Latest news with #emoji
Japan Times
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Japan Times
NTT Docomo to retire iconic emoji set after 26 years
NTT Docomo will phase out its proprietary set of emoji — known as Docomo Emoji — starting with smartphones released in late June, according to an announcement from the telecom giant, ending a 26-year run that helped shape the visual language of mobile communication. Beginning next month, newly released Android smartphones and feature phones sold by Docomo will no longer include the carrier's original emoji. Samsung's Galaxy series will follow suit starting with devices launching in July or later. Galaxy phones will instead use Samsung's own emoji designs, while other Android and Docomo-branded feature phones will adopt Google's Noto Color Emoji set. The transition won't be limited to new models. From October, some existing Galaxy devices will receive software updates that remove Docomo's emoji from the system. Docomo Emoji debuted in 1999 with the company's i-mode mobile internet service, offering a novel way for users to express emotion and nuance via electronic mail. The word emoji itself comes from the combination of the Japanese words for picture, e, and letter, moji. At a time when screen space and bandwidth were scarce, the emoji — simple 12 x 12 pixel designs depicting facial expressions and everyday objects — enabled more fluid, visual communication. Development constraints meant that the project lacked professional design staff. Instead, it was overseen by Shigetaka Kurita, who at the time was a planner for i-mode and supervised the emoji's creation in-house. The symbols quickly became a touchstone for Japanese mobile users and eventually laid the foundation for today's global emoji ecosystem. Apple's first emoji keyboard appeared on iOS 2.2 in November 2008. It was initially restricted to iPhone users in Japan, but expanded to outside users in 2011 with iOS 5.0, and eventually became enabled by default. Emoji is compatible with the Unicode standard, meaning a character sent from one device's set can be displayed in another. In 2016, the Museum of Modern Art in New York added Docomo's original 176 emoji set to its permanent collection, cementing their cultural legacy. While Docomo's emoji remain beloved by some, their prominence has faded amid the rise of more expressive tools like LINE stickers and social media platforms that support richer visuals. As digital communication has evolved, the original Docomo Emoji set has played a less central role in mobile interaction. Responding to a user on X who asked how he felt about the emoji's retirement, Kurita expressed no regret. 'Honestly, I don't feel sad. Docomo Emoji have fulfilled their role, and the fact that they're preserved in a museum as part of history gives me a sense of closure,' he wrote on Wednesday. 'More than anything, I just feel grateful. I want to say thank you to everyone who used them for so many years." He added: 'One could say they've more than fulfilled their purpose. If anything, their retirement feels long overdue. A heartfelt thank you for the many years of service.'
CNET
21-05-2025
- CNET
Everything You Need to Know About iOS 18.4 Before iOS 19's Reveal
Apple will hold its Worldwide Developers Conference on June 9, where we will likely get our first glimpse of the upcoming iOS 19 software for iPhones. When Apple released iOS 18.4 in March, the update brought some bug fixes and security patches to all iPhones, as well as a handful of new iPhone features, which included new emoji and a recipes section in Apple News. Read more: What You Need to Know About iOS 18.5 Here are some of the new features iOS 18.4 brought to your iPhone. Just a reminder that only people with an iPhone 15 Pro, Pro Max or the iPhone 16 lineup can access any Apple Intelligence features for now. If you have any other iPhone, you won't have access to those features. All the latest emoji, and my new favorite It looks so tired and I love it. Apple Look at that emoji. It's called face with bags under eyes, and I love it. The tired expression, the bags under its eyes, it's all just great. And you can use that emoji and others with iOS 18.4. There are eight new emoji the update brings to your iPhone, including: Google unveiled these emoji as part of Unicode 16.0 in September. Read more: iOS 18.4 Could Ship With My New Favorite Emoji Next Month Priority Notifications with Apple Intelligence People with an Apple Intelligence-compatible iPhone got a new feature in iOS 18.4 called Priority Notifications. "Apple Intelligence can show you notifications that