The field of virtual reality and 3D avatar technology is rapidly evolving, with a focus on creating more realistic and interactive experiences. Researchers are developing new methods for physically manipulating 3D content within virtual reality environments, enabling more precise surface approximation and highly realistic deformations and interactions. Additionally, there is a growing interest in creating high-fidelity avatars from monocular phone scans, which can be rendered and animated in real-time on mobile devices. These advances have the potential to revolutionize the way we interact with virtual environments and each other. Noteworthy papers include: GS-Verse, which introduces a novel method for mesh-based Gaussian Splatting for physics-aware interaction in virtual reality. HRM^2Avatar, which presents a framework for creating high-fidelity avatars from monocular phone scans. Instant Skinned Gaussian Avatars, which enables real-time and cross-platform 3D avatar animation. Capture, Canonicalize, Splat, which introduces a zero-shot pipeline for creating hyperrealistic 3D avatars from unstructured phone images.