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Press release: THE VOID Launches Ghostbusters: Dimension, an Immersive Hyper-Reality Experience Powered by Unity Technologies 3D engine at Madame Tussauds New York New York City, NY & San Francisco, CA—Unity, the largest global development platform for creating 2D, 3D, VR and AR games and experiences, today announced a new andRead More →

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Santa Clara-based EchelonVR has launched an Android application that works with Cardboard and Samsung Gear VR to help heavy equipment dealers to showcase immersive models of their products to customers before they make purchase decisions. The application, which is available as a free download for Android, is particularly useful for tradeRead More →

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No one can deny the global popularity of sports. Whatever nation you find yourself in is guaranteed to have teams competing in some sport and fans who will consistently tune in to watch them. Virtual reality has been making a lot of waves with all the recent developments it’s seen,Read More →

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Pygmal Technologies launched a beta version of SPACE, a computer user environment that aims to replace monitor screens with virtual screens. The application, now available for download for the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift, is currently free, and Pygmal CEO Xiao Jia told Hypergrid Business that the price will remain low, in order to attractRead More →

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Press release: Invrsion Presents Shelfzone, The Virtual Reality Solution For Large-Scale Retail Trade And Consumer Package Goods Italian company creates virtual reality solutions for B2B using HTC Vive technology Milan – inVRsion, the Italian start-up which develops virtual reality solutions for business, officially presents ShelfZone. This new solution, created usingRead More →

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Virtual reality is now a global phenomena and devices are slowly becoming available to more retail shops — including here, in Nairobi, Kenya, where I am based. This Saturday, I walked over to my local mall, the Thika Road Mall on the Thika Super Highway, where I got to try out theRead More →

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Press release: AppliedVR Brings Therapeutic Virtual Reality Content To Cedars-Sinai Medical Center   Los Angeles – AppliedVR, an industry leader in improving the healthcare experience with scalable therapeutic virtual reality content, today announced its partnership with Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, a leader in providing high-quality healthcare, to introduce the technology in itsRead More →

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Another surgery video platform, GIBLIB, which serves medical students and doctors, has jumped on the virtual reality train. The company partnered with camera manufacturer 360fly  and live streaming service LIVIT NOW to broadcast the first-ever live hernia surgery in virtual reality. The surgeon was Dr. Shirin Towfigh, a Beverly Hills, Calif.-based hernia specialist. ThisRead More →

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Virtual reality was big this year at Cannes Lions. Its presence makes itself known as demonstrations of the technology abound at stations all around the festival. Through these demonstrations, we’re experiencing firsthand what VR can do now. But through the discussions, we’re also learning what it will do in theRead More →

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Per reader request, I’ve added two new links to the menu in the black bar above — VR & AR, and Metaverse. The first will list all the VR articles, and the second will just have the OpenSim-related ones. If you subscribe to the Hypergrid Business RSS feeds, you can now subscribeRead More →

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Google Expeditions, previously only available to select schools, is now available to the public, at no cost. “The app is available today for Android and will be available for iPhones and iPads soon,” the company announced earlier today. The app is designed to be used by both teachers and students. Teachers wouldRead More →

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This year, Shark Week will be coming to virtual reality. It starts today, Sunday, June 26, and Discovery Channel will make parts of its Shark Week broadcast in virtual reality and 360-degree video format.   Discovery VR is available for mobile headsets with apps for iOS, Android, and Gear VR.Read More →

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Samsung has branded its Milk VR 360-degree video platform as Samsung VR and has added the ability to upload user-generated content. “Creators can load their own 360-degree videos to the Samsung VR platform for sharing and for the first time view them in Samsung Gear VR,” the company said in anRead More →

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The Gloebit multi-grid virtual currency is now out of beta and can be used for shopping. Users who previously had a beta account will need to sign up again for the live version. You can sign up here, with either an email address and password or by connecting an existingRead More →

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A couple of weeks ago, I received a review copy of the UCVR headset in the mail. I haven’t been in a rush to review it, Because I didn’t have anything nice to say. I enjoy writing positive reviews a lot more. But I also don’t want people to waste their money.Read More →

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  On its tenth anniversary, Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education is adding a new element in to its conference program, a science fair. “Educators from all disciplines and levels are invited to participate,” outreach committee head Lorraine Mockford, also known as LoriVonne Lustre in-world, said in an announcement. “If you are interested in includingRead More →

