Day: September 5, 2021

REMIO: A Brief Introduction to a Full-Service Social VR Platform

In the early days of my blog, I used to have to hunt out social VR platforms to write about. But now that my blog has been around for a little over four years, I am sometimes approached by metaverse companies who wish me to visit and/or write about their platforms. REMIO is one such company.

REMIO is a YARTVRA (Yet Another Remote Teamwork Virtual Reality Application), but it’s a little bit different from the social VR platforms which I have covered to date on this blog.

REMIO actually offers a full-service concierge-style package to businesses, including shipping standalone VR headsets to each member of the work team that you want to bring together in virtual reality:

We help distributed teams maintain a great culture with immersive team-building activities and collaboration tools. All in VR. ​

• Pre-configured standalone VR headsets.
• Delivered to each team member.
• Hosted fun team events in VR.
• Immersive collaboration & productivity tools.​
• We take care of all the scheduling, logistics, and shipping.

Actually, I’m a little surprised that nobody has come up with this idea before!

If you don’t want to join in using a VR headset, you can also connect via a web browser on your desktop computer (you can check it out for yourself here; it takes a few seconds to load).

There’s a handy menu on the right-hand side of the REMIO web client to take you to various prebuilt environments, including a conference room, a paintball arena, even a yoga room!

Here’s a one-minute YouTube video showing some of these environments:

To have a company offer a service where they take care of all the scheduling, logistics, shipping, and onboarding, so that companies can simply focus on corporate events and teambuilding exercises, is actually a pretty genius idea! Here’s a look at their pricing page, which offers one-off, monthly, and annual prices for the service:

And, if you already have headsets, there are more cost-effective options (including a free one for up to 20 users on a public server):

For further information about REMIO, please peruse their website, join their Discord, or follow them on social media: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.

So I will be adding REMIO to my popular, ever-expanding comprehensive list of social VR and virtual worlds (and yes, yes I know, I have been promising to reorganize and recategorize it for quite some time now, but the pandemic has kind of thrown a monkeywrench into those plans…please bear with me).

UPDATED! Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: Three Stores Offering L$500 Free Store Credit Each, But This Weekend Only!

Have you joined the RyanSchultz.com Steals, Deals & Freebies group yet? I will be posting EVEN MORE news and tips on finding fabulous freebies and bargains in Second Life than I post here on the blog! More information on this brand new SL group here.

LANA, Shy Doll, and Studio Nova are three stores on a brand new sim, and to celebrate the grand opening, each store’s group is free to join, and each store is offering a L$500 free store credit as a group gift—but only for this weekend! Obviously, the sim has been quite busy (it’s a homestead sim which can only handle twenty avatars at a time, max), so you might need to keep trying to get in (or use a tool like the handy, free Teleporter Hammer).

With the free store credit at clubwear store Studio Nova, I was able to pick up two different colours of this Laury top and matching asymetrical skirt:

From the Shy Doll store, I used the credit to pick up this lovely two-piece Alissa set, a bodysuit and a separate, sheer laced overshirt! I consider this is an SL wardrobe staple which you can repurpose to use in many other ways, as I have shown in this blogpost, where I turned it into a Disney princess outfit!

And even better, you can pick up not one but two different colours of the Alissa set as free group gifts with your ShyDoll group tag: rose and an iridescent purple! You can then mix and match the bodysuit and sheer overshirt, if you want to mix it up.

There was so much to choose from at the LANA store, but in the end I decided on two dresses. This is the Hazel long bodycon dress, which comes in many different colours—just the thing for an elegant evening out!

And yes, Auntie Ryan is still an absolute sucker for a full-blown ballgown! 😉 (Oh, lawsy, lawsy, lawsy, if you only knew how many ballgowns I have in my avatars’ Second Life inventories…Auntie Ryan may need to find herself a 12-step Ballgowns Anonymous group!)

But behold this truly glorious Destiny gown, which includes optional sleeves and an optional lace overskirt, with the lace tintable on the bodice, sleeves, and overskirt using the included HUD! (There’s also optional sparkles, but I left them off; they’re pretty seizure-inducing…)

So hurry on down to the three-store sim (here’s your taxi), before the end of this weekend, and scoop up those free store credits—and some fabulous free fashion!

You tell’em Auntie Ryan sent you. 😉

UPDATE Sept. 6th, 2021: I checked today (Monday, September 6th), and the free group store credits are still available to pick up. Hurry down before they’re gone!!!

And I am completely head over heels in love with the Destiny ballgown by LANA! Here’s what it looks like in white; I tinted the lace layer on the sleeves, bodice and skirt to a light pink to match my jewelry, and I just love love love it!!! I am all ready to meet my Prince Charming and have him sweep me off my feet.

UPDATE Sept. 7th, 2021: I checked again early this morning and the free store credit is still available at LANA, so I picked up this absolutely stunning Clara ballgown for an alt. The gown comes in two pieces, a sleek full-length gown, and an optional, dramatic overskirt attachment:

And if you like, you can even pick up a fatpack of three colours of this Clara gown (black, white, and red), in a special blood-splattered version, for the price of a single gown! Here’s what the red bloody gown looks like on my vampire alt. Equal parts fashion and horror! (You can pick up the lantern for only L$5 here on the SL Marketplace.)

The sim is a lot less busy than it was over the weekend, so if this entices you, get down here, snap up that free store credit, and go do some serious shopping!

South Korea Launches a Metaverse Alliance with Industry

Photo by Daniel Bernard on Unsplash

This morning I learned that the South Korean government has recently launched a metaverse alliance with over 200 businesses, including Samsung. The Korea Economic Daily reports:

Samsung Electronics Co. has onboarded South Korea’s government-led metaverse alliance in a move to strengthen partnership in virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and artificial intelligence (AI) sectors.  

According to the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) on Aug. 3, a total of 202 firms are participating in the metaverse alliance with a number of new joiners that include Samsung. Other companies that have newly joined the alliance include Shinhan Bank, KB Kookmin Bank, SM Entertainment Co., MegaStudyEdu Co. and Cheil Worldwide.

The MSIT-led metaverse alliance kicked off on May 18 with 25 firms and institutions as participants. The initial members include the country’s three telecom giants SK Telecom Co., KT Corp. and LG Uplus, automaker Hyundai Motor Co., Naver affiliate Naver Labs Co. and Kakao affiliate Kakao Entertainment Inc. Other current members of the metaverse alliance include GIANTSTEP Inc. MAXST Co. and CJ ENM Co.

The main objective of the alliance is to establish the country’s metaverse ecosystem by growing the metaverse-related AR, VR and extended reality (XR) sectors. The alliance has also designated six key industries that will adopt more metaverse technologies moving forward: medicine, manufacturing, construction, education, retail and national defense.

It will be interesting to see what comes out of this alliance, and I wonder if other nations will follow suit (if they haven’t already).

Thank you to Vytek for the heads up!