Why and how avatars will rule video calls

You'll be quite the character when all video calls show your avatar, rather than video of your face. But Big Tech will need to find the sweet spot between photo-realistic and cartoonish.

Everybody’s going to love avatar-based video calls some day. Using avatars that copy your every expression, tilt of the head, mouth movements and hand gestures in real time eliminates concern over bad hair days, messy backgrounds, crappy cameras, horrible lighting and people photobombing your calls. Best of all, you can make eye contact with avatars.

Meta today announced that its Meta avatars can be used in place of video for Instagram and Messenger calls.

Apple unveiled its Vision Pro platform and promised an “avatar webcam” feature for all visionOS apps that want to do calls. Users map their face, then the visionOS system animates that face using the wearer’s real-time expressions and hand movements. These will appear as “Spatial Personas.” that float in space, rather than inside a window.

Zoom started supporting avatar-based video calls in January.

Microsoft recently rolled out avatars for Microsoft Teams calls.

Samsung uses Loomie.ai avatar technology for its phones.

So far, the big companies promoting avatars have failed to design an avatar system that strikes the right balance between photo-realistic and cartoonish.

Oh, and Ten More Things:

1. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard is stepping up cyber attacks on US targets, probably to support future terrorism, kidnapping and assassination

2. Microsoft wins court case against FTC to buy Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion

3. Amazon is the first American company to challenge Europe’s online content law for Big Tech companies, claiming it’s not a “very large online platform” under the Digital Services Act

4. Meta enables real-time cartoonish avatars for video calls via Instagram and Messenger

5. Twitter blocks links to Threads

6. Anthropic introduced the free new Claude 2 large language model to rival ChatGPT

7. Roger Thomas Clark, aka Variety Jones, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for his involvement in the Silk Road marketplace. (My article on Silk Road)

8. Huawei filed a patent to put cameras in earbuds so AI can warn you of danger

9. Apple turns on its previously announced App Store Today tab ad slot

10. NASA scraps two asteroid-probing spacecraft because of software issues with the Psyche rocket

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Mike’s List of Shameless Self-Promotions

1. How we know that Apple’s Vision Pro means business

2. Spot fake ransomware attacks without wasting time and money

3. No, digital nomads aren’t pricing locals out of their homes

4. Read ELGAN.COM for more!

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Mike’s Location: Silicon Valley, California

(Why Mike is always traveling.)