emoji

Emoticons make using punctuation marks so yesterday. To really show your friends how you're feeling, you need full-color smileys. You're sure to find a smiley face to fit your mood with Emoji 2 Free, but whether it'll actually make it to your recipient is another story.

We realize that Emoji 2 Free is a free app, but the barrage of ads for other apps was a little much. We're talking pop-ups, banner ads, and full-page ads that take over your entire screen; it wouldn't be difficult to accidentally tap one of them while browsing for … Read more

The OS X character palette is a convenient option for accessing multiple unicode symbols that are part of modern font collections. Not only can you use fun items like emoticons, but you can also enhance writing with scientific and mathematical symbols, foreign script characters, symbols, and even Braille.

Having these characters in the character palette makes managing them far easier than prior approaches in which unique symbol and dingbat fonts had to be used.

If you would like to use the OS X character viewer, it can be accessed in a few different ways:

Emoticons have become some of the most commonly used symbols when communicating using computers and cell phones. Starting with combinations of text characters, smilies evolved into emoticons with the development of Unicode fonts that include complementary images for common smilies. For instance, applications like iMessage and iChat in OS X will make use of emoticons, automatically substituting an image of a smiling face from an emoticon font if you enter the ":)" text for a standard smile.

If there are other emoticons you often use, then you can use the system preferences to set up your own global text … Read more

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Katie interviews DC Publishers Dan DiDio and Jim Lee at New York Comic Con.

- Check out Katie's new app Splatrpult, available today for a free download.

- The New Yorker traces emojis back to the beginning.

- Real apples branded with Apple's logo.… Read more

Smileys and similar emoticons have been part of our messages for a while, but the advent of smartphones allowed for a move from the old character-based smileys to a full graphics version. Emoji Lite is an app for Macs with MacOS X or later that provides a wealth of graphical emoticons for texts, e-mails, and any other text-based app. Similar to the iPhone version, Emoji Lite offers a considerable number of emoticons that are easy to call up and deploy in text.

Emoji Lite includes about 450 emoticons in a variety of categories. Choosing the right one is simply a … Read more

Until the release of iOS 5, third-party apps were the only way to get an Emoji keyboard on your iOS device.

With the release of iOS 5, Apple included a native Emoji keyboard, eliminating the need for yet another app to be installed on your device.

If you currently have an Emoji app installed on your iDevice and you are running iOS 5, you can go ahead and uninstall the app right now. You should already be familiar with the process to enable an Emoji keyboard. If you aren't sure how to enable it, don't worry, that's what we're here for, just follow the steps below. … Read more

If you are on Twitter, you most likely read about the death of Steve Jobs in the numerous tweets that seemed to take over the service for hours. You may have also noticed, or have even taken part in, sending a tweet with nothing more than an Apple logo icon, as a miniature tribute to the greatest visionary of our time.

Read on to find out how to get the Apple logo icon on your iOS device, as well as some other special characters that iOS and Emoji don't provide. … Read more

Have you ever received a message on your iPhone that looked like the one above? Emoji icons have grown in popularity for iOS devices over the last couple of years. With this simple guide we are going to show you how to get an Emoji keyboard on your iPhone, iPad or iPad Touch for free; allowing you to join in on the fun. … Read more

Google has a new Gmail labs add on for emoticon fanatics. When flipped on it adds an additional 1,200 or so to Gmail's emotion selector tool. New categories include things like national flags, more animals, road signs, and animations.

There are 13 categories in all, up from the two that come with the standard Gmail, which means it can take longer to find what you're looking for. All these additional emoticons actually come from Japanese phone carriers, each of which has its own set that works across all handsets. In Gmail's case, your recipient does not … Read more