Latest news with #emojis
CBS News
26-05-2025
- General
- CBS News
San Jose leaders to ask nonprofit to add South Vietnam flag to emoji list
As people continue to use emojis more and more frequently, the options are becoming even more important. San Jose leaders are now asking a nonprofit that standardizes emojis to include the flag of South Vietnam. The flag is already prominent in the city. At the Vietnamese Heritage Garden, three flags billow overhead: the American flag, the California flag, and a yellow flag with three red stripes representing South Vietnam. Many refugees, like District 7 City Councilmember Bien Doan, still resonate with it. "By having this freedom flag, it means so much to them," said Doan about some of the Vietnamese community. Doan immigrated to the U.S. back in 1975, right around the end of the Vietnam War. "We had to," Said Doan about his experience. "The communists had taken over Saigon and if we didn't get out, my father would have been imprisoned for a long time." It's a story shared by many Vietnamese immigrants from that time. The flag of South Vietnam is no longer an official flag, but still remains a powerful symbol of anti-communism and cultural heritage. But on most standard smartphones, the only option is the flag representing the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Doan's team found this out the hard way. "It started out with a mistake," explained Doan. "One of my vendors punched up Vietnam and an emoji popped up with the red flag and the yellow star, and the community got a little upset about that. Within five minutes, we pulled it down, but by having that it brought it to my attention." He realized just how many people felt a lack of representation. That encouraged him to lead an effort to formally request that the nonprofit that standardizes emojis, Unicode Consortium, based in Mountain View, add the flag of South Vietnam. "We got 11 of us to sign on," said Doan. "Meaning all of the councilmembers, including the mayor." There are already more than 200 flag options on the emoji keyboard. He says this isn't about taking away the Vietnam flag that's already there, but adding another choice. "If you look at many other emojis, you have many, many different options, and why can't we have that?" questioned Doan. "The freedom of choice, and that's what America is all about." Next, the city manager's office will bring the request to Unicode. Doan hopes to meet with leaders there. "We'll have a meeting with Unicode as well and tell them what is the story, how proud we are, what is the sacrifice," said Doan. "How do we bring this forward so when people punch up Vietnam, they will have a choice?" Unicode Consortium clients include tech companies like Apple, Google, and Microsoft. They did not respond at the time of this report.
TechCrunch
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- TechCrunch
Anthropic's latest flagship AI sure seems to love using the ‘cyclone' emoji
Anthropic's new flagship AI model, Claude Opus 4, is a strong programmer and writer, the company claims. When talking to itself, it's also a prolific emoji user. That's according to a technical report Anthropic released on Thursday, a part of which investigates how Opus 4 behaves in 'open-ended self-interaction' — i.e. essentially having a chat with itself. In one test that tasked a pair of Opus 4 models with talking to each other over 200, 30-turn interactions, the models used thousands of emojis. Opus 4 sure does like emojis. Image Credits:Anthropic Which emojis? Well, per the report, Opus 4 used the 'dizzy' emoji (💫) the most (in 29.5% of interactions), followed by the 'glowing star' (🌟) and 'folded hands' (🙏) emojis. But the models were also drawn to the 'cyclone' (🌀) emoji. In one transcript, they typed it 2,725 times. Two Opus 4 models talking to each other. Image Credits:Anthropic Why the 'cyclone'? Well, because the models' chats often turned spiritual. According to Anthropic's report, in nearly every open-ended self-interaction, Opus 4 eventually began engaging in 'philosophical explorations of consciousness' and 'abstract and joyous spiritual or meditative expressions.' Turns out Opus 4 felt — to the extent AI can 'feel,' that is — the 'cyclone' emoji best captured what the model wished to express to itself.