may be important in a separate section on the Lock Screen, so you can catch up on what you may have missed," Apple writes in the feature's description. "You can still swipe up to view all notifications." After I downloaded the update, priority notifications were turned off by default, but you can turn them on by going to Settings > Notifications > Prioritize Notifications and tapping the toggle next to Prioritize Notifications. Then you can select which applications to prioritize notifications from. So if you want to prioritize Messages and Mail, you can disable notifications from other apps, like Game Center. Read more: What You Need to Know About Priority Notifications on iOS 18.4 Apple Intelligence in the Control Center and beyond If you have an Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone, you can now access Apple Intelligence features in more places with iOS 18.4. The first place you can access these features is in your Control Center. To find these controls, swipe down from the top-right corner of your screen to open your Control Center, tap the plus (+) sign in the top-left corner of your screen and tap Add a Control. There is a new section in this menu called Apple Intelligence & Siri, and it has three controls: Talk to Siri, Type to Siri and Visual Intelligence. Tap one or all of these to add them to your Control Center. Easily access these Apple Intelligence features with controls in your Control Center. Apple/Screenshot by CNET You can also now open Visual Intelligence from your iPhone's Action Button in iOS 18.4. Go to Settings > Action Button and you can assign Visual Intelligence to open when you press your Action Button. You can also disable Visual Intelligence from the Camera Control button on the iPhone 16 lineup. To do so, go to Settings > Camera > Camera Control and tap the toggle next to Press and Hold under Launch Visual Intelligence. Now the Camera Control button will just open your camera. Ambient music in Control Center If you like playing music in the background while you work, do chores or relax, you can now easily access ambient music in your iPhone's Control Center with iOS 18.4. To find these controls, swipe down from the top-right corner of your screen to open your Control Center, tap the plus (+) sign in the top-left corner of your screen, tap Add a Control and you should see a new section of controls called Ambient Music. There are four ambient music options: Sleep, Chill, Productivity and Wellbeing. Tap one (or all) of these controls to add them to your Control Center. Once the controls are in your Control Center, tap control, and it will start playing music. You can also change the playlist for each control. To do so, go into your Control Center, tap the plus (+) sign in the top-left corner of your screen, tap the ambient sound control you want to edit and then tap the playlist to the right of Playlist. If you're in the Chill control, for example, the default playlist is Laidback Lo-Fi. Once you've tapped the playlist, you'll see more options -- Mellow Piano, Ambient Unwind or even the option From Library, which pulls from your music. Tap the playlist you want and it will be assigned to that control. No need to find a playlist for study time now. Apple/Screenshot by CNET I love this addition to my iPhone because I always struggle with picking out a playlist at the beginning of my work day. Tapping the Productivity control makes it easy to play music when I'm waiting for my coffee to kick in and don't want to make a musical decision yet. However, I do wish all these controls could be grouped into one control or widget. This is also an interesting addition to your iPhone considering your phone can already be turned into a white noise machine with Background Sounds. It feels like Apple is trying to make your iPhone the first device you turn to when you need music to help you fall asleep or be more productive, potentially icing out other services offering similar playlists, such as Spotify or YouTube. Read more: All the New Controls in Control Center on iOS 18.4 Sketch mode in Image Playground Is the astronaut reaching into the painting? Where's their left hand? Apple/Screenshot by CNET Image Playground is the Apple Intelligence image generator. In iOS 18.4, Apple introduced an art style called Sketch to the app. The new style creates a fully colored image that looks like a sketch you might see in someone's notebook. However, there are still plenty of imperfections in these photos. Image Playground had two art styles before this update, one called Animation -- which created 3D images -- and the other called