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The top 40 OpenSim grids gained approximately 500 regions this month, maintaining the growth rate set in the last quarter of 2009. OSGrid gained almost 600 regions, for a growth rate of 17%. But OSGrid — which normally leads the rankings every month as the largest grid on the OpenSimRead More →

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Total regions on the public OpenSim grids increased from 5,613 in September to 7,246 in December — a growth rate of 29% for three months, or an annualized growth rate of 177%. By comparison, resident-owned regions in Second Life reached 23,900 in December 2009, up 6% over December 2008. AtRead More →

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Press Release: AI Learning Center Being Built in Second Life The IEEE Computer Society is developing an Artificial Intelligence Learning Center (AILC) on IEEE’s island on Second Life and is looking for participation from those interested in showcasing the use of AI technologies in virtual worlds, robotics, Web, and smartRead More →

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Press Release: 3Di, Inc. LAUNCHES FREE “3Di IMMERSIVE SEMINAR ” PUBLIC BETA SERVICE 3Di, Inc. Opens Online Seminar Service Using Avatars And 3D Virtual Worlds Free For Beta Testers 3Di, Inc., which offers 3D Internet solutions, announces the public beta release of “3Di Immersive Seminar,” a next-generation online seminar serviceRead More →

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Press Release: ThinkBalm Publishes Enterprise Immersive Software Selection Guide Today, industry analyst firm ThinkBalm published “The Enterprise Immersive Software Decision-Making Guide.” This report is a use case-based guide designed to aid business decision makers in the enterprise immersive software selection process. The report covers nineteen vendors and presents “if/then” scenarios,Read More →

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At a time when hundreds of new hypergrid-enabled worlds are coming online, it may seem surprising that some are turning off hypergrid access. The Intel-backed ScienceSim has  recently backed away from hypergrid teleports, citing security concerns. According to Shenlei Winkler, the CEO of the Fashion Research Institute, hypergrid teleports haveRead More →

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[Update: You can browse all hypergrid-enabled public OpenSim grids with Hyperica, the directory of hypergrid destinations. Directory indexes more than 100 shopping and freebie store locations. Updated hypergrid travel directions here.] The following is a list of currently active hypergrid destinations. It’s not an inclusive list — there are hundredsRead More →

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While most virtual worlds are limited to “thousands” of objects in a single location, OpenSim can support hundreds of thousands, according to a white paper published by Intel this month. As a result, OpenSim-based virtual worlds — like the Intel-backed ScienceSim grid — can be used to simulate complex environmentsRead More →

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Sparkle IM — an iPhone app that allows users to send and receive instant messages from inside Second Life — now supports access from OpenSim grids. “It’s been awhile since the last update of Sparkle IM,” the company announced today. “We apologize for the silence.” In addition to support forRead More →

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PRESS RELEASE: New Virtual World Enables Companies To Utilize Paid Online Assistants, Next-Generation Avatar United Nations Citizens Features Lifelike Stores With Digital Signage, Paid Employees EW YORK, NY. —  Making use of the core graphics engine used in the smash hit AVATAR, Cisco Systems and Equifax have partnered with HeadsRead More →

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This list was researched in late December… then we forgot to post it because of the holidays. In November, we counted up over 6,500 regions, so we’re continuing to see around 500 regions gained a month. This list still has unconfirmed numbers for two grids — OpenLife Grid, and LegendCity.Read More →

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Germany’s Talentraspel virtual worlds Ltd.  announced they reached a record number of prims this week, with half a million separate objects in a single OpenSim region. According to the company, the objects were mathematically-generated  “Menger sponges,” or fractal shapes. And the region wasn’t killed by the load, said company directorRead More →

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Press Release These days, City Tech faculty and students are happy to oblige if anyone tells them to “get a life.” That’s because several classes are involved with developing the College’s presence in Second Life (SL), a virtual digital world created by its more than nine million “residents,” where alterRead More →

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Press Release: Virtual Reality Collides with Real-world Law in Forthcoming Book by Rutgers–Camden Law Professor CAMDEN –  In the new James Cameron movie “Avatar,” characters “inhabit” other bodies to fight oppression.  Sounds like science fiction, but thousands engage in similar activity every day through online communities and gaming.  And theRead More →

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The largest social OpenSim-based grids have gained over 1,000 regions since our last count in early September, bringing the total regions on these grids to over 6,500. These are grids that allow anyone to register for free. In addition, social interaction is a significant aspect of the grid’s activity.  InRead More →

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Press Release: ExpatFinder.com & 3D Mirror World Twinity create First Expat Virtual Relocation Service ExpatFinder.com and Twinity.com offer the first virtual relocation service with pre-arrival tours of virtual Berlin and expatriate meetings to help relocating individuals, expatriates and their families. Singapore/Berlin, November 2009 – ExpatFinder.com, the Singapore-headquartered worldwide website todayRead More →