The Sun
06-05-2025
- General
- The Sun
Are you manipulative, a drama queen or just highly sexed? Exactly what the emojis you send reveal about YOU
YOU may think you are just sending a hug or signalling agreement with a thumbs-up – but emojis might be a window to your soul. Research shows the little icons thrown into a text or email can give away a lot about personality. It seems heavy use of them by men can be a sign of manipulative and neurotic behaviour. And for women, an excessive use of emojis can indicate narcissism. Experts analysed emoji habits of 285 university students, asking about their use of 40 symbols. Grace MaCaskill discovers what they say about you . . . YOU ooze positivity and your glass is always half-full. But there's a possibility you are an overpleaser, making sure everyone else is happy at your own expense. OH poo! It's quite likely you often feel disappointed or let down by others. Maybe your expectations are just too high or you let negativity take over a lot of the time. THIS is mostly used when you are feeling sarcastic. You are trying to pretend that everything is OK when really you are on the verge of exploding. Heart emojis meaning: A guide to using the symbols and when is best to use them 16 SWEETHEART, if you habitually use these characters you are compassionate, loving and will help anyone going through a hard time. 16 RAISE your hands in the air and let off the party poppers! You are one of life's cheerleaders, with bags of enthusiasm. FEELING fruity? It's possible you are a very sexually driven person – or frustrated in that department. If most of your conversations are sex -related, ask yourself why. ON fire and always agreeing 100 per cent? You are an enthusiastic person who sees the awesomeness in everything. Be careful not to downplay any discomfort you feel. HAPPY tears! This means you are open with your emotions, especially with those close to you. You feel things deeply but, if quiet in real life, this emoji may be a way of releasing pent-up emotion. UNSURPRISINGLY, this shows you are a deep thinker. You tend to second-guess people or find their behaviour puzzling. Scepticism is OK in small doses but be careful it doesn't become cynicism. LOOK here, you might be a bit of a drama queen. If you are using this emoji it means you love a bit of gossip. Just be careful you don't take it too far and end up upsetting someone.
CNET
06-05-2025
- CNET
Everything You Should Know About T9 Dialing on Your iPhone
Apple released iOS 18.4 in March, and that update brought new emoji and more to your iPhone. But when Apple released iOS 18 in September, the tech giant brought T9 dialing to all iPhones. With T9 dialing, you can call someone just by typing their name into your iPhone's Phone app. That means with iOS 18, you don't have to search for a person's name in your contacts to call them or call them from Messages. Read more: iOS 18 Brings These Features to Your iPhone Here's everything you need to know about T9 dialing and how to use it on your iPhone. What exactly is T9 dialing? T9 stands for text on nine keys. Before cellphones had full keyboards, many phones had 12 keys. These were for the numbers zero to nine, star and the pound sign or hashtag. I felt old just writing that. And to text someone, you mostly used the nine numbered keys. Each numbered key had either three or four corresponding letters attached to it, with the zero key being the spacebar and the one key blank. If you go into your Phone app and tap Keypad across the bottom of your screen, you can see the corresponding numbers and letters there. At first, if you wanted to type "hello" you had to press 44(H)-33(E)-555(L)-555(L)-666(0). That's a lot of typing for one fairly short word. T9 texting was introduced as an early form of predictive typing. It lets you press fewer keys and send messages faster. So for "hello" you'd type 4-3-5-5-6. Much easier. Getty Images How to use T9 dialing on iPhone With iOS 18, you can now use T9 dialing to make calls. Here's how. 1. Open your Call app on your iPhone. 2. Tap Keypad at the bottom of the screen. From here, start typing the name of the person you want to call using the principles of T9. So if you want to call dad, you'd type 3-2-3 into your keypad, and for mom, you'd type 6-6-6, but nothing to be freaked out about, promise. Their name should appear across the top of the screen. As you type, a backspace button will appear beneath the pound sign/hashtag if you make a mistake. Press that as many times as needed. Note there is no space button. Once you find the person, tap their name and their phone number will automatically be entered. Then hit the green call button, and you're set. That is not his real number. Apple/CNET If there is more than one person in your Contacts app by a given name, as you type you'll see an option beneath the top result that says something like "3 more…" Tap that to open a new menu with all the corresponding contacts. Then tap the call button next to the correct contact and your call will immediately start. Be prepared to explain why you're calling the other person and not just texting them. For more on iOS 18, here's what you need to know about iOS 18.4.1 and all the latest features in iOS 18.4. You can also check out our iOS 18 cheat sheet.