Illustration -- which made cartoony images. Preauthorized Payments menu in Wallet If you use your Wallet app for multiple subscriptions and payments, you can now see them all in one menu in iOS 18.4. Open Wallet, then tap the three dots (...) in the upper right corner of the screen to open the dropdown menu. Tap Preauthorized Payments to see all your subscriptions and payment plans you use your Wallet app for. This also makes it easy to see a subscription you forgot you had so you can cancel it and save yourself some money. In an early beta version of iOS 18.4, this menu in Wallet was called Subscriptions & Payments. Recipes in Apple News Apple News Plus costs $13 a month and gives you access to articles from major publications, puzzles and now -- recipes. In iOS 18.4, subscribers can access a new section in Apple News called Food, which is filled with recipes from publications such as Food & Wine, Good Food and others. Subscribers can save recipes to their devices to access them offline later, and a new cook mode will display instructions on full screen so you can easily follow along with recipes while in your kitchen. I'll eat that entire pan of "Cinnamon Toast" cake bars. Apple/Screenshot by CNET The new Food section also has stories on restaurants, healthy eating tips and more, but let's be honest -- having access to all those recipes is a great addition. Apple's inclusion of this feature is likely the tech giant trying to take on other publications' cooking and recipe sections. The New York Times, for example, launched its Cooking section in 2014, and the Times said it had nearly 600,000 Cooking subscribers by 2020. The section isn't included in the publication's basic subscription plan, so you must either pay an extra $6 per month or subscribe to a more expensive plan to access this section. But Apple isn't charging extra for access to recipes like the Times. That makes an Apple News Plus subscription more valuable to home cooks or anyone trying to become a better chef at no extra cost. Read more: Become a Master Chef at Home With Apple News Food The new Vision Pro app If you have a Vision Pro headset connected to your iPhone, you'll get a new Vision Pro app in iOS 18.4. The new Vision Pro app icon is the headset viewed from the front. Apple/Screenshot by CNET Apple writes in the app's description that the app can help you learn about new visionOS features, explore new content, spatial experiences and more. I don't have a Vision Pro but I can still download the app in the App Store. Because I don't have a Vision Pro, I can't do much with this app other than see what apps the Vision Pro can use. For example, if I tap into the section for new apps and games, I can't buy or download any of the apps because they require a Vision Pro to use. Good on Apple for not letting people buy or access apps they can't use. I can see a company letting someone buy a similar app that needs specialized equipment and then the company shrugs when someone complains they don't have the right device for the app. More default app changes When Apple released iOS 18.2 in December, that update let you change the default apps for messaging and calling. And with iOS 18.4, Apple is letting some people change more default apps. One new default app category is Translation. With the update, you can change your iPhone's default translation app -- Apple Translate -- to another third-party app, like Google Translate. And according to 9to5Mac, people in the European Union can also change their default navigation app. Apple Maps is the default for this category, but people in the EU can change it to another app, like Waze. Podcast changes You can set your Podcasts widget to just play episodes of your favorite show. Apple/Screenshot by CNET The iOS 18.4 update also brings a few new updates to the Podcasts app. If you want to add a Podcast widget to your home screen, you now have more options, including Shows and Library. Choosing a Shows widget will play episodes from a particular show you follow, and choosing a Library widget will play episodes from a list you specify in your library. There are also two new ways to get to different settings in Podcasts in the update, Podcasts Settings and Notification Settings. You can find these by opening the Podcasts app and tapping your profile image in the top-right corner of your screen. Podcast Settings will take you to the Podcasts menu in Settings, and Notification Settings will take you to your Notifications menu in Settings. Siri, Apple Intelligence and iPhone Apps Who would have thought Phone could open Phone? Apple/Screenshot by CNET With