Prior to you began playing among Spaces experiences, your face would be scanned by a wall-mounted electronic camera. This data was then overlaid onto your in-game avatar, so your fellow players were playing with you inside the virtual world. It might not have actually been especially precise, however it added another level of fidelity on top of the sometimes-artificial VR experience.
When COVID-19 struck, Spaces needed to close down its real-world service and pivot to stay alive, undoubtedly unsuccessfully. It took that face-scanning technology and constructed a platform onto which you might scan your own face and place it onto a virtual avatar. You could then link your VR setup to Zoom (or another video conferencing product) and present as an animation version of yourself.
Offered Apples interest in facial scanning and cartoonish avatars– memoji– it appears like theres a lot of reason for Apple to purchase Spaces. Possibly itll use the Spaces group to bolster its existing efforts in the VR/AR area, or harness the innovation to improve FaceTime with virtual characters.
Apple buys a VR company that put real faces on virtual avatars – Engadget
