it here.) LikeRead More →

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OSgrid has been incorporated as a non-profit and registered with the state of Texas, grid treasurer J. D. Celko announced Thursday on the grid’s forums. Celko, who is also known as Amy Storm in-world, said that the grid has also received its federal tax ID, and are currently applying forRead More →

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Press release: CyberLightning Releases New Version of Virtual World Tool for Business Presentations Oulu, Finland –  CyberLightning Ltd. today announced CyberSlide 2.0, a new release of the presentation engine and conversion tool used to integrate business presentations into 3D virtual world environments. The new release adds to the company’s portfolioRead More →

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Hypergrid inventor Crista Lopes, professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine has added out-of-the-box support for groups and offline messages to OpenSim. Previously, grids that needed groups functionality had to install one of two separate third-party groups modules, Flotsam or Simian. “For both Flotsam and Simian you haveRead More →

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In the wake of a massive data loss and ensuing grid shut down at What Virtual World, InWorldz announced yesterday that it will begin offering encrypted inventory backups to its residents. The two events were not connected, InWorldz CTO David Daeschler told Hypergrid Business. He is also known as Tranquillity Dexler in-world.Read More →

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Press release: ProtonMedia Announces Release 2.2 of ProtoSphere 3D Virtual Collaboration Cloud ProtonMedia to Showcase ProtoSphere 2.2 at Microsoft Lync Conference 2013® LANSDALE, Pa.–ProtonMedia, the leader in 3D virtual collaboration, announces the availability of Release 2.2, of its award-winning ProtoSphere virtual collaboration cloud. This latest release adds fine-grained moderator controlsRead More →

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The top 40 OpenSim grids gained 1,756 regions this month, the largest one-month increase since last September. It was also the second-largest increase overall, since we started keeping track in August 2008. There are now 22,582 regions on the top 40 OpenSim grids, 269,310 registered users, and 17,602 active users. The number ofRead More →

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Press release: VEI Verifies Digitell as its first Digital Event Solutions Provider Pleasanton, CA – The Virtual Edge Institute, today announced that Jamestown, NY-based Digitell, Inc., is the first to be verified under its new Verified Digital Event Solution Provider program, in which VEI assesses the capabilities of the organization and attests toRead More →

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Press release: CyberLightning and StockSmart Collaborate on ‘Visual Finance,’ 3D Internet Tool Will Empower Individual Portfolio Management Oulu, Finland and Cambridge, MA – CyberLightning Ltd. and StockSmart today announced a collaboration that will bring the power of 3D visualization to investors using StockSmart Apps. StockSmart plans to launch “Visual Finance”Read More →

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Avination, a commercial grid running on the OpenSim software, announced the donation of 800 lines of physics code today, which will help OpenSim users simulate bouncing balls, reindeer pulling sleds, and feathers lightly floating down through the air. The code was pushed to the OpenSimulator core repository on Friday, theRead More →

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OpenSim hosting company SoftPaw Estates announced that it is rebranding as Zetamex, and has launched a new grid running on the Aurora-Sim version of OpenSim. In addition to traditional single-region and mini-grid OpenSim hosting, Zetamex now also offers dedicated server packages. “Dedicated packages are for people who want direct controlRead More →

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Press release: Results of Virtual Reality-based Psychotherapy Research at BBU, Romania Using EON Icube are Released Virtual reality therapy as effective, or more effective, than traditional therapy Is less risky for patients Will, in the future, become standard practice IRVINE, Calif. – EON Reality, the world’s leading interactive 3D visualRead More →

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The top 40 OpenSim grids put an end to a two-month slide in region counts, gaining 28 regions. There are now 20,826 regions on the top 40 OpenSim grids. During the previous two months, there were a couple of major cleanups on OSgrid, the largest OpenSim grid, as well asRead More →

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The volume of transactions using the multi-grid OMC currency from Virwox rose by 36 percent in 2012 compared to 2011, and the total amount of the OMC in circulation rose by 26 percent. However, the number of avatars using the multi-grid OMC currency dropped dramatically in 2012. During the monthRead More →

