Animated Emoji wars heat up as Samsung partners with Disney on AR Emoji

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

In case you missed it, animating yourself as various AR (Augmented Reality) Emoji characters is now as important as the specs, camera functionality and design of today's flagship phones.

The gauntlet was thrown down by Apple last year when it made Animoji a key feature of the iPhone X. Being able to talk and match facial expressions with various emoji animals was the sexy feature for one hot minute and led to a short deluge of TV ads and Animoji Karaoke videos.

Apple's Animoji did resonate with many users, although I'm not sure if they were a defining feature for people to consider purchasing the iPhone X.

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First impressions of the Samsung AR Emoji on the new Samsung Galaxy S9

Text and photos by Nicole Batac

You’ve probably already heard of Samsung’s own take on Apple’s Animoji. The South Korean company is calling it AR Emoji. How Samsung stepped up on its own is by letting you create a 3D avatar based on your looks. This is possible with use of a 3D modeling algorithm and face-tracking technology. We got some hands-on time with the Samsung Galaxy S9 and was able to play around with this feature for a bit.

The default camera app on the S9 brings this feature to life. There is an AR Emoji mode available for both the front and rear cameras of this device. And it’s a simple enough process to setup. There is an option on the app to start the process. It’ll just take a photo of your face and it advises you to take off your glasses or anything that might obstruct its view. Once it captures your likeness, it’ll ask if you’re male or female and from their it generates your 3D avatar. We’re not sure how many 3D avatars you can make but we were able to make two so far during our brief testing of the feature.

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