While the Unicode Consortium is constantly adding new emoji, which are quickly adopted by the major providers, it’s questionable whether we’ll ever get to a point where every hair style, body type or skin tone will be fully represented.
However, Google has a simple solution. Its Emoji Minis will customise the existing emoji characters in your library to make them look more like you.
In a blog post Google explains the feature uses a selfie to learn your physical traits, even down to hats, glasses, freckles and piercings. From there you’ll see options to select your personalised Mini when selecting from the existing library of emojis.
Beyond broadening the diversity options, the idea is to add a more personal touch to a hug you may be sending to a friend feeling down in the dumps, for example.
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That means the laughing out loud emoji, the wizard, or the shrugging emjoi will be featured within the Minis menu. Furthermore, users will have the ability to customise the Minis, giving themselves different colour hair and accessories on different days.
In a blog post the company explains: “After you take a selfie, emoji Minis use Google’s machine learning algorithms, known as neural networks, to suggest a skin tone, hair style and accessories that you can fine tune.
“Then, you choose a colour for your hair, facial hair or different types of head coverings and eyewear. Add freckles or wrinkles—a little or a lot—if you’d like. Design your Minis so they resemble what you look like in your eyes—or in your mind.”
The feature expands upon the ‘Bold’ and ‘Sweet’ Minis Stickers, which previously enabled users to send customised stickers to each other via Gboard. The feature is now rolling out to the popular keyboard on iOS and Android from today.
We aren’t seeing the new Gboard feature yet, so be sure to drop us a line @TrustedReviews on Twitter when it turns up on your end.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