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OpenSim hosting company Virtual Reality is taking over support and development of the Phoenix viewer, the company announced today. The previous development team, Phoenix Firestorm Project announced the end of their support for the v1-based Phoenix viewer, earlier this month, so that they could focus on the Firestorm viewer. The PhoenixRead More →

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Press release: The Association for Virtual World Educators Announces Board of Directors The Association of Virtual World Educators, Inc., a non-profit corporation for the promotion of virtual worlds technology in K-12 instruction, has announced an international Board of Directors to oversee strategic goals and plans. The directors of the newlyRead More →

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Island Oasis, a commercial social grid, is inviting other grid owners to a grid summit to discuss griefing, copyright protection, creating an association for grid owners, and other issues. The First Annual Live Summit of Virtual Worlds will be held on March 15, 2013 on the Island Oasis grid, theRead More →

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The Association of Virtual World Educators is looking for $54,750 to develop a package of virtual environments designed to teach lessons in science and social studies. The group has created a Kickstarter page and a video to promote the project, which has a funding deadline of December 31. The educationalRead More →

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AvaCon, the non-profit best known for organizing the Second Life Community Conventions, is now seeking volunteers, presenters, and partners for a new series of metaverse-related events. On Friday, the group announced the launch of the Metaverse Cultural Series. These events will take place in multiple virtual worlds and will showcaseRead More →

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The total regions on the top 40 OpenSim grids continued to fall this month, though not as badly as last month after OSgrid’s big cleanup. The total number of regions fell by 1,566 to 20,629 since mid-November, due to the suspension of a couple of major grids, a continuation ofRead More →

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Press Release: Do we live in a computer simulation? UW researchers say idea can be tested A decade ago, a British philosopher put forth the notion that the universe we live in might in fact be a computer simulation run by our descendants. While that seems far-fetched, perhaps even incomprehensible, aRead More →

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Kitely — the low-cost, cloud-based OpenSim grid — is planning to launch an online content marketplace, and is looking for content creators to provide input about what features they would like to see. Discussions began at in-world meetings on November 28 and December 4, and have since continued online, onRead More →

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Press Release: Content Creators Union offers DMCA assistance to grid owners LINCOLN CITY, Ore. — The Content Creators Union was founded as a platform to collaboratively protect content creators intellectual property rights. The CCU has now developed a methodology in which it acts as an impartial third-party DMCA agent to helpRead More →

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Bullet physics is ready for testing, and is now part of the OpenSim core code, according to Intel’s Robert Adams. Turning on Bullet physics is as simple as changing the OpenSim.ini file, replacing the line “”physics = OpenDynamicsEngine” with “physics=BulletSim”. It does require access to the OpenSim region server, soRead More →

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The top 40 OpenSim grids lost a total of 3,007 regions over the past four weeks as a result of a massive cleanup on OSgrid, the largest public grid running on the OpenSim platform. The top 40 grids now have a total of 22,195 regions. Unlike most other grids, OSgrids runsRead More →

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Kitely, the on-demand OpenSim grid provider, is moving yet another piece of the OpenSim infrastructure to the cloud. This time, it’s the user inventories. “This significantly improves inventory performance on Kitely and helps us avoid the inventory-related problems that are plaguing other grids that are using OpenSim,” Kitely CEO IlanRead More →

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InWorldz is moving to new servers, hosted by RackSpace, and the grid expects to see a shutdown of about 24 hours as a result. The downtime will begin this Friday, November 16, at 3 a.m. InWorldz time,  the company announced last night. “Te move itself will be completed Friday possibly intoRead More →

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The results of the 2012 Hypergrid Business grid survey are in, with a record 644 ratings submitted, up from 459 in last year’s survey and 194 in 2010, the first year the survey was conducted. The vast majority of respondents — 87.4 percent — said they would “absolutely” recommend their gridRead More →