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In case you missed it, OSgrid has been holding weekly meetings every Saturday at Wright Plaza, after a long period in which communications between grid managers and residents were problematic. “We restarted it about three months ago,” said grid treasurer Lawrence Roberts on the Inworld Review last week. “It’s been well-attended, andRead More →

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Oculus has released an update to its software yesterday, allowing its games to run on other headsets. “We continually revise our entitlement and anti-piracy systems, and in the June update we’ve removed the check for Rift hardware from the entitlement check,” the company said in a statement. “We won’t useRead More →

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Virtual reality can reduce pain and stress for hospital patients, but most headsets and applications aren’t designed for the medical setting. For example, headsets should be waterproof, light-weight, easily washable and wireless. And the accompanying software must work while patients are lying down and able to move their heads only slightly. “NumerousRead More →

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California-based 360-degree camera startup, 360fly, released a satirical ad Thursday featuring a Donald Trump look-alike, a big wall, and what many saw as insensitive stereotypes of Mexican immigrants. The ad was accepted by DIRECTV, FOX News, local FOX LA, but was rejected by NBC, Viacom, ABC LA, LACBS, LAABC, and other media houses. According 360fly,Read More →

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The White House will release its first virtual reality video, a 360 video experience of the First Family’s hike in Yosemite. National Geographic, Facebook, Oculus, and Félix & Paul Studios produced the video of the trip, which was timed to coincide with the centennial of the National Park Service. TheRead More →

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Press release: Virtual Reality Developers Conference  Announces First Standalone Event in November 2016 Expanded focus on games, entertainment, brand experience, and innovation after sold out inaugural event at GDC SAN FRANCISCO — The Virtual Reality Developers Conference, the premier event for creators of immersive virtual and augmented reality experiences, today announcedRead More →

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The New York Times Virtual Reality app won the Mobile Grand Prix at Cannes Wednesday night. The newspaper has given away 1.3 million free Google VR headsets to subscribers to the Times’ Sunday edition since last November. Around 500,000 then downloaded the NYT app for Android or iOS, which generated a total of 1.5Read More →

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Trading Advantage President and CEO, Larry Levin, made the first ever live virtual reality commodity trade using Oculus Rift, a virtual reality system that completely immerses the user inside virtual worlds. As one of the premier trading organization in the nation, Trading Advantage is leading the industry with its innovativeRead More →

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Michigan’s VR Therapy and Counseling Center has won a total of $30,000 in Comcast’s Innovations 4 Entrepreneurs contest. The therapy center has found success treating patients that suffer from PTSD, social anxiety, and phobias using virtual reality. “Because the the virtual reality experience feels real, this high-tech tool can be more effectiveRead More →

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The other mini headset that I ordered recently has arrived, the Shinecon Mini from AliExpress, which cost me $13.50. Since it came at about the same time as the Leji VR Mini that I reviewed yesterday, I was able to compare the two mini headsets. They have a lot in commonRead More →

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Press release: Greenlight VR survey reveals U.S. consumers are most interested in using virtual reality for travel, entertainment, events, home design and education. San Francisco – The latest consumer research from Greenlight VR reveals non-gaming categories, including travel, home design and virtual education, top of the list for virtual reality use cases currentlyRead More →

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Up until now, virtual experiences have been pretty much ad-free. One company trying to change that is India-based VadR Networks, which is looking to bring ads from existing advertising platforms into virtual reality environments. The company is currently working with mobile ad platform InMobi, and is in talks with Google. “We haveRead More →

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Update: In August, I bought a FiiT VR 2S, and that is now my new favorite. Another headset I’m recommending is the BoboVR Z4 headset, which has a 120-degree field of view, built-in headphones, and a built-in control button. The Leji VR Mini that I ordered from AliExpress for $11 has just arrived,Read More →

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Amsterdam-based VR developer WeMakeVR and MDLinking.com, a Dutch startup with a secure communication platform for doctors, announced a service last week that creates picture-in-picture virtual reality videos of surgeries. “This way of capturing surgeries can help students get a much better understanding of the roles and interactions within the medical team,” Avinash Changa, CEO and founderRead More →

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Award winning virtual reality film company Felix & Paul Studios received a $6.8 million investment led by Comcast Ventures, the company announced this week. Felix & Paul Studios said it will use the money to double its size and triple its content and production over the next year, founder Paul Raphael told the LA Times.Read More →

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I’ve had a couple of opportunities to try out virtual reality devices. And while the experiences weren’t perfect, my friends and I can definitely see the potential. The first time was at my high school, Blackstone Valley Tech, in Upton, Massachusetts during a demo of several different mobile-based headsets — decentRead More →

