Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 70
Posts 61 - 70

Le «nouvel eldorado» des «bots»

(The "new eldorado" of "bots")

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Newspaper | Le Monde
Date | 16.6.2016
Language | French
Country | France
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, Facebook, threat
Summary | Facebook Messenger's boss claims that consumers will use messaging apps more and more, at the expense of emails, phones, and mobile apps. Other people have also been privileging the conversational mode in the service industry: Kik's boss (Ted Livingston) uses "bots", which are robots that simulate human conversations. For instance, if you're hungry, you can order a pizza using Domino's pizza's bot. A similar trend is happening in China with WeChat. What is interesting about WeChat is the fact that it can give out personal information to product and service suppliers.
Image Description | N/A

On a testé Allo, l'application de messagerie de Google dopée à l'intelligence artificielle

(We tested Allo, Google's messaging app using artificial intelligence)

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Newspaper | Le Monde
Date | 22.9.2016
Language | French
Country | France
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence
Summary | Google created a new messaging app using artificial intelligence. Assistant (the name of the program) gets involved in people's conversations in order to help users with ready-made answers. For instance, if someone texts you "I don't know how many airports there are in Berlin", the app will suggest multiple answers such as "me neither", "haha", or "really?". Assistant can also become an interlocutor; you can ask Assistant anything you want and it will reply based on Google's data.
Image Description | N/A

«Jpp», «wtf», «oklm»... maîtrisez-vous le parler jeune?

("Jpp", "wtf", "oklm"... do you master teenagers' language?)

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Newspaper | Le Figaro
Date | 25.8.2016
Language | French
Country | France
Topic Tags | abbreviations, language threat, texting, youth
Summary | Young people tend to use a lot of words and abbreviations that are unintelligible, according to many parents and professors. Their language is very creