Microsoft is also interested in the metaverse, so today at its Ignite conference, the company revealed 3D avatars for Teams meetings where you don’t want to show your face. Microsoft refers to this as “Mesh for Teams.”
Microsoft Teams will offer 3D avatars
To be able to access Mesh for Teams, you can use a smartphone or a VR headset. Not to mention the HoloLens.
John Roach from Microsoft states that: “Mesh for Teams – which anyone will be able to access from standard smartphones and laptops to mixed-reality headsets – is designed to make online meetings more personal, engaging and fun. Think of the metaverse as a new version – or a new vision – of the internet, one where people gather to communicate, collaborate and share with personal virtual presence on any device.”
In that scenario, you’ll be holding meetings, but they’ll be more enjoyable since the metaverse will be involved. Microsoft is working on translation features too, so you may collaborate with a colleague in a virtual Teams environment without language obstacles.
Microsoft Technical Fellow Alex Kipman also commented: “As a company whose focus is on productivity, on knowledge workers, it’s something that customers are really asking us for, and it’s coupled with the vision of mixed reality that we’ve been working on for 12 years. It’s all coming together.”
Teams also will enable businesses to create their own metaverse, where people may virtually socialize and work together.
Katie Kelly, project manager at Microsoft commented that: “There will be a feeling of presence even though it’s as simple as being able to take your audio and manifest that as facial expressions. That’s the first release. The ambition is to closely follow that with Microsoft’s plethora of AI technologies so that we can use the camera to insinuate where your mouth is and mimic your head and facial movements.”