iOS 18.4, Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhones can use Siri to learn more about first-party apps on the iPhone. To access this, go into an app such as Messages, Mail or Settings, then tap twice across the bottom of your screen to type requests to Siri. Siri will then show you a few suggestions based on the app you're in. So if you're in Phone, Siri will display "What can I do in Phone?" Tap this suggestion and you will get a list of actions you can do in the app, like make a call or a FaceTime call and, strangely, open Phone. Thanks, Siri, I never would have thought I'd be able to open Phone after I opened Phone. Apple Intelligence coming to more people One of the hurdles to accessing Apple Intelligence is having a compatible iPhone, but for many people around the world with an appropriate device, those features are still walled off. But that changes with iOS 18.4. Apple wrote in iOS 18.4's update notes that Apple Intelligence is available in more languages, including French, Japanese and Spanish. The tech giant also wrote that people in the EU can access Apple Intelligence for the first time with the update. Here are the full release notes for iOS 18.4. Apple Intelligence (All iPhone 16 models, iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max) Priority notifications appear at the top of your notifications, highlighting important notifications that may require your immediate attention. Sketch is now available as an additional style option in Image Playground, allowing you to create gorgeous sketch drawings. Apple Intelligence features support eight additional languages and two additional English locales, including English (India, Singapore), French (France, Canada), German (Germany), Italian (Italy), Japanese (Japan), Korean (South Korea), Portuguese (Brazil), Simplified Chinese, and Spanish (Spain, Latin America, US). Apple Vision Pro App The new Apple Vision Pro app, automatically installed for users with Apple Vision Pro, helps you discover new content, spatial experiences, and quickly access information about your device. Apple News+ Recipes from some of the world's best recipe publishers are now available on Apple News+. Recipe Catalog allows you to browse or search to find the perfect dish and save it to your Saved Recipes. Cooking mode lets you easily follow step-by-step directions. The Food section also includes stories about restaurants, kitchen tips and healthy eating. Photos New filters to show or hide items that are not contained in an album, or synced from a Mac or PC, in the Library view in Photos. Reorder items in the Media Types and Utilities collections in Photos. Consistent filtering options in all collections, including the ability to sort by oldest or newest first in Photos. Option to sort albums by Date Modified in Photos. Ability to disable "Recently Viewed" and "Recently Shared" collections in Photos Settings. Hidden photos are no longer included for import to Mac or a PC if Use Face ID is enabled in Photos settings. This update also includes the following enhancements and bug fixes: Safari recent search suggestions help you quickly get back to previous search topics when starting a new query. Setup Assistant streamlines steps parents need to take to create a Child Account, and enables child-appropriate default settings if parents prefer to complete setting up a Child Account later. Screen Time App Limits persist even after a child uninstalls and reinstalls an app. App Store includes summaries for user reviews so you can get helpful insights from other users at a glance. Pause and resume of an app download or update on App Store without losing progress. New widgets for Podcasts including a Followed Shows widget to track your favorite shows and a Library widget to get to your most used sections, such as Latest Episodes, Saved and Downloaded. Ambient Music offers the ability to instantly play music from Control Center, giving access to a set of hand-curated playlists that offer soundtracks for daily life. Apple Fitness+ Collections can now be added to Library. Matter-compatible robot vacuum cleaners can be controlled in the Home app as well as be added to scenes and automations. Support for 10 new system languages including Bangla, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu. Some features may not be available for all regions or on all Apple devices. For information on the security content of Apple software updates, please visit: For more iOS news, here's what features were included in iOS 18.4 and iOS 18.3. You can also check out our iOS 18 cheat sheet and what we hope to see in iOS 19.
