Items tagged with Emoji
It is said you learn something new every day, and for me, I just learned there is a World Emoji Day. I also learned that World Emoji Day is today, July 17 (so now I do not have to fret if I learning nothing at all new tomorrow). To celebrate the occasion, Google announced it will be adding all 117 new emojis from the Emoji 13.0 update to Android 11, while Apple is likely to do the same with iOS 14 (the company previewed 13 of them). That's a lot of emojis. They are also varied, with everything from a pinching finger to ninjas and brides, and everything in between. There will also be a wide assortment of cute animals, of course, along with foods, drinks, activities, toys, and the list goes on...
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With so many emojis available at our fingertips on phones, you can have an entire conversation without ever having to type a letter. Unicode.org has announced that the Emoji 11.0 characters for 2018 have been finalized. There are 157 new emojis that may find their way to your smartphone or other devices. The Emoji 11.0 set is now fixed and final and has all the data that vendors need to begin working the emoji fonts and code ahead of the release of Unicode 11.0 set to happen in June. Unicode.org says that the new emojis typically turn up in August or September. The exact timeframe is up to device manufacturers. Unicode.org wrote, "The man and woman emoji can now have various hair styles (red-haired,...
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With all of the stresses from life reported in the daily news, it's refreshing sometimes to hear something light-hearted that isn't serious or impactful in any way, but instead is just entertaining or playful. Case in point: the absurd hamburger emoji that's plagued Android for some time. If there's one thing people don't like other people messing with, it's their hamburgers. Shame on you, Google. As a bit of a refresher, media analyst and Twitter user Tomas Baekdal posted to the social media service at the end of October, drawing comparisons between the hamburger emoji used in iOS, versus the one in Android. If the problem somehow isn't obvious, you may just be one of those people who puts...
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When it comes to covering the tech industry, we're usually tasked with covering topics that are for the most part serious topics. Be it Apple’s iPhone X or NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce GTX 1070 Ti or perceived shortcomings with Google's Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL. However, Google came under fire for something this weekend that to many is likely downright silly. The discussion kicked off this weekend with the following tweet regarding Google's cheeseburger emoji: I think we need to have a discussion about how Google's burger emoji is placing the cheese underneath the burger, while Apple puts it on top pic.twitter.com/PgXmCkY3Yc — Thomas Baekdal (@baekdal) October 28, 2017 See anything wrong...
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Apple is being sued by an iOS app developer for alleged trademark infringement in connection with the Cupertino company's iPhone X unveiling last month. The developer, a United States citizen who currently resides in Japan claims that Apple willfully and deliberately infringed on his Animoji trademark, which he registered for in August 2014 and was granted in March 2015 by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Developer Enrique Bonansea released the Animoji app through his company Emonster, a software development firm that is based in Tokyo. It is still available on the App Store f or $0.99 under the name "Animoji - Free Animated Texting [Patent Pending]." The app's description says it...
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Google surprised us all in early March when it made available a developer preview of Android N well in advanced of its annual Google I/O conference. Today, Google announced that it has released Android N Developer Preview 2, which brings a few new features to the mix for those that are willing to take a chance testing such early software. For starters, Google is introducing the Vulkan 3D rendering API with this build, which provides “low-overhead GPU control to developers and offers a significant boost in performance for draw-call heavy applications.” Compared to OpenGL ES, Vulkan offers a 10x improvement in single-core draw-call operations. Also new is the ability to create shortcuts within...
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One thing Facebook users have always struggled with is whether or not it's appropriate to "Like" a post when someone announces a death in the family or any other tragic incident, such as a job loss or motorcycle accident. Clicking or tapping that little thumbs-up icon just doesn't feel right in such situations, so Facebook's going to give you more options. Mark Zuckerberg and the gang have begun testing half a dozen new emoji that sit alongside the original thumbs-up option. They include a heart for "Love," a laughing face for "Haha," a smiling face for "Yah," a surprised expression for "Wow," a face with a teardrop for "Sad," and a reddened scowl expression for "Angry." Facebook told TechCrunch...
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Microsoft wants you to be able to let others know how you really feel, so the company's giving you the middle finger to do just that. The new emoji is one of several being introduced in Windows 10, and what's awesome about its inclusion is that Microsoft is venturing into territory that other major tech companies haven't had the guts to trek.Just last month, Apple introduced hundreds of new emoji to iOS and OS X, including 14 new families, 198 new flags, 60 updated people, and a whole lot more. The update even included a hand gesture, just not a profane one -- it's the Vulcan salute made popular by Spock in Star Trek.Android also has plenty of emoji to play with, but if you to flip someone the...
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If you’re at all interested in the wearables, things are really starting to get interesting as Apple has entered the fray with the Apple Watch and numerous vendors in the Android Wear camp release compelling designs to eager tech geeks. The wearables market is about to get even more competitive thank to a new software announcement by Google, which will bring perhaps the biggest single update to date for the Android Wear platform. The biggest update, at least to my eyes, is the addition of Wi-Fi support. Like previous feature updates which added GPS and offline music support, Wi-Fi support will allow you to maintain a useable device without the short Bluetooth leash to your smartphone. The update...
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You can’t please everyone, and Facebook is finding that out the hard way… again. Facebook has buckled under pressure from a Change.org petition that called on the social network giant to remove the “Feeling Fat” emoticon. The petition proclaimed that “Fat is not a feeling” and called for the rosy cheeked, double-chinned emoticon to be banished. Well, Facebook heard the cries of over 16,000 supporters of the petition, and removed the emoticon. In a response the petition, Facebook wrote: We’ve heard from our community that listing “feeling fat” as an option for status updates could reinforce negative body image, particularly for people struggling with eating disorders. So we’re going to remove...
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How does one even begin a post with the above headline? In what is either a massive troll or an uncomfortable sign of the times, a pair of Brits named Matt Gray and Tom Scott are touting a new social network launching soon that will use only emoji. Dubbed “emoj.li”, the social network contains no words--no words!--but also no spam, which is its main selling point. “Social networks are broken,” says the product video, “with spam, trolls, memes, and hashtags.” Further, “There is no spam, because there isn’t an emoji for spam.” If you’re smelling a rat, you’re not alone, but Gray and Scott specifically state that this isn’t...
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The latest version of the Unicode standard has been released this week, and for those out there who love emoji characters, there's some 250 reasons to be excited about it. The Unicode standard is what helps make it possible to see the same characters across multiple platforms, whether it be a language character, or something like an emoji. For example, if you were to write a quick sentence and include en emoji of a laughing cat on Android, a recipient on iOS would properly see what they're supposed to. While the folks behind Unicode design a basic version of every character it supports, it's up to developers to stylize each one to best-suit their respective platform. This is the reason any given...
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