A virtual art gallery built to scale with imported artwork. (Image courtesy Lawrence Pierce.) One of my interests is the relationship between the real world and the virtual. If the virtual can inspire or inform the real, it then transcends its technical isolation. Curating an art exhibition is just such an opportunity. In the physical realm, curating is labor intensive, so decisions on placement carry considerable overhead. On the other hand, virtual simulation can be quite rapid and efficient, conditions that support flexible outcomes. In real life, my profession is that of photographer. Phot ..read more

International Day on Alternate Metaverse Grid. (Image courtesy Alternate Metaverse Grid.) Alternate Metaverse Grid celebrated its first annual International Day on Thursday, March 7: Celebrating International Diversity on OpenSim. Grid co-owner Cataplexia Numbers said she was looking of a way to bring together the residents of various countries that are members of the Alternate Metaverse Grid and have them not only get to know each other better but to also interact on a united level, celebrating the music of various countries together. To celebrate the various differences within a multi-cultur ..read more

The total land area on OpenSim’s public grids reached the equivalent of 138,831 standard regions this month, an all-time high — and the fourth month in a row that OpenSim land area has broken this record. That’s an increase of more than 5,000 regions since last month. The biggest gainer in terms of land area was OSgrid, which gained 2,655 new regions, taking the top slot back from Wolf Territories Grid. At the same time, the number of active users hit 47,620, another record, and an increase of more than 2,000 actives compared to the previous month. Here, Wolf Territories maintained its leaders ..read more

(Image courtesy Wolf Territories Grid.) In a move to make the virtual realm more inclusive, Wolf Territories Grid, announced the launch of its new speech-to-text function today, in order to improve the in-world experience for hard-of-hearing and deaf community members. With the commitment to ensure equal participation for all users, Wolf Territories Grid’s new speech-to-text feature will convert spoken words into written text in real time, breaking down communication barriers that have long posed challenges for individuals with hearing impairments. Paul Clevett “This is a pivotal moment for Wo ..read more

HG Safari at the JFK Dallas build on 3rd Rock Grid. (Image courtesy HG Safari.) 3rd Rock Grid, the second-oldest grid in OpenSim, will be shutting down soon. “We have to shut down the grid due to a few circumstances that have technical consequences, making it impossible to further manage the grid,” said 3rd Rock Grid board member Florin Spanachi, who is also known as Eldovar Lamilton in-world. According to grid residents, the grid had lost a key member of its technical staff when he left suddenly. Then another key member, Kira Tiponi, passed away, leaving the grid without access to a key resou ..read more

(Image by Maria Korolov via Adobe Firefly.) Could Mark Zuckerberg’s lust-driven quest to own VR, AR and mixed reality end up costing Meta at the end of the day? That’s a question being posed after The Information reported recently that Google had approached Meta partner with its new software platform — Google Android XR — that is being developed for virtual reality. While rumors have Meta talking to hardware companies like LG Electronics about building new devices using Quest’s software, there’s nothing to indicate Zuckerberg’s vision of shifting from using an open-sourced version of Goog ..read more

A monthly social event on Wolf Territories Grid. (Image courtesy Wolf Territories Grid.) In a move that promises a faster, smoother, and more responsive virtual world experience, Wolf Territories Grid has migrated to a new server cluster at a data center in Frankfurt, Germany. The upgrade is expected to significantly enhance performance and reliability for the grid’s thousands of users, who can now enjoy lightning-fast teleports, quicker rezzing of objects, and an overall more responsive environment. The switchover incurred minimal downtime for the grid — just 14 minutes. Paul Clevett, also kn ..read more

So, I’m back home — after flying to Lima, Peru for an AI conference last week. I was there to give a keynote speech about AI. The whole flight over I was worried that Nvidia or OpenAI or someone else would announce news of such major importance that I’d have to scrap my entire presentation and start over — fortunately, while there was, in fact, some news, I didn’t have to do any major revisions. No CEOs were fired. No lawsuits shut down all generative AI training. Whew. Maria Korolov speaking before a sold-out audience at the Data & AI Summit in Lima, Peru on March 20. (Image courtesy Semi ..read more

The total land area on OpenSim’s public grids reached the equivalent of 132,969  standard regions this month, an all-time high — and the third month in a row that OpenSim land area has broken records. There was an increase of 1,089 standard region equivalents compared to last month. Meanwhile, the total number of registered users went up by more than 1,338. The number of active users fell, however, by over 2,100, partly due to grid outages. ProxyNet, for example, which reported over 400 active users last month, was down this month. And two other grids that reported drops of more than 500 ..read more

Screenshot from VWBPE 2023 spotlight presentation. The seventeenth annual Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education Conference, beginning on Thursday, March 14, 2024, will be an online distributed conference happening in multiple virtual spaces. This conference focuses on the use of immersive virtual environments for educational purposes including virtual and augmented reality. This year we are returning to our Earth build. Each region represents a different terrestrial biome, including wetlands, desert, badlands, grasslands, and forests. Conference attendees will be among the first to be abl ..read more