The first emoticon and emoji today have become an indispensable tool for many communication through messaging programs. Users of computers, tablets and mobile have come to say drawings. However, something that today seems so simple, is agreement among many people and many systems and languages.
The Unicode Consortium, a non-profit organization involved major technology companies in the world, is precisely what ensures that the magic behind a smiley face reality. In this interview, Rodrigo Bravo, systems engineer and professor at the National Technological University Regional Santa Fe, is responsible to clear the picture and tell what is the process behind the letters, symbols and pictures in our everyday communications.
Rodrigo Bravo. – Reg Teaching UTN Santa Fe
What is it and how does the Unicode consortium?
It’s a consortium that, to belong, companies must have some status and demonstrate that cover certain public internet. It is an organization of global standardization that makes us to agree on how to encode letters, symbols and all characters, including emojis on a computer. Internally, computers keep everything in terms of ones and zeros (binary code), and the beginning each machine had its own coding. I send a “to” mail, and the other would get an “a”, it is a process. The reality is that over a telephone line, Internet, or by any side, which we transfer are zeros and ones. It’s what I can send a text message or a written mail from Argentina, a person who is in Japan, and that comes across exactly what I sent, not anything else. And we agree on how we communicate with language, computers have to agree how they will talk.
‘When this agreement is reached?
-The first agreement arises when computers begin to communicate. When the Internet began to spread, he left the United States and arrived in other parts of the world, it became necessary to think what to do with the letters that the Anglo-Saxon alphabet does not have, such as ñ or Greek letters, Russian, Arabic, Chinese, among others. There he began to see that there were not coded letters and decided to start add. The issue that arises is that even Unicode each company was on its side with the coding, and what is the Consortium is that everyone speaks the same language.
-¿A who today brings the Consortium Unicode?
-The major software companies in the world are members. Apple, Adobe, Microsoft, Oracle, they are all there, because all have an interest in what is approved and what is not. Suppose that tomorrow Apple changes its logo, then this company will want to at some point there is a “emoji” approved by the Consortium with this image. If not part would be impossible. Each company has a particular interest beyond the more important it is that we can all talk of a way we can understand. If it were not for Unicode, a text message from a Blackberry, would understand just another Blackberry.
When did arise emoticons and emoji?
‘The first thing emerges are the emoticons, before the emojis. The emoticon is a set of regular characters in a language that symbolize a face or a drawing and synthesize something. The emoji is an afterthought and is actually a drawing, it is no longer a set of characters. It is hard coded into the machine like a letter or number. Now, so I send from my PC, notebook or cell one thumb up and the other side receiving a thumbs up, I need you both agree, and that is what achieves the Unicode Consortium.
For example, the old Messenger Microsoft worked with emoticons, not emojis. When you wrote, was the system that transformed it into a smiley face, but then transcribe the text and a mail pegabas, and what was seen were the colon and the brackets. The Messenger he did was an interpretation of it. The smiley face is perhaps the most universal and easier to perform, but then for example if I want to plot a diary, there is no way to represent characters, then you must encode and agree that this code represents a diary.
Why do not all companies offer the same emojis?
‘What happens is that many emojis are unique to each company. The Facebook Messenger can only be transferred and have meaning within that chat, and not in another context. That is, if Facebook chat with WhatsApp, which could be a reality because the owners are the same integrates morning, could not understand. They reach a set of strange symbols and would not emoji. This is the importance of why we should agree on these things.
‘What time is the standardization process?
He’s very advanced level language standardization, today Unicode is represented in all languages existing, plus dialects, and dead languages that have their own symbols. It is a breakthrough in the letters and symbols of different languages, and is trying to expand symbols as the emojis. In this process there are still some immaturity, because the reality is that users of different messaging systems demand more and more forms of expression, short, simple and graphic to replace the text. Today whenever people try to not write the whole word and if you can not write and send an emoji better. We are in a process where companies are realizing this need and try to provide the fastest possible the emojis, the issue is that Unicode be gaining acceptance and that there is an abuse of this either.
How is the process of incorporating new emojis?
She received orders, and are analyzing and studying. Consortium representatives of each party then meets, and will be analyzing the different orders.
Is there some rejected?
Yes, because they get all kinds of orders, and some are considered inappropriate, obscene or it may not correspond because maybe they are built differently.
What about approved?
-A simplified level, it distributes a table with two columns in a programming code is the level that will identify, and on the other what will be the representation emoji, in a letter, punctuation mark, or whatever. This table will be updated and distributed, and then every software developer or vendor of computer hardware resources, network, or anyone who has responsibility to codify that, everyone is going to be incorporated and will ensure that when emoji receive that code or the corresponding character is displayed.
For Coqui Toum / jorge.toum@uno.com.ar
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