The National
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The National
Saudi engineer turns Crown Prince's gesture to Trump into viral emoji
It was a gesture seen around the world. Now, Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's heartfelt reaction to US President Donald Trump could soon become an emoji, if one software engineer has his way. Ali Almatrafi, who lives in Riyadh, created the emoji after he saw many Saudis reacting warmly to the interaction between the Crown Prince and Trump at the US-Saudi Investment Forum during the American President's visit to the Kingdom. The moment was captured when Trump announced the cessation of sanctions against Syria, which was met with huge applause. A smiling Crown Prince Mohammed was then seen clapping and holding his hands over his chest. "It was a spontaneous and heartfelt symbol of gratitude and a very Arab reaction," Almatrafi tells The National. "A lot of Saudis were touched by it and I felt like I needed to do something to capture the moment. "There is a Japanese kimono emoji, Indians have the sari, the French have a baguette emoji and there are emojis representing Russian and Chinese cultures. But we don't have anything that is distinctly Saudi or Arab or Gulf." Almatrafi's emoji shows a smiling male character, dressed in a traditional white thobe and red and white shemagh or headdress, with both hands clasped on his chest. In the Arab world, placing the palm of the right hand on the heart or chest is often used as a sign of gratitude. While creating the emoji took Almatrafi only a few hours, drafting the proposal was a laborious process, he says. Unicode Consortium, the non-profit that approves all emojis, has strict criteria for submission, with approvals taking a minimum of two years. Once approved, it could still be months or years before they eventually appear on devices. Almatrafi says his emoji is meant to be used to convey gratitude. "It's not really a thank you, but to communicate utmost gratitude. Like when someone does you a favour and you want to show how much you appreciate it from the bottom of your heart. It's very Arab," he says. Whether or not it gets approved, the Saudi software engineer is glad his creation has already sparked conversations about Saudi culture and identity and about Crown Prince Mohammed. His recent post about the emoji on X has garnered hundreds of retweets and more than 3.6 million views. "I create things like this all the time, but never has something I've done gone viral," says Almatrafi, who is the head of curriculum at Tuwaiq Academy, the Saudi Arabian institute that trains people in cybersecurity. "I'm glad I've helped to raise awareness about Saudis and about Gulf culture and also got people talking about His Highness Mohammed bin Salman and what he's doing for the development of Saudi Arabia." During Trump's visit, AI-generated images of him in a local dress were also widely shared online by Saudis, reflecting the strong favourable impression he's made on the Kingdom. The images showed Trump in traditional attire with a white thobe and a red-and-white headdress held in place with a black agal. For Almatrafi, the biggest reward is that Saudis have given his emoji an overwhelming thumbs up. "The main prize for me is that so many Saudis and people in the Gulf region are already loving it and using it," he says. "Such support and love were something I did not expect."
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Why the Isle of Wight needs a hovercraft emoji right now!
In this whirlwind of digital communication we navigate, the emoji has become a potent tool. A well-placed smiley face can soften a terse message, a thumbs-up can convey swift agreement, and a string of party poppers can share joyous news without typing a word. From hieroglyphs to pixels, we've always sought succinct expression. Yet, for us Islanders, there's a glaring omission in this colourful lexicon, a void frankly more noticeable with each Solent crossing. I speak of the majestic, iconic, and utterly indispensable hovercraft. Now, I'm sure the Unicode Consortium, our emoji gatekeepers, are frightfully busy. They're no doubt deliberating over the precise curvature of a new croissant emoji or the exact shade of a contemplative face. We appreciate their diligence. We have emojis for steam trains, for cruise ships, even for a rather futuristic-looking monorail. But no hovercraft. How can this be? Imagine the scene: you're gliding across the water, the Spinnaker Tower shrinking in your wake, a seafort slipping by. You want to share this moment, to send a quick message to a loved one - "Just leaving Southsea, be with you soon!" And then you reach for the emoji keyboard. A ferry? Too pedestrian. A speedboat? Not quite the same gravitas. A rocket? Well, perhaps a slight exaggeration of its speed. The current situation is frustrating. I've found myself resorting to unsatisfactory combinations - perhaps a ship, a gust of wind, and a bird's wing, hoping the recipient deciphers my Solent-specific shorthand. It's hardly ideal. Possible, but you lose something in the translation. Think of the sheer utility! A quick tap of a hovercraft emoji could signify "I'm on my way over," "Meet you at the terminal," or even, with a preceding sad face, "Oh dear, it looks like the hover might be off due to this pesky fog!" The possibilities are endless, and the boost to Island pride immeasurable. Perhaps this seems a trivial matter in the grand scheme of things. But isn't it often the small, everyday things that bring a touch of joy or, in this case, a minor but persistent niggle? We Island dwellers are a practical, innovative bunch. We built the world's first commercial passenger hovercraft service, for goodness sake! Surely, we deserve the digital equivalent to acknowledge this pioneering spirit. So, I put it to you, fellow hovercraft fans, and perhaps even to those mysterious emoji arbiters across the globe: isn't it time the hovercraft took its rightful place amongst the digital icons of our age? It's a small ask, but one that would bring a disproportionate amount of satisfaction to those of us who know and love these remarkable machines. After all, if there's room for a floppy disk emoji (a relic most of Gen Z have never encountered), there's certainly space for a vessel that continues to zip across our waters with such distinctive panache. Let the campaign commence! Now, who knows the email address for the Unicode Consortium?
