A new book by Coventry University professor Maggi Savin-Baden offers practical advice to educators interested in virtual worlds. According to Coventry University, professor Savin-Baden is one of the UK’s leading academics on the subject and has used virtual technology extensively as a teaching resource. Some recent developments in Second Life,Read More →

Press Release: Second Life “gold” solution provider Snowcrash digital joins the SpotOn3D OpenSim grid Snowcrash Digital is a gold certified Second Life® solution provider, most known as the developers of Second Life’s leading audio solution “Hermes Audio Technology” and the “Hermes Engage” range of educational tools. Since 2006, Snowcrash Digital hasRead More →

OpenSim’s ScienceSim grid is expanding its land grant program, with an offer of super-powered regions of up to a million primitive objects and 1,000 simultaneous avatars per region. ScienSim and Intel have long been pushing the boundaries of what is possible with OpenSim, with experimental regions holding more than 200,000Read More →

Press Release: INXPO and George P. Johnson Renew Global Strategic Partnership Deal signals event marketers’ drive to blend Web and physical events CHICAGO, and AUBURN HILLS, Mich. — INXPO and the #1 ranked event marketing agency George P. Johnson (GPJ) today announced a renewal of their strategic partnership, driven byRead More →

Press Release: SITEFORUM integrates Ustream to deliver live broadcasting for communities and virtual events Erfurt, Germany – SITEFORUM chose Ustream, the leading live interactive broadcast platform, to be implemented into the SITEFORUM standard software due to flexibility, frequency and security. SITEFORUM, with its focus on online communities and virtual events,Read More →

Virtual immersive environments can provide more effective training programs in less time, and for less cost, according t0 a report released today by ProtonMedia, a firm that provides enterprise-focused virtual environments. “We’ve put together a new white paper for life sciences trainers to help them better understand how they canRead More →

Press Release: ON24 Announces GlobalSpec Virtual Events Production Partnership SAN FRANCISCO, CA–  GlobalSpec (www.globalspec.com), the leading specialized search engine, information resource, e-publishing and online events company for the engineering, industrial and technical communities, announced today that the company is hosting a wide variety of virtual events through 2011 with ON24,Read More →

Press Release: PayPal Unveils New Payment Solution for Digital Goods Industry Leaders Facebook and FT.com Using PayPal to Simplify Micropayments for Digital Content SAN FRANCISCO–INNOVATE 2010 — PayPal today announced the upcoming availability of PayPal for digital goods, a new in-context, frictionless payment solution that lets consumers pay for digitalRead More →

Press Release: Advanced 3D Heralds New Teaching Dimension ‘Virtual world’ technology has the potential to transform education and learning, an international conference at the University of Ulster’s Magee campus heard today. It is a young but rapidly evolving sector but already every university in the UK uses it in someRead More →

Press Release: Thousands of B2B Marketing and Sales Pros Will Connect at the Marketing Cloud Virtual Conference this October 28 Fully Interactive Online Conference Features Live Presentations, Expo and Discussions on B2B Marketing and Sales Best Practices SAN MATEO, Calif. — The Marketing Cloud, a collection of cloud-based marketing servicesRead More →

The  OnLand business park opened today in the Blue Mars virtual world as a place for traditional companies to market their goods in high-fidelity three dimensional form to their clients. The OnLand park is targeting business-to-business sales in which 3D models are important, such as manufacturing. This is a departureRead More →

Blue Mars is currently testing a cloud-based streaming service, which will soon allow users to log into the high-end, graphics-rich immersive world via a simple browser interface. “We’re running it now, with cloud servers in LA,” said Jim Sink, CEO of Avatar Reality, the parent company of Blue Mars. TheRead More →

Both the G$ and OMC multi-grid currencies reported strong growth over the last two months. Since we last took a look at their numbers in mid-August, the OMC currency — backed by Austrian Linden exchange operator Virwox — has grown from 14 to 20 grids, and now reports 382,537 OMCRead More →

The Immersive Education Initiative, a Boston-based non-profit coalition, announced today that it will offer free land, and free migration services, for educators working in Second Life’s Teen Grid. The Initiative currently provides thousands of OpenSim regions to members around the world through its Education Grid project,  Aaron Walsh, founding directorRead More →

The world’s forty largest public OpenSim grids gained 1,605  regions over the past 30 days, and added 10,530 new users. This brings the total region counts on these grids to 12,425, an 15 percent increase over last month’s total of 10,820 regions. The 15 percent monthly growth rate is alsoRead More →

According to our first reader survey, the majority of the readers of Hypergrid Business are interested in open source virtual platforms like OpenSim and social virtual worlds like Second Life. Less than a quarter were interested in Web-based virtual worls like Venuegen, enterprise virtual worlds like ProtoSphere, and 2D virtualRead More →

Just a day after Second Life launched its mesh beta, OpenSim already has experimental mesh in the latest test release, and people have begun trying the technology out on OSGrid’s experimental Danger Grid. According to OpenSim core developer Justin Clark-Casey, the OpenSim implementation of mesh leverages the work done byRead More →

