Re:Apple introduces macOS Mojave
by Fnoord on Monday June 04, 2018 @07:16PM
(#17233511)
I'll extrapolate a bit on your post.
AIM/ICQ already had picture-smiley support, converting :) to a smiley. The first smileys on the internet were used in the start of 80's (they're apparently used in written form as well see [1]). It was used on IRC and e-mail.
Another fun fact of that time (80s) is that domain names and TLDs used to be written in CAPITAL LETTERS. And the first spam was from DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation).
Acronyms are very old (widely used), and useful, but that doesn't mean they're better because they're older or more used in the past. Remember that reading in past centuries wasn't for everyone, same for latin. Acronyms are language specific which emoticons/emoji are not. The acronym LOL, one of the first chat-specific acronyms, stems from IRC and is believed to be coming from Dutch (The Dutch word lol means "fun" or [non-sexual] "pleasure". The Dutch were one of the very first if not the first countries to connect to the USA internet, and same for its IRC presence.) If you're a native English speaker you may not give a rat about acronyms being English-centric, but for the rest of the world they often don't even know what the acronyms stand for or they have their local acronyms which you or me wouldn't grasp.
Emoticons and emojis do not suffer from that problem. Case in point, the red 100 emoji is widely popular in the USA (so I heard). People don't use it here in NL. But we understand what an American would mean with it.
I believe picture language (as I call it) plus on-the-fly translation devices (what Google Glass could've been ages ago but didn't work out due to public outcry) is going to solve communication in the 21st century. The effect of the tower of Babel shall be mitigated. Why are my glasses still dumb? All these brands being sold here, are ultimately owned by the same big fat multinational. There's a huge opportunity here.
AIM/ICQ already had picture-smiley support, converting :) to a smiley. The first smileys on the internet were used in the start of 80's (they're apparently used in written form as well see [1]). It was used on IRC and e-mail.
Another fun fact of that time (80s) is that domain names and TLDs used to be written in CAPITAL LETTERS. And the first spam was from DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation).
Acronyms are very old (widely used), and useful, but that doesn't mean they're better because they're older or more used in the past. Remember that reading in past centuries wasn't for everyone, same for latin. Acronyms are language specific which emoticons/emoji are not. The acronym LOL, one of the first chat-specific acronyms, stems from IRC and is believed to be coming from Dutch (The Dutch word lol means "fun" or [non-sexual] "pleasure". The Dutch were one of the very first if not the first countries to connect to the USA internet, and same for its IRC presence.) If you're a native English speaker you may not give a rat about acronyms being English-centric, but for the rest of the world they often don't even know what the acronyms stand for or they have their local acronyms which you or me wouldn't grasp.
Emoticons and emojis do not suffer from that problem. Case in point, the red 100 emoji is widely popular in the USA (so I heard). People don't use it here in NL. But we understand what an American would mean with it.
I believe picture language (as I call it) plus on-the-fly translation devices (what Google Glass could've been ages ago but didn't work out due to public outcry) is going to solve communication in the 21st century. The effect of the tower of Babel shall be mitigated. Why are my glasses still dumb? All these brands being sold here, are ultimately owned by the same big fat multinational. There's a huge opportunity here.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smiley