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Apple adds wizard, dinosaur and mermaid emoji in iOS 11.1
Hundreds more emoji are coming to your iPhone soon. Apple says it's adding "more emotive smiley faces" as well as gender-neutral icons, more food and (importantly) mythical creatures -- in time for Halloween, we hope. The series is coming to iPhone and iPad with iOS 11.1, which will launch next week, early, for developers and public beta testers. If the emoji additions sound familiar, that's because Apple had teased these back in July. It appears the company is going beyond the 56 Unicode consortium-approved emoji, but that's likely explained by skin color and hair variants -- we haven't glimpsed the entire set yet. But now that there's a gyoza emoji, all is well. Of course, for those waiting around for those animated emoji, you've still got some time on your hands: the iPhone X isn't out until November.
Tinder adds Reactions to help you make a point in chats
Tinder has frequently tweaked its offerings. Over the past year or so, it's introduced a new user interface, more inclusive gender options, a feature that figures out which of your photos are more appealing as well as GIFs and emoji. If you're willing to pay a little, Tinder also offers the ability to move your profile to the front of everyone's queue and see who has already liked you. Today, the app launches another way for you to communicate with other users -- Tinder Reactions.
WhatsApp's new universal emoji set looks very familiar
A few months ago, WhatsApp announced that a billion users send messages on it daily -- which is apparently the right time to introduce its own line of emojis. If you're an iOS user, you might find them familiar, as the messenger's set looks very similar to Apple's tiny cartoon images.
Apple can turn your facial expressions into animated emojis
It seems that the rumors were true: iPhone X owners can use their phone to map emojis from their facial expressions in real time. They need only select their chosen emoji from a fairly extensive list and the Animoji app will map your eye, mouth and cheek expressions to your animated counterpart. Yes, even the poo emoji.
The next iPhone creates animated emoji from your facial expressions
You may already know that the next iPhone will use face detection for all kinds of clever tricks, but here's one you probably weren't expecting: customized emoji. The 9to5Mac crew has discovered that leaked "gold master" iOS 11 firmware includes references to 'Animoji,' or 3D emoji that you create using your facial expressions and voice. Pick one of the familiar non-human faces in the emoji library and it'll map your eye, mouth and cheek expressions to that character -- you can make a robot smile or have a dog raise its eyebrows. Even the poo emoji can be animated. This comes across as a gimmick (we can see many people dropping this once the novelty wears off), but it shows what's possible now that Apple has face tracking at its disposal. And there's more to the leak than just emoji.
Google's Gboard for Android gets stickers and Bitmoji
Google announced today that the latest Gboard for Android update comes with support for downloadable stickers and Bitmoji that can be used in any app that supports image pasting. Once you have the latest version of Gboard, Android users will then be able to get the Bitmoji app or download sticker packs from the Play Store. To get to the new features after you've downloaded them, just hit the emoji button on Gboard and then the sticker or Bimoji button.
Polygram is a new social network powered by facial recognition
There's a new social network in town and it's packed with some pretty smart and savvy features. Polygram's main contribution to the hard-to-break-into social media world is its ability to detect facial expressions, allowing users to to respond to messages with an emoji based on their actual expression. And rather than just tallying likes or a selection of reactions that viewers have to choose between and click, Polygram allows users to see the face-based emotional response of those that viewed their post.
Microsoft's Outlook.com beta is a smarter inbox with more GIFs
Microsoft already lets you preview versions of Windows and the Xbox interface before they're finished, so why not its Outlook.com email service? Sure enough, you're getting that chance. The company has launched an Outlook.com beta program that gives you a peek at future designs. The first preview is a whopper, too -- it's a significantly updated design that improves both search and your ability to express yourself.
Proposed emojis include the drunk face and sad poo we've all been missing
It's only been a month since the Unicode Emoji Consortium released version 10 of the colorful little communication icons, including more diverse images along with zombies, a T-rex and (yes) a sandwich icon. Now, though, the group has yet another set of proposed emojis for next year. Along with more math and science items and a silly drunk face emoji, the new group of 67 tiny pictures includes, wait for it, a new sad poo emoji.
'The Emoji Movie' confirms it's the nightmare we all feared
The Emoji Movie has looked like a potential stain on humanity ever since it was first revealed. We're talking about a Pixels-level disaster, totally lacking in charm and humor and blowing what theoretically could have been an amusing premise for an animated movie. And now, after seeing a particularly insipid tweet from its official account, I'm ready to give the film as many middle-finger emoji as I can fit in my response.