Press Release: Real-time Machinima animation pioneers announce launch of Pixel Valley Studio Frank Dellario and Tom Donnelly, previously from The ILL Clan, found new full services animation company Acclaimed Real-time animation producers Frank Dellario and Tom Donnelly formally announced the launch of Pixel Valley Studio, a new company offering anRead More →

In response to rising land prices at Second Life — and a need for increased control and scalability — the MuniGov association of local governments has launched the GovGrid project, and OpenSim-based virtual world environment for local government agencies. Prices start at just $25 a region, with a $50 setupRead More →

Since Linden Lab announced that educators and non-profits would see a doubling of their land prices in January, there has been a surge of interest in OpenSim — and a flood of special offers from service providers. Some vendors have offered migration services to help non-profits get their content fromRead More →

Press Release: Gartner’s 2010 Hype Cycle Special Report Evaluates Maturity of 1,800 Technologies Hype Cycle Research Provides a Cross-Industry Perspective on Potentially Transformative Technologies STAMFORD, Conn. —  Media tablets, private cloud computing, and 3D flat-panel TVs and displays are some of the technologies that have moved into the PeakRead More →

Press Release: Teleplace to Showcase ‘Last Mile’ Enterprise Social Collaboration Successes New Customer Program Highlights Immersive Microsoft SharePoint, Mobile Device Interactivity, Enterprise-Class, Cloud Collaboration REDWOOD CITY, Calif.–Teleplace, Inc., the leading provider of enterprise-class immersive collaboration and learning solutions, today announced a new program designed to showcase how customers are solvingRead More →

Press Release: UBM Studios Milicruit Partners with Over 50 Industry Leading Employers and Government Agencies to Produce the Veterans Day Virtual Career Fair More Than 25,000 Veterans Expected to Attend the Virtual Career Fair, Thousands of Employment Opportunities Available CHICAGO– UBM Studios Milicruit, the recognized leader for virtual career fairsRead More →

The largest grid on the hypergrid will upgrade to the new version of OpenSim on Sunday, October 17. The new version supports media-on-a-prim as well as a more secure hypergrid teleport standard. The new version is OpenSim version 0.7. OSGrid is currently running version 0.6.9. The new 0.7 version ofRead More →

Press Release: Quantum3D ExpeditionDI Ushers in New Era of Virtual Immersive Combat Training With Successful Completion of U.S. Joint Forces Command FITE Program Industry’s First Wearable Infantry Training Platform Simulates Squad-Based Close Combat to Improve War Fighter Readiness, Team Communication and Decision-Making Skills SAN JOSE, Calif., Oct. 6 /PRNewswire/ —Read More →

Press Release: INXPO and HSM Global Partner to Produce Virtual Complement of World Business Forum 2010 HSM Selects INXPO Virtual Platform for Live Video Webcasts from New York City’s Radio City Music Hall CHICAGO — HSM Global has partnered with INXPO to produce a virtual complement to the annual WorldRead More →

The use of virtual meetings has grown at 80 percent of companies, according to a recent report from Carson Wagonlit Travel’s Travel Management Institute. The report, based on a survey of over 1,800 people in companies around the world, showed that the most popular virtual meeting platforms are video conferences,Read More →

Press Release: Cruise Shipping Virtual Launches Sustainability Event Attendees Call It a Success PRINCETON, N.J. — Cruise Shipping Virtual, an interactive live online event, closed on Tuesday with attendees calling the eco-centric event a success.  This is the second virtual event organized by Cruise Shipping Miami and the first to focus solely on theRead More →

Press release: NYIT Receives $1 Million Grant from the National Science Foundation Project to Enable Teachers to Use Information and Communications Technologies in the Classroom New York, N.Y.  – New York Institute of Technology (NYIT) was awarded with a grant for $1 million from the National Science Foundation (NSF) forRead More →

Last week, Laura Crane Trust, a non-profit which provides support to teenage and young adult cancer patients in the U.K., had decided to build its virtual world in OpenSim. Jonathan Tyreman, the charity’s online development coordinator, originally wanted to go with Second Life but decided to recommend OpenSim to theRead More →

Last month, Linden Lab announced that the Teen Grid was shutting down at the end of the year, sending many educators into a panic at the prospect of losing their virtual projects in the middle of the school year. To partially offset this loss, the Lindens also lowered the minimumRead More →

Press release: INXPO Virtual Platform Hosts Meeting Industry’s Most Innovative Event, Cisco Global Sales Experience (GSX) 2010 Cisco Advances Their Next Generation Event Technologies with Global Sales Experience (GSX) 2010 on the INXPO Virtual Platform CHICAGO — This year, Cisco took the Global Sales Experience (GSX) to another level.  WorkingRead More →

Press release: Teleplace Named a 2010 Top Training and Simulation Company by Military Training Technology Magazine Selected Companies Are ‘Top Performers’ in Military Training Industry REDWOOD CITY, Calif. — Teleplace, Inc., the leading provider of enterprise-class immersive learning and collaboration solutions, today announced that Military Training Technology magazine has namedRead More →

