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.

Emoticons are processed as human faces by our brains

It's amazing to see how technology shapes our society, and also our brains, as it has now been demonstrated by a fascinating study that tested how we interpret and recognize emoticons and smiley characters. Not long ago, most people would thing these :-) characters were some kind of weird typo in a text. Now, almost everybody has learned to "see" them as smiley faces. But it's actually more than that.

Our brain has evolved to have specialized face recognition areas, that sometimes surprise us (as in the case of inverted faces). And the fun fact is nowadays, people have grown so accustomed to emoticons that their smiley faces are now processed as being actual faces by our brain and not as a symbols.

But in order for that to happen you have to stick to the most common smiley figures like :-) because less common types, like the inverted smiley (-: do not activate the face recognition areas of our brain and are still interpreted as symbols that mean something - not as an implicit "face".

I myself am fond of the shortened smiley version of :) and too can confirm that whenever I see one, I immediately see a face (to the point that I sometimes have to figure out ways of not using a ":)" combination when it's not an actual emoticon). What about you... is your brain already "smiley" trained?

Emoticons on Facebook

Cheer up emoticon lovers with a Facebook addiction! Facebook seems to be testing its ground using emoticons to better represent emotions in your status updates. In the new compose window, you no longer have to rely on text alone to convey how you feel or what you're doing- you can simply select one of the available emoticons to show you're happy/reading/eating/etc. Which is much faster than typing, and will have the added advantage of being implicitly understood by everyone, no matter your native tongue.

Just how far Facebook will go and how many of the available emoticons will show up in the new compose window... that's something we'll have to wait and see.

What about you? Do you regularly use emoticons? (I confess, that since I got the emoji keyboard working on the iPhone... I do keep using them, over and over again - although not up to the point where you can almost "talk emoji" exclusively.) It's just that sometimes, a single picture really is worth a thousand words...

Pile of Poo Makes it to Unicode

Considering that our emoticon and smileys posts are some of the most popular, and that the pile of poo symbol is still one of the most sought for... Here's a big announcement to make: the "pile of poo" symbol is now part of the Unicode standard!

... I can already imagine it won't take long before keyboard manufacturers start adding special emoticon keys, that can range from the popular smiley symbols to these... smelly ones! :)

Smileys Turn 29

Indeed it's true, our dearly beloved smileys and emoticons were born nearly 30 years ago, when Scott Fahlman posted a message to an electronic computer-science department bulletin board at Carnegie Mellon University:

It was probably the first intentional use of ASCII smileys... and we all have to thank him for it.

Today, as we all know, emoticons surround us in nearly every messaging platform: from the Gmail chat emoticons to the iPhone emoji keyboard.
And we better get ready... as next year's 30th smiley anniversary should prove to be quite an occasion! :)

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!

Secret Alt Codes - How to Type ☺☻♥

Considering the success of my gmail emoticons page, and due to popular request, here's how to type those other secret characters that sometimes popup in messages.

Yes, I mean the other smiley faces (☺☻), the heart symbol (♥), and many others (♪☼♂...) !

These are known as Alt-code characters, and they've been around for a very long time.

Although we now have Unicode that allow for thousands of different characters and symbols, for a long time computers could only represent 255 different characters. Besides the regular symbols, letters, numbers, and punctuation marks, a few of them represented codes that had no visual meaning, like "end-of-line", "carriage-return", and the like...

But, even though they had no visual representation didn't stop engineers from placing some nice visuals on it. :)

So... how can you type these weird and secret strange characters? It's quite easy...
You just need to press and hold the ALT key while you type its "alt-code" number in the numeric keypad.

Just try it: place your cursor in a text input area and press and hold the ALT key, and press the "1" key in the numeric keypad (make sure you have "num lock" on, so you can type numbers instead of using it as cursor keypad.)

ALT + 1 gives you: ☺
ALT + 2 gives you: ☻
ALT + 3 gives you: ♥
and so on...