Emojipedia founder talks the past, present and future of emoji
We've been a little surprised by the outpouring of enthusiasm for World Emoji Day so far: Apple released a sneak peeks of its new emoji designs, Google signaled the end of its blobs, and the Empire State Building will be lit up in yellow to mark the occasion. (No, we're not kidding.) Still, despite how hugely culturally relevant these characters have become, details like how new emoji go from idea to icon can sometimes feel shrouded in obscurity. To learn more about the process, we sat down for a wide-ranging conversation with Jeremy Burge, founder of Emojipedia.
Take a peek at the new iOS emoji arriving later this year
If you've been not-so-patiently waiting for the 56 emoji approved by the Unicode Consortium last month to hit your iPhone . . . well, you have to wait a bit longer. But for World Emoji Day, Apple has hit us with a preview of what these emoji will look like when they finally arrive.
Latest Windows 10 preview takes the headache out of high DPI
Because of old legacy programs, using Windows with high-res displays has always been a little tricky, especially if you're switching between multiple screens. The latest preview build pushed to Insiders helps with that problem by changing the way Windows tells a program what DPI it's using. With the new build 16237, if a user changes the resolution of the display by docking/undocking or adjusting a setting, they'll only need to close and reopen most programs to fix any blurriness, instead of rebooting or logging out.
Use emoji to search Kayak for travel deals
The inevitable march to replace words with emoji continues apace, with the world granting more legitimacy to the cartoony mini-images. Last month, an Israeli court ruled that they counted as enough "intent" in a civil case to turn the tide in one side's favor. But today is for you, travel fiends: Kayak now lets you search for destinations by emoji.
Emojis for zombies, T-Rex and Colbert are almost here
Your phone chats are about to get more... fantastical. Right on cue, the Unicode Consortium has released its promised batch of emoji and text characters. The finalized set of 56 emoji (up from 48 when we last reported) includes a slew of outlandish people and beasts, including zombies, vampires, fairies and dinosaurs. It also does more to accommodate women with emoji for breastfeeding and the hijab, while Stephen Colbert fans might be happy with the familiar-looking raised eyebrow (second from the upper left).
Google's smart keyboard recognizes your hand-scrawled emoji
Google's Gboard is gaining some additional smarts that could help save some valuable typing time... even if you're just looking for an emoji. The company has updated the Android version of its clever keyboard with a handful of features that better recognize your intentions. To start with, you can hand-draw emoji to find them -- not exactly a vital feature, but helpful if you're struggling to track down the perfect icon. While this makes more sense on Android Wear devices (where flipping through emoji lists would be a pain), we're not going to knock the added convenience.
Twitter adds all 69 new emoji to its arsenal
Twitter has stepped up its emoji game in a big way. The social network is one of the first platforms to make all 69 Emoji 5.0 icons available to its users, and they include a few new flags, a woman with headscarf, persons with gray hair, the starstruck and the mind blown smiley. Before you fire up your Twitter app to check them, though, take note that there's a chance you might end up disappointed. The new icons aren't available on Tweetdeck, the iOS, Mac and the Android Nougat apps just yet, since they still haven't implemented the Emoji 5.0 standard.
Israeli court says emojis can signal your intent
The emojis you send are always open to interpretation, and when the person reading them is a judge, there could be tangible consequences. A court in Israel, for instance, has ordered a couple to pay $2,200 for using emojis that "convey great optimism" in a text they sent to landlord Yaniv Dahan. The couple contacted Dahan regarding a classified ad he posted online promoting his property. They used a bunch of festive icons that the landlord said led him to believe they wanted to rent his home.
Android O has emoji you'll actually recognize
Ever since KitKat, Android's standard emoji have used minimalist blobs to represent people. They're unusual and cute, but that gumdrop look isn't usually what you associate with emoji -- just about everybody else uses circular shapes. And that can create real problems if you send an emoji that doesn't convey the same meaning on your friend's phone. Thankfully, Google has seen the light. Android O will include more conventional (not to mention more recognizable) emoji, complete with gradients and a wider range of colors. They're not as distinctive, but they make considerably more sense.
Snapchat's latest tricks include 'infinite' snaps and AR emoji
The war for ephemeral app supremacy in 2017 rages on with the Snapchat's latest update. The biggest new feature is the ability to watch the video or look at the photo someone sent you for an unlimited amount of time versus the previous 1-to-10 second lifespan. So long as you don't close it, the media will live on for "infinity." Except, once it's closed, the clip will disappear into the digital abyss, the company says. So, not quite the "infinity" you and I are most familiar with.