Press Release: Daden selected for new genetic screening virtual application Virtual world solution specialists Daden have been awarded a contract to create the laboratory functionality to enable scenario-based training as part of the University of Leicester’s SWIFT project in Second Life. Based on Daden’s open-source award winning software PIVOTE, theRead More →

Press Release: Virtual World Campus for OpenSim HOUSTON, TEXAS  — FireSabre Consulting, a virtual world developer focused on educational clients, responded this week to the announcement by Linden Lab that the Teen Second Life virtual world product was to be discontinued. FireSabre has launched a program to help K-12 institutionsRead More →

The lack of mesh imports has long been a problem for enterprise users of OpenSim and Second Life. But Second Life is about to start open beta testing of mesh — and OpenSim won’t be far behind. According to OpenSim core developer Justin Clark-Casey, the OpenSim team will adapt theRead More →

(Image courtesy Sococo.)

Press release: Sococo Debuts Team Space at Demo Fall 2010 New Communication Service For Professionals Demonstrated at Premier Silicon Valley Confab SANTA CLARA, CA — At DEMO Fall 2010, Sococo® debuted Sococo Team Space, a group communication service for distributed teams. Team Space is built on Sococo’s revolutionary communication platform.Read More →

Press release: Utherverse® Digital, the Leader in 3D Virtual World Webâ„¢ Development, Seeks First-Ever Venture Funding at Banff Venture Forum Largest Player in Software for 3D Internet Communities Sets Sights On Raising $20 Million for Broad Range of Marketing/Sponsorship Initiatives Vancouver, BC — Virtual world developer Utherverse Digital Inc. todayRead More →

Press release: Wiecha Receives Grant to Study Face-to-Face vs Virtual Health Education for African-American Women BOSTON — Boston University School of Medicine Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs John Wiecha, MD, MPH, in the Department of Family Medicine, has received a National Institutes of Health (NIH) American Recovery & Reinvestment ActRead More →

Press Release: UBM Studios Introduces LAUNCHPAD, New Virtual Platform to Launch Products and Product Enhancements CHICAGO — UBM Studios, delivering a complete solution for virtual events and virtual business environments, today introduced LAUNCHPAD, an interactive platform that allows businesses to deliver targeted information and materials directly to key audiences toRead More →

Press Release: Inaugural Virtual Car Show Features Latest Green Car Technologies DETROIT, MI and SAN FRANCISCO, CA– AutoWeek is hosting its first virtual auto show, the AutoWeek Virtual Green Car Show, in partnership with ON24, the global leader in webcasting and virtual events. The live event is scheduled for SeptemberRead More →

Press release Shaker Recruitment Advertising & Communications has strategically partnered with InXpo to provide companies with innovative opportunities to attract talent by hosting their own Virtual Career Fairs. The mutually beneficial relationship enables clients to capitalize on Shaker’s nearly 60 years of recruitment expertise and the advanced technology resources providedRead More →

We don’t normally cover the InWorldz grid — the owners have told us that they don’t consider to be an OpenSim grid — but we have to make an exception this month because of the grid’s stellar performance over the past thirty days. The grid — which runs on aRead More →

Press Release: ProtonMedia Releases ProtoSphere 1.5: First Portable 3-D World for Business Collaboration Now Companies Can Stop Meeting and Start Working with World’s First Portable App for 3-D Virtual Collaboration LANSDALE, Pa.–Today ProtonMedia released ProtoSphere 1.5, a major update of the company’s market-leading virtual collaboration environment for the high-performance workplace.Read More →

Press Release: ON24 Survey Shows Dramatic Preference for Webcasts With Increased Interactivity and Social Networking Next-Generation Platform Enables Greater User Control, New Applications SAN FRANCISCO, CA –  ON24, the global leader in webcasting and virtual event solutions, announced today the results of its recent survey of webcast attendees participating inRead More →

Press Release: Microsoft Lync Server 2010 Support to be Introduced in ProtonMedia’s ProtoSphere LANSDALE, Pa. — ProtonMedia today announced that its ProtoSphere virtual immersive environment for the high-performance workplace will support the new Microsoft Lync Server 2010 (formerly known as Microsoft Office Communication Server). By incorporating ProtoSphere into their MicrosoftRead More →

Press Release: Unicruit Partners with the Big East Virtual Career Fair, Combines Expertise to Deliver 3D Virtual Career Fair on November 10, 2010 Revolutionary approach to recruiting college students and alumni that brings the career fair to the employer and job seeker Chicago, IL — UBM Studios’ Unicruit today announcesRead More →

The adult-themed Utherverse virtual world platform is in discussions with former developers of the controversial Emerald Viewer for Second Life, the company announced. Prior to recent scandals involving an alleged distributed denial of service attack, privacy violations, and a Second Life ban this Wednesday, the Emerald viewer was primarily knownRead More →