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The U.S. virtual goods market doubled in size from 2008, to  reach $1 billion this year, according to a new report from Inside Network. “While virtual goods have been driving revenues in Asia and Europe for years, 2009 will be remembered as the year virtual goods-based businesses began to scaleRead More →

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Press Release: Duke Center to Participate in White House Science-Education Effort DURHAM, N.C. — Duke University is playing a major role in the new White House campaign to encourage students — especially in middle and high school — to pursue science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). The third-annual Digital MediaRead More →

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Press Release: President Obama Launches “Educate to Innovate” Campaign for Excellence in Science, Technology, Engineering & Math (Stem) Education Nationwide effort includes over $260 million in public-private investments to move American students to the top of the pack in science and math achievement over the next decade President Obama todayRead More →

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Press Release: Beta Business Park Hosts Green Business Expo Business Park will give entrepreneurs a chance to show their environmentally friendly wares in Second Life when it hosts the green business portion of the Copenhagen Expo, which runs in conjunction with the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen,Read More →

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Press Release Dragonfish signs major e-Payments processing agreement with Linden Lab®, the creator of the virtual world Second Life®, diversifying its business beyond the gaming industry Dragonfish, 888’s independent B2B division, announces an agreement with the world’s leading virtual world technology company, Linden Lab to provide e-Payments, fraud and customer supportRead More →

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Press Release: Study of 2,000 women regarding social media gaming and “app’ing”: loyal, thirsty for virtual currency and engaged with brands Social Media Behavior Points to Brands As Welcomed, Appreciated Partner A new study from Q Interactive and Social Media World Forum of more than 2,000 women finds them activelyRead More →

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Press Release Gartner Identifies Six Ways to Make Best Use of Avatars in the Business Environment Avatars are creeping into business environments and will have far reaching implications for enterprises, from policy to dress code, behavior and computing platform requirements, according to Gartner, Inc. Gartner predicts that by year-end 2013,Read More →

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Offered Under Developer-Oriented BSD License and Aimed at Driving Industry Adoption of 3D Internet TOKYO — 3Di, Inc., which develops and offers 3D Internet solutions, has today launched an open source project, named 3Di Viewer “Rei”, for viewing and interacting with OpenSim-based(*1) 3D virtual worlds in web browsers. With thisRead More →

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Press Release: 1 Billion Hours, 1 Billion Dollars Served: Second Life Celebrates Major Milestones for Virtual Worlds Linden Lab Shares Statistics Revealing Tremendous User Engagement and the Largest User-Generated Virtual Goods Economy in the World SAN FRANCISCO — May 27, 2009 — Linden Lab®, creator of the virtual world SecondRead More →

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Press Release: NEOVIA Financial Selected by VirWoX for Second Life Currency Exchange NEOVIA Financial, the independent global online payments business, has been selected to securely process online payments for VirWoX, the Austrian based Virtual World Exchange. VirWoX is using NEOVIA’s NETELLER e-wallet to enable users of the Second Life virtualRead More →

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Australia’s DeepThink Pty Ltd. has launched an OpenSim hosting company, founder Adam Frisby announced today. Adam Frisby is DeepThink’s co-director and the company’s head of research and technology, and he is also a core developer of the open source OpenSim virtual world server software The new hosting company — SimHostRead More →

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Japan’s 3Di, Inc. announced a cloud-based offering for enterprises looking to deploy OpenSim virtual worlds. 3Di currently offers a server-based software solution, as well as a Web-based browser for its enterprise customers. “Cloud computing services would allow enterprises to deploy 3D virtual worlds without needing to invest In their ownRead More →

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Immersive collaborative environments may be the perfect solution to a company’s training or collaboration needs — but may be a hard sell if the senior management still thinks of 3D environments as video games. According to a new report from analyst firm ThinkBalm, proponents of virtual worlds technology need toRead More →

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According to a new report by analyst firm ThinkBalm, immersiveness is not an all-or-nothing proposition but a continuum. On the low-immersion extreme are virtual worlds with cartoony graphics, static camera angles, no spacial voice, and limited gestures. High-immersive worlds, by comparison, have realistic graphics, customizable avatars, spacial audio and aRead More →

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Press Release: UC Irvine establishes Center for Computer Games & Virtual Worlds Will join forces with Institute for Software Research and Game Culture & Technology Laboratory UC Irvine’s Donald Bren School of Information & Computer Sciences has established the Center for Computer Games & Virtual Worlds, led by ICS AssociateRead More →

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3Di Inc. releases “3Di Immersive Banner”, the latest and the world’s first technology for Internet advertising that realizes virtual experiences by banner ads on websites 3Di Inc., which develops and offers 3D Internet solutions, has developed 3Di Immersive Banner, the latest and the world’ first Internet advertising technology that canRead More →