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Press release: Daden release results of it Data Visualisation and Visual Analytics Survey Excel still dominates the data visualization field, despite lack of full-featured 3D tools Almost 50 percent of respondents have never used a system which plots data in 3D About 40 percent of respondents “never” want to useRead More →

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The Firestorm viewer now has an office on OSGrid, project developers announced yesterday. According to Jessica Lyon, lead developer at Phoenix Firestorm Project Inc. the office is located on two regions donated by Walter Balazic, owner of the Littlefield Grid and founder of the Littlefield community on OSGrid. OSGrid is theRead More →

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Ohio-based virtual learning company Designing Digitally, Inc. has released a free white paper about the benefits and challenges of using 3D in training. “It is imperative that creating and sustaining a competitive advantage be a high priority and training is one area where organizations can do so,” said Designing Digitally presidentRead More →

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The top 40 largest OpenSim grids gained 1,250 regions since mid-September, for a new record high of 25,202 regions. OSGrid was responsible for most of the growth, with 839 new regions, for a new total of 11,162 regions on that grid alone. OSGrid is a non-profit grid that allows peopleRead More →

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A new online publication, Grid Press, is looking for writers to cover OpenSim grids. Contributor Linda Henson — better known as Linda Kellie of LindaKellie.com — urged writers to submit reviews of grids and of individual regions, to write about their virtual lives, and to contribute news and opinion articles.Read More →

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Kitely announced a flat-rate hosting option today, at $40 per region per month. Kitely is an on-demand, cloud-based OpenSim grid that is best known for charging users for the time they spent in-world. Customers will still be able to use the previous, metered, billing option for their regions. But thoseRead More →

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Press release: Data Visualization Competition launched by Daden Birmingham UK – A competition for the best immersive 3D visualization  using their ground-breaking application Datascape, has been launched by Daden Limited (Daden). Datascape provides an immersive environment in which users can explore and interact with data from almost any source. The competition asks entrants toRead More →

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Kitely, an on-demand OpenSim grid, cut off support for the official Second Life viewer today, as did the Brazilian social grid Meet3D. “We had to take this step because Linden Lab, the creators of the Second Life Viewer, have released a new version that no longer works with OpenSim,” Oren Hurvitz,Read More →

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Press release: Daden releases Datascape, a ground-breaking application for 3D data visualisation Free community edition also available Birmingham, UK — Analysts now have the ability to explore and make sense of their data in 3D with the launch of Datascape, a 3D data visualisation application, from immersive environments specialists DadenRead More →

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Press release: Asia Training Consortium Launches Collaborative Cloud Solution Microsoft and ProtonMedia to Help Speed Industry Drug Development and Time to Market LANSDALE, PA. – The Asia Training Consortium (ATC), a Merck-sponsored group of pharmaceutical companies and clinical research organizations that was formed in Shanghai in 2011, has added ProtonMedia andRead More →

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The top 40 largest OpenSim grids gained a record-breaking 2,177 regions since mid-August, the single biggest monthly gain in history. The new regions pushed the grids to 23,952 total regions, also a new high. OSGrid was responsible for almost a quarter of the growth, with 498 new regions, for aRead More →

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Press Release: PPD Named to InformationWeek 500 List of Top Business Technology Innovators Unique virtual learning platform helps earn third consecutive annual ranking WILMINGTON, N.C.  – Pharmaceutical Product Development, LLC (PPD) today announced it has been named to the 2012 InformationWeek 500, an annual recognition of the most innovative usersRead More →

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The Belgium-based Logicamp grid is offering OpenSim region hosting in the Amazon cloud at just 21 cents per hour — or 1 Euro (US $1.29) for six hours. Cloud-based event hosting is a good fit for companies and organizations that need a large number of regions for a short amountRead More →

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Japan’s3Di, Inc., best known for their browser-based OpenSim viewers, has set the starting price for their Unity-based, in-a-Web-browser virtual world at around $10 a month. According to an announcement released yesterday, the “personal” 3Di Cloud starts at 9,800 yen a year, or about US $125, and can handle up to 500 simultaneousRead More →