Good news from Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse fans. Samsung Electronics and the Walt Disney Company, popularly known as Disney, are bringing Disney characters to life as new AR Emojis for Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+. Starting Friday, Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ users are now able to download classic Disney characters – Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse– directly from their phone to create personalised messages. 

For the first time ever, Disney characters are coming to life in an augmented reality setting for communications and messaging. Characters from favourite Disney films including The Incredibles, Zootopia, and Frozen will roll out throughout the year, Samsung said.

“With more than 6 billion emojis sent daily, our goal with developing AR Emoji was to provide a fun, exciting way to communicate and a new way to bring animated images to life,” said Younghee Lee, Samsung’s CMO and EVP. “We knew there was no one better to partner with than Disney – creator of some of the most beloved characters in history – to make our AR Emojis the happiest faces on earth and give our users access to the most popular characters to share with friends across platforms.”

Launching alongside the Galaxy S9 and S9+, AR Emojis allow users to create fun customised messages to send to friends. The AR Emojis use deep learning and facial recognition technology to map more than 100 facial features to produce a 3D replica, allowing users to create fun, customised messages to send to friends, the Galaxy maker said. 

AR Emojis offer eighteen pre-set stickers using standard AGIF file format, so they can be easily shared with anyone, no matter what kind of smartphone they have. When users find an AR Emoji they love, they can pin it to their Always On Display, so they can enjoy it whenever they look at their phone, the tech titan noted.