Meta avatars finally to acquire legs soon 

There isn’t possibly anyone who don’t know about Meta Platforms, Inc., popularly known as Meta (formerly Facebook). You may identify it better as the American tech giant that owns your go-to social media platforms, such as Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp among others.  

Before the Meta days (prior to 2021), the tech major has always been in the news for one thing or the other. So, it’s no surprise that it is now once again back. Okay, but what’s the latest development? 

Turns out, the virtual reality (VR) avatars of Meta are soon going to acquire legs. This was recently announced by Meta Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg during the annual Meta Connect developer event.  

Wondering why the legs are coming so late, considering Meta avatars already have functioning hands? This is because legs are hard to represent as the current AR/VR headsets are designed in such a way that they can only track upper body movements, such as hands and facial gestures. Not only that, the AR/VR headsets often find it hard to properly estimate and map the lower body parts.  

For those unaware, the Meta avatar, for so long, has been a precise visual representation of humankind in the digital world, minus the legs. In fact, other tech majors such as Microsoft too has avatars that have often been put under scanner and ridiculed for being legless or having waist-up features floating around in their virtual worlds.  

And now, this challenge of having legless avatars due to obstruction (legs often stay hidden under desk) has finally been addressed and resolved by Meta, hopefully, once and for all. To tackle it, Meta has come up with a custom-made AI (artificial intelligence) model that would be easily able to calculate and predict the position of a complete avatar (body).  

As for now, the world can see a head-to-toe cartoonish digital version of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg (that too jumping up and down) that was unveiled at the recent conference and get an idea of what awaits them, by the end of this year. It will comprise of full body features, including newly introduced legs and torsos.  

Interestingly, Meta has come up with this brand-new addition, as bottom half of the avatars (to appear more human-like and realistic) was perhaps the most requested feature by Meta users across platforms. For now, Meta will roll out the avatar legs on its social media (VR) operated platforms (including newly developed ‘Horizon’) but will soon be available on other products and services as well.