Daily Mail
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
The smiley emoji can cause awkward moments, as it means different things to different generations
From a simple thumbs up to a laughing cowboy, there is an emoji for almost any conceivable moment. But it is the humble smiley face which is the most iconic of them all. However, if you've been sending smiley faces on your group chats, you might have been giving people the wrong idea. For millennials and the older generations, a smiley face is just a way of expressing happiness, but it can have a very different meaning for Gen Z. Instead of being a genuine smile, Gen Z takes this grinning face to convey sarcasm or irony. That means sending smiley face emoji to your younger colleagues in work emails might be making you seem passive-aggressive rather than friendly. According to Erica Dhawan, author of Digital Body Language: How to Build Trust and Connection, No Matter the Distance, people over 30 tend to use emoji according to their 'dictionary'. But for younger 'digital natives' who grew up with technology, each emoji can have a whole host of different meanings. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Gen Z and Millennials revealed how differently they employed the smiley face. Hafeezat Bishi, a 21-year-old intern, told the publication that she felt her older workers were being cold with her when using the emoji. Ms Bishi said that she typically viewed the smile as 'dismissive' and conveying a 'side-eye smile' instead of genuine enthusiasm. She added: 'I had to remember they are older, because I use it sarcastically.' Sara Anderson, a 31-year-old cheerleading coach, said that she regularly included the emoji in messages to add 'lightness' in messages to her team. Ms Dhawan says this is because older generations tend to read emojis as representing the objects they literally portray. That means a smiley face is a happy smile, a snowflake means that it is snowing, and an aubergine is referring to a type of vegetable. But for those who grew up messaging over social media, emoji often have other meanings that have built up over time. Another emoji that can come across as sarcastic is the 'sparkle' emoji. Older users often use these cute sparkles to express positive emotions such as gratitude or excitement. However, for Gen Z, it is more likely to mean that a statement has a sarcastic tone, just like members of older internet messaging boards used to add '/s' after a statement. The same is true of the 'thumbs up' emoji, which is used to express positive affirmation by older users but is often seen as sarcastic by Gen Z. Linguists studying emoji use have also pointed out that the symbols' new meanings can often emerge from slang that older users might not be aware of. For example, older social media users might see the 'skull' emoji as a literal symbol of death or as a sign that someone is figuratively dead - as in 'dead tired' after exercise. But for younger users, the skull is used to say 'I'm dead', which means that they found something hilarious and have 'died laughing'. So, if you get a series of skull emoji in response to a joke, it may actually mean that someone found it extremely funny. Likewise, the fire emoji doesn't represent a literal fire or heat but is rather used to say that something is 'fire', meaning very good or cool, or that someone is 'hot', as in extremely attractive. So, if you want to comment on the warm weather under someone's holiday snaps, you should probably think twice before using the fire emoji. In some cases, the hidden meaning of emoji can also be much darker. In 2023, Surrey Police issued a guide for parents on the latest emoji slang for the drug trade. If you see your child using a horse emoji, for example, that could be a reference to Ketamine, a drug used in veterinary medicine to anaesthetize horses. An alien, demon mask, space invader, or skull and crossbones emoji, meanwhile, could be a reference to MDMA. According to Surrey Police, cocaine is typically referred to using emoji that represent various nicknames for the drug, such as a snowflake or snowman to refer to 'snow' or blowfish to mean 'blow'.