Here's a table of most useful secret alt-code chars available:

☺	1		α	224
☻	2		ß	225
♥	3		Γ	226
♦	4		π	227
♣	5		Σ	228
♠	6		σ	229
•	7		µ	230
◘	8		τ	231
○	9		Φ	232
◙	10		Θ	233
♂	11		Ω	234
♀	12		δ	235
♪	13		∞	236
♫	14		φ	237
☼	15		ε	238
►	16		∩	239
◄	17		≡	240
↕	18		±	241
‼	19		≥	242
¶	20		≤	243
§	21		⌠	244
▬	22		⌡	245
↨	23		÷	246
↑	24		≈	247
↓	25		°	248
→	26		∙	249
←	27		·	250
∟	28		√	251
↔	29		ⁿ	252
▲	30		²	253
▼	31		■	254

From the code 32 (space character) up to code 127 you get the regular numbers, letters, punctuation marks and symbols. From 128 to 255, you get some few extra characters, like accented characters used in other languages (like: áêü) and some more symbols (µ¼Σ√...)

A few other useful symbols (you do need to type the leading zero in the alt-code):

¼	0188		½	0189		¾	0190
™	0153		©	0169		®	0174

Hope you find it useful! :)


P.S. If you're looking for other symbols like Apple's logo, be sure to check the Emoji and Glyphs page.

Activate Secret Emoji Emoticons on the iPhone for Free

I still can't understand why Apple goes to such great length to hide some of the iPhone's features in western iPhone. I'm referring to the popular smiley/emoticon/emoji images that are available in Japan, but not elsewhere.

But now you can easily enable these secret emoji in your own iPhone... for free!


Update: with iOS5, you can now enable the emoji keyboard under international keyboards without the need for this kind of workarounds, and here's a list of all the Emoji on the iPhone.


To enable emoji in iPhone OS 3.0 you only need to get the Spell Number App (it's free) from the App Store, and once you've executed it, enter the number:

91929394.59

Now, you can go to Settings>General>Keyboards
And, in the Japanese keyboard section you'll be able to enable the emoji keyboard.

You can even unistall the Spell Number App, as the emoji keyboard will remain active.

Keep in mind the keyboard will only show up where allowed (as in the SMS section, notepad, etc.)

Also, keep in mind you can use these Emoji and Glyphs to name your iPhone Folders in iOS4!

Gmail gets Smileys and Emoticons

Well, love'em or hate'em they're here.

Smileys (a.k.a. emoticons) finally worked their way into your gmail account.

And as you'd might expect, Google's chat has been updated too:

So, no more need to hunt down those secret emoticons anymore. :)
 
Update: after all, there still are some secret smileys you might want to check out here.
Update 2: and even more emoticons and emoji you can enable in the Labs section of Gmail.

Gmail Chat Secret Emoticons

We all know the regular Gmail Chat Emoticons, however, there are a few others you can use if you want to impress your friends.

These undocumented Gmail smileys/emoticons only work in the new version of Gmail and can be disabled in the chat section from the settings (note the cool permalink).



You can make: a diabolic creature }:-), a crab V.v.V, a wince>.<, a broken heart </3, a kiss :-x and a mustache :{.

Some other smileys still: :(:) is a pig, :(|) is a monkey, and :* is equivalent to :-x, (thanks BunnyHelper713)


We now have a bell, thanks to a tip from "someone." Just enter:  +/'\

Also, just noticed that the \m/ shows a radio icon on one of the emoticon themes.

And don't forget all smileys/emoticons change according to what "theme" you choose on Gmail's Chat - even these "secret" ones.

Secret ones keep popping up, just received a tip for a robot (android?) one. Just type [:|] and you'll get this:

... and last but not least: the elusive poop icon in Gmail chat has been discovered! (thanks to a tip from an anonymous reader.)
You can "poop" on you Gmail chats by entering:  ~@~

Also, in case you didn't know yet :

• surrounding a text with * turns it *bold* (as reminded by Cameron)
• surrounding a text with _ turns it into _italics_ (Thanks to Raoul)
• surrounding a text with - turns it into strikethrough
  

(you can combine them to write bold italic, for example: _*bolditalic*_ )


P.S. Gmail has officially introduced smileys in Gmail (and added few more to their gmail chat.).
P.S.2. Now you can enable even more "secret emoticons" in Gmail in the Labs section.


Update: learn how to type alt-code symbols ☺☻♥
Also: there's a new post showcasing all the iPhone and iPad emoji symbols.
And: the pile of poo is now a standard unicode character.

Gmail has new Smiley faces

In case you haven't noticed yet, Gmail chat has new smiley faces.

You can find it in a new smiley selection icon right next to the "Pop-out" button.