Emoji

The introduction of emoji reactions is set to be a gradual process. Initially, Android users will have access to this feature, while iOS and web users can expect it to be integrated into their Gmail experience in the coming months.

Google has rolled out its Emoji Kitchen feature on the web, allowing users to create unique emoji combinations directly from Google Search. This feature, previously available only on Android's Gboard, is now accessible to a wider audience.

Among the new additions are different variations of head shaking, both vertically and horizontally. Additionally, the update introduces characters with gender-neutral depictions of families.

The most frequently used emoji of 2021 was the Tears of Joy emoticon. It accounts for over 5% of all emoji used. The second-ranked emoji is a red heart, followed by a laughing emoji. The top 100 emoji accounted for about 82% of the emoticons used.

This week’s stories feature neural networks that humanized all popular emojis and an amusing Easter egg found in Windows 95.

Apple has also made some changes to some of the existing emojis: the climbing emoji now has a helmet, the syringe emoji is blood-free, and the headphone emoji looks like AirPods Max.

On September 19, 1982, Carnegie Mellon University professor Scott E. Fahlman first proposed the use of three consecutive characters: colon, hyphen, and closing parenthesis to denote a "smiling face" in a text that is typed on a computer.