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Press Release: Starting Today: 3Di, Inc. Enables 3D Virtual Internet Shopping Experiences by Deploying 3Di OpenSim Enterprise to SANWA 3D INTERNET LAB TOKYO — 3Di, Inc., which develops and offers 3D Internet solutions, is proud to announce that 3Di OpenSim Enterprise, 3Di’s server software for construction of 3D virtual worldsRead More →

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Manpower Inc., a world leader in the employment services industry, will host a provocative hourlong discussion, “The Evolution of the Virtual Workforce” on Tuesday, September 1 at 11am ET in the virtual world of Second Life.Read More →

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Though virtual events enable organizers to avoid travel and facilities expenses, in many respects they are no different from real world events in their marketing, according to the Event Marketing Institute. While many people think that virtual events are easy and don’t cost any money — and that only tech-savvyRead More →

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ReactionGrid has joined a very short list of OpenSim grids offering online shopping, with an e-commerce site open to all OpenSim users, not just ReactionGrid members. Two other grids have online commerce platforms, but their products are only available to grid members (though grid membership is free). The largest isRead More →

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Companies looking to have a virtual world running behind a firewall now have another option – today, Altadyn Corp. released its  3DXplorer enterprise platform. A web-based version of the product, hosted on Altadyn’s servers, has been available for about a year. The company claims SAP, Orange, Bayer, and Glaxo-Smith-Kline asRead More →

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InWorld Solutions has premiered the world’s first virtual behavioral therapy product, based on Forterra’s Olive virtual worlds platform, Forterra announced today. Olive — or On-Line Interactive Virtual Environment — is a proprietary platform that competes with Linden Lab’s yet-to-be-released Nebraska server and the OpenSim open source virtual world platform. TheRead More →

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A California chapter of the American Society for Training & Development won the society’s national “Sharing Our Success” award for its use of Second Life for a virtual training simulcast, the society announced Aug. 5. The Mount Diablo chapter of the ASTD — located in northern California –was able toRead More →

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Linden Lab has debuted a new portal for enterprise users, which features case studies of business uses of Second Life and offers a free tour of the Second Life environment. “For those of us working with enterprise clients, the new page is a welcome relief from what came before —Read More →

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Virtual worlds consultancy ThinkBalm announced the first ThinkBalm Innovation Community professional networking event, scheduled for August 4, to be held at the Amazon Developers Island in Second Life. Scheduled speakers include experts on virtual world use and design, including  IBM’s Christopher Bishop, Amazon’s Jeff Barr, ThnkBalm’s own Sam Driver,  AndrewRead More →

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OSGrid — the biggest and oldest virtual world running on the OpenSim platform — celebrated its second birthday July 22. The celebration included several days of events, including a presentation on the history and future of the grid, live music, and dance parties. Since it first launched two years ago,Read More →

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It will take at least six months to get the Xenki OpenSim viewer ready for public use, according to the new lead developer on the open source project. Kevin Tweedy, founder and head of Philadelphia-based Extreme Reality, a virtual reality technology company, said he took the project over in March.Read More →

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Japan’s 3Di Inc. has been working hard lately on making OpenSim more appealing to business customers — at least, to business customers in Japan. This spring, they came out with a Web viewer for OpenSim worlds designed to intergrate with the firm’s back-end OpenSim-based server software, and a demo websiteRead More →

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South Carolina’s Appalachian St. University has been delivering an instructional technology degree almost completely inside virtual worlds for eight years, professor Sean Williams told Hypergrid Business. But recently the university ran a program designed to integrate virtual world technology into middle schools. The reason? As virtual reality branches into newRead More →

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IBM officially released its Lotus Sametime 3D collaboration product this week. The product is based on the OpenSim opensource virtual world server software, an IBM spokeswoman confirmed to Hypergrid Business today. This is the first serious use of the OpenSim platform as part of an established and popular enterprise productRead More →

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Update: Full, up-to-date list of OpenSim hosting providers is here. The choice of OpenSim hosts is still very limited, due to the fact that the OpenSim platform has only become stable — and grids hyperlinked — in the last couple of months. In theory, anyone can host their own OpenSimRead More →

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This week, ReactionGrid has released its $8,950 Banbury virtual world server, for those who want to physically own their own virtual universe. But for customers willing to let their virtual worlds be managed by someone else, there are also inexpensive hosted options. Today, ReactionGrid runs one public grid, and aRead More →

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One of the biggest obstacles to enterprise adoption of the OpenSim virtual worlds platform has been the lack of a decent behind-the-firewall solution. There are some hosting companies running OpenSim projects, but if you wanted to install it and run it yourself, you would need to invest serious time andRead More →