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Unimersiv has launched a new virtual reality platform for educational experiences, joining Google Expeditions, Nearpod VR, and Fieldscapes VR. It is currently available for the Oculus Rift and Samsung Gear VR, with support for other mobile-based platforms still to come. “We are planning on supporting Cardboard but definitely want to make theRead More →

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The Dlodlo Glass V1 headset looks like a pair of sunglasses and weighs just 78 grams, or less than three ounces. It has a field of view of 100 degrees — a little higher than the Gear VR’s 96 degrees, and almost as good as the 100 degrees of theRead More →

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Lucasfilm’s ILMxLAB has teamed up with secretive augmented reality startup Magic Leap to develop mixed reality content. To give a little taste of what it may look like, the companies released a video in which holograms of R2D2 and C3PO interact with one another and with real objects in a real living room. ReadRead More →

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Virtual learning environments can enhance retention through the feeling of presence and interactive learning tasks, according to the recently-published book Learning in Virtual Worlds, which is a compilation of studies about the use of virtual worlds in education. “Greater perceptions of presence do contribute positively to the type of learning studied here,” writes author Stephany Wilkes. TheRead More →

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Update: In August, I bought a FiiT VR 2S, and that is now my new favorite. But I’m also still recommending the BoboVR Z4 headset, because of its 120-degree field of view, built-in headphones, and built-in control button. Last month, I received a free review copy of the Virtoba X5 headset from GeekBuying, and a coupleRead More →

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Motion sickness is one of the big usability problems plaguing virtual reality today, and if you don’t want to attach electrodes to your head, there might be a simpler, easier solution — narrowing the field of view. Researchers at Columbia University discovered subtly making the image smaller during in-world motion wouldRead More →

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Last Sunday’s Adult VR Festa had so many attendees that hundreds were forced to wait outside until police were called in to break up the crowd. The event, which was held at a venue in Tokyo’s high-tech Akihabara neighborhood, featured adult VR applications and devices. Read full story at RocketNews24.Read More →

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I just received my free Loop VR headset from OnePlus. The company gave away thousands of headsets to promote the release of their new OnePlus 3 smartphone, and while it’s definitely an upgrade from the cardboard headset they sent out last year, it lacks many of the features that have recently becomeRead More →

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Social virtual reality pioneer vTime added support for the Oculus Rift and added a business-focused meeting space. The app was already available for Gear VR and Android. It is a free application. Both the new consumer and developer kit 2 versions of the Oculus Rift headset are now supported, the company said in theRead More →

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The total land area of OpenSim’s public grids increased by almost 3,000 regions, but active users dropped by 405. The total number of standard region equivalents on the public grids is now 59,339, up by 2,821 compared to last month, the largest single-month increase in almost two years. The total includesRead More →

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Virtual reality has experienced rapid growth within architecture, engineering and construction industries over the past three years. What started as a curiosity has now become increasingly commonplace in architecture, real estate development, and construction.  In fact, many building owners now request or require demonstration of virtual reality capabilities as part ofRead More →

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Nothing beats taking an actual car for an actual drive, but virtual reality can whet buyer appetites for the real thing and can also offer customers an opportunity to see a broader variety of cars than can physically fit in a showroom. The automotive sector is notable in being an early moverRead More →

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The Global Learning Forum is scheduled to take place this Friday, June 17, at the SOC StudioX’s in-world campus auditorium from 1 p.m. to 4.30 p.m. Central Time.  The topic is the role of cyberspace and integrated learning environments. The event is open to all hypergrid visitors. Hypergrid teleport to metaverse.austudiox.com:9000. It will featureRead More →

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The Kitely Market is now delivering content to 138 different OpenSim grids and mini-grids and merchants are continuing to increase the amount of exportable content available on the platform. There are currently 7,486 product listings in Kitely Market containing 14,134 variations, of which 9,237 are sold with the Export permission.Read More →

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Best Western International, Inc. recently announced it will use virtual reality to allow customers tour guest rooms, hotel lobbies and other amenities at any of their North American hotels in immersive 360-degree video before they check in. “Walking into a lobby or guest room leaves an indelible impression on what kind of experience will follow,Read More →

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The growth of virtual reality devices market and the associated demand for new virtual reality experiences has increased the demand for low-poly 3D models, according to a report released last week. Sales of “low poly” models significantly grew in 2015 and is likely to record robust growth in 2016, driven byRead More →