Google adopts 3D emoji for Android

Google has redesigned emojis on Android with a new generation of more realistic, three-dimensional emoji.

Android Messages secret emoticons

Google's Android Messages recently arrived on the web, allowing us to read and send text messages from our smartphone using the browser, and it comes with some "secret" emoticons that might come in handy.

Rainbow flag emoji message crashes iPhones and iPads

Everyone having an iPhone or iPad with the latest iOS 10 is at risk of seeing it crash just because someone sent them a message - one having a very particular set of emoji and characters.

Blogger editor can now search emoji and symbols by drawing

Blogger is one of those services that seems to have been forgotten by Google, with years going by with practically nothing new being made, but sometimes there's an exception. The latest one seem to put to use the sort of drawing recognition used in Google's AI game in order to find the right emoji and symbols you're looking for.

Google Hangouts gets new secret emoticons

If you use Google Hangout to keep in touch with your friends, there's a new bunch of secret emoticons you can use to puzzle them and show your expertise in this app.

Apple replaces gun emoji with squirt toy gun

It's amazing (not in the good sense) to see how companies try to close their eyes to reality, and one such example comes from Apple, which will replace the "menacing" gun emoji with a toy gun in the upcoming iOS 10.

Women now get equal emoji rights

After promotion racial diversity by allowing us to choose different skin tones in emoji, the Unicode Consortium now gives one more step in allowing sexual equality as well.

Passcodes with emoji for added security

Right on the heels of the LastPass hacking incident, I've found this nifty suggestion of using emoji on passcodes as a way to improve its security face to the traditional 4 digit number codes.

Order a pizza by tweeting a pizza emoji at Domino's

Ever wondered what emoji's are good for? If you love Domino's pizza, you'll soon find out why. Soon, you'll be able to order a pizza on Twitter by simply tweeting a pizza emoji.

Windows 10 adopts gray emoji to escape racial issues

The emoji have been involved in lots of racial issues and disputes, and to try and stay clear of it all, Microsoft has simply opted to select a gray color for its generic emoji characters.

iOS 8.3 is spawning an alien invasion on Twitter

The new iOS 8.3 not only taught Siri how to speak Portuguese, but is also having a curious effect on Twitter and other services: an alien invasion! And it's the new emoji's fault.

Yellow colored emojis are accused of being racist

Apple's latest iOS 8.3 Beta not only comes with Siri understanding portugues (at last!) but it also introduces the latest racial-diverse emoji proposed by the Unicode Consortium as a way to end all "racial" issues. Unfortunately, it seems to be having precisely the opposite effect, and being considered racist due to its yellow default color.

Racially diverse Emoji to arrive in 2015

Technology may shape society, but society also shapes technology, as it is about to be seen - in a much grander scale - in our beloved emoji symbols, that are about to be available in all races/color you may want.

Facebook Wants to know your Mood

Besides wanting to know what's on your mind, Facebook now also wants to know how you're feeling - and is  putting emoticons to use.

Emoticon fans will love the new "quick and easy" way to let their friends know how they're feeling, adding an extra layer of connection between people. Especially when words aren't enough or might be misinterpreted by others.

For now, this feature is being rolled out in the US alone... so, the rest of us will need to wait a bit longer. Which is kind of lame, considering emoticons are one of the ways we can express feelings without having to understand other people's native language. If there is a feature that would be well suited for a global roll-out, this would be it.

Apple Removes Emoji Enabler Apps from the App Store

Remember the time when we had to resort to "tricks" to enable the emoji keyboard on iOS devices? This is the keyboard that allows you to insert smileys (and lots of other symbols) into your text messages, and that has grown to become quite a phenomenon these days. There are those that can say quite a lot using just a couple of these symbols - and it also comes in handy when you need to create short folder names.

In those days, the emoji keyboard was only accessible on japanese devices, and you had to resort to special Apps - that had those hidden emoji keyboard enabling functions - to activate it on other iPhones. But with the arrival of iOS6, the emoji keyboard is now accesible to all, no tricks required.

So, Apple has decided that it no longer makes sense to have these apps on the app store.

A smiley day for emoji fans... but not so great for all those developers that had their emoji Apps we all depended upon back in those days.

iPhone iOS5 Emoji Full List

Considering smileys and emojis keep being one of the most popular posts ever, nothing like getting back to basics and show you all the available emoji/smiley characters available in the iPhone/iOS platform.

Now, you don't even need to resort to tricks to enable this emoji keyboard on your iPhone, it's publicly available in the international keyboard section.

Apple did try to include these in the unicode character map so they could become "standard", but seems like they haven't gone for it. Anyway, here they are in their full glory:

Emotions and People

Nature

Events

Transportation

Others

... and if you still can't get it, or why should people use it... there are people out there telling all kinds of stories using just a few of them. Can you imagine telling a movie story in under a dozen characters? :)

Recently Used Emoticons on Gmail

I know how you all love all those secret Google emoticons you can use in chat and Gmail.
But, until now, using those emoji/emoticons in Gmail was kind of... frustrating, having to sift through all those emoticons in search for the ones you frequently use.

Well, now it's bound to get a lot easier, thanks to the recently used emoticons feature available in the Labs section.

All your recently used emoji will be instantly available, making it a lot easier to use (and abuse! :)
Hope you put it to good use!

Glyph and Emoji Folders on iPhone

With the iOS4 update, the iPhone can now have the long needed folders to help us better organize our endless list of Apps.

It even goes as far as automatically suggesting a folder name based on the Apps you place together, but most of the time you'll want to edit the folder name.

The real problem is when you can't find suitable name for the folder. Even I had to resort to a folder named "junk" to put all the un-deletable Apple Apps I seldom use.

... until....

What about, if instead of "junk", I could use a Apple symbol or iPhone symbol instead, like this:

Thanks to the Emoji and Glyphs, you don't need to use letters to name your folders.

If you've been following my blog for a while you'll recall my post teaching you how to activate emoji on the iPhone.

As for the Glyphs, it also quite easy: just use the free WebApp Glyphboard.
(these are actually quite similar to the alt-symbols I've also talked about before)

With it you can simple copy-paste any of those symbols to wherever you like, and create artistic looking and puzzling names.

How about a smile icon for funny Apps, a star or heart for your favorite ones, a airplane symbol for your travel apps, a musical note for music Apps, and even a skull and bones for your "don't touch this" apps. :)