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  1. What Is
July 8, 2016updated 22 Sep 2016 12:41pm

What is an avatar?

No, this is not about the film.

By Joao Lima

In the digital space, an avatar is a representation, other than a real picture, of a user.

This can be a cartoon or any other sort of graphical representation of that user.

In gaming, avatars are used to build full-body personas of the user, or a non-real persona.

Any avatar can take the form of a 2D or 3D graphic.

Click next for more information about avatars’ history and their uses.

Avatar as described was first used in 1985 by Richard Garriott when he launched the game Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar.

The term avatar itself originates Hinduism, and stands for ‘descent’. Descent of a deity in a terrestrial form. This is what an avatar essential means: a terrestrial form represented by a virtual graphic.

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Other than gaming, avatars are widely used on social media networks, internet forums and chats, in artificial intelligence personal assistant programs, and others.

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