Facebook’s parent company, Meta, introduced 3D avatars in Instagram stories and direct messages and announced on Monday that they would update their avatars on Facebook and Messenger. People in the United States, Canada, and Mexico can appear as virtual self on stickers, feed posts, Facebook profile pictures, and more on Meta’s platforms, including the Quest VR platform. The new avatar features a new face shape and assistive devices such as cochlear implants, hearing aids, and wheelchairs to better include people with disabilities. Aigerim Shorman, General Manager of Meta’s Avatar and Identity, wrote in a blog post.
As part of the Metaverse preview, Meta demonstrated codec avatars and real-time environment rendering at the Facebook Connect event in October, but the company emphasized that much of the work was still under investigation at the time. Also on Monday, Meta Super Bowl introduced an LVI-themed T-shirt for avatars on its platform. The Cincinnati Bengals will face the Los Angeles Rams at this year’s Super Bowl at SoFi Stadium on February 13.
Meta will report its fourth-quarter results on February 2, and announced that it would report the results of its AR and VR Reality Labs units for the first time, confirming the financial implications of focusing on Metaverse.
