Emoticons

Women more likely to use emoticons in text messages

London: Women are twice as likely as men to use emoticons in text messages, according to a study by a US university.

The emoticons, which began as happy and sad faces, have developed into dozens of other expressions, and have become hugely popular in text messages and email.

The study by Rice University used smartphone data from men and women over six months and analysed 124,000 text messages, the Daily Mail reported.

Texting has become one of the most popular forms of communication. In 2012 alone, it is estimated that eight trillion text messages will be sent out across the world....more    

The smiley emoticon turns 30 :-)

New York: The smiley face emoticon, which is an integral part of the SMS generation's life, has turned 30. The computer symbol for "not serious" or now more generally "happiness", made up of a colon, dash and a right parenthesis was born into existence on September 19, 1982, when it was posted on an online bulletin board by Carnegie Mellon computer scientist Scott Fahlman. Wednesday marked the 30th birthday of...  

Facebook adds Like emoticon to chat

New Delhi: The omnipresent Facebook Like icon will now also be available on your Facebook chats. Facebook has added shortcuts to the most popular emoticons to its chat window and this includes the Like icon. Facebook users can either choose the Like icon from the emoticon menu or simply type the letter y in parenthesis (y) for the Like emoticon to appear. This is however still not available for status...