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Researchers at Australia’s James Cook University, the Tree-Kangaroo and Mammal Group and the Port Douglas Wildlife Habitat are using virtual reality to raise awareness of the plight of the endangered tree kangaroo, which lives in the rain forest. “If someone visits the Malanda Falls visitor information centre and there are no tree kangaroosRead 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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Syfy has updated its virtual reality app for its upcoming series, “The Expanse,” with a virtual fly-by of Tycho Station and the Nauvoo generation starship and handed out hundreds of Google Cardboard headsets at New York Comic Con last week. The app was first released in July of 2015 and was promotedRead 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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Argentina-based Voxelus has announced that it is working on a virtual reality game creation tool, viewer, virtual world currency, and virtual content marketplace. Voxelus co-founder and CEO Martin Repetto told Hypergrid Business that the new platform will be released in the first quarter of 2016 will work on as many virtual reality devices inRead 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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Like a lot of people, I do a fair bit of shopping online. Amazon, eBay, Staples, Best Buy — I know them well, plus dozens of other online retailers as well. Until this fall, however, I’ve never considered shopping at AliExpress. I’d never heard of the site before, and ifRead More →

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The Kitely Merchant Fair starts tomorrow with freebies, events, and more at the Kitely Hypergrid Merchant Fair region on Kitely. Teleport via hypergrid to grid.kitely.com:8002:Kitely Hypergrid Merchant Fair.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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Moscow-based Fibrum Ltd., known for its excellent virtual reality apps, has put Russia in the lead in the virtual reality hardware race — temporarily, at least — by getting its headset into retail chains this summer According to company spokesman Alexey Svirskiy, the company was founded just a year and aRead 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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There’s been a recent trend with real estate companies to create virtual walk-throughs of properties for prospective customers. But one company, eXp Realty, has taken this a step further and actually has its offices in a virtual environment. “We don’t have any physical bricks-and-mortar office of any significance, other than toRead More →

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You only know what you can remember, as the saying goes, but virtual reality technology holds the potential to reorganize and adulterate a person’s memory, blurring the lines between what is real and what is virtual. Our strongest memories are deeply ingrained based on events and experiences that activate theRead 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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Immersive experiences are transforming the way in which media companies present their content — movies, TV broadcasts, and films. These experiences can help the content producers reach new audiences and increase engagement with existing viewers. The following are six new examples of the media using virtual reality. 1. Netflix releases Gear VR app; Hulu and TwitchRead 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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When it comes to funding virtual reality startups, venture capitalists are looking for passion — and working prototypes. Others were more narrowly focused, looking for enterprise applications, they told virtual reality entrepreneurs at the 2015 VRLA Summer Expo. The panel of investors, which included representatives from Cooley LLP, CrossCut Ventures Management LLC,Read 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 →

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Virtual reality cameras cost hundreds — or thousands — of dollars. But Shot, a startup based in Spain, hopes to bring the price down to under $100 with a new Kickstarter campaign by combining fisheye lenses and some clever software. The way it works is that you clip the lenses toRead More →

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The Adult Metaverse community on Google Plus has just crossed the 1,000 member mark. With 135 new members since the start of August, it is the fastest-growing OpenSim-specific community on the platform. DigiWorldz was in second place by growth, with 89 new members bringing it to a total count ofRead More →

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With around 2 million Google Cardboard devices already in user hands, and Taobao and AliBaba alone selling 300,000 additional units a month, mobile-based virtual reality is going gangbusters. The iOS app store and Google Play have hundreds of virtual reality apps. Microsoft’s app store has less than two dozen. So,Read More →

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Press release: New open source platform turns iOS, Android devices into Vr controllers Navi is an app that transforms your smartphone or tablet into a controller by sending your device’s rotations and touch gestures to your virtual reality headset. Developed in Unity, Navi is designed to be easy to use, flexible to developRead More →

Picture by Floorplan Revolution VR

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This past week, Atlanta-based Trick 3D announced an application that will allow architects, home builders, real estate marketers and developers to generate 3D virtual environments using just 2D floor plans. The Floorplan Revolution app will also allow their clients to experience photo-realistic walkthroughs of those environments using Samsung Gear VR and Google Cardboard headsets. The softwareRead More →

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Yes, virtual reality technology will turn us all into drooling idiots and destroy civilization — but it won’t be the first. Here are ten other technologies that have already destroyed civilization. 10. The Internet The Internet is more addictive than cocaine. Back in 1995, fewer than 15 percent of Americans usedRead More →

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I just got my Samsung Gear VR a couple of weeks ago and have been testing it out. It’s a nice headset, light, wide field of view, but I sent it back today for a refund. I will probably get the updated version once it comes out in November, since itRead More →

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Virtual reality technology is on fire and definitely a stimulating field to be in these days, with areas such as computer animation, software engineering and virtual reality design in demand and thriving. A career in one of these fields could be highly rewarding, but is not for everyone. Take it forRead More →

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The third annual Summer of Arts 2015 virtual arts event begins on September 25. Metropolis Grid hosts this event to give cyber artists an opportunity to display their works to a wide audience. The art displayed ranges from audio-visual installations and theater projects to paintings and cyberart objects. A specialRead More →

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According to a report released earlier this month by Shanghai-based Interface News, China’s two leading online commerce platform,  Taobao and AliBaba, together sell more than 300,000 virtual reality headsets every month, with lower-cost headsets accounting for the bulk of the sales. The report does not include direct sales from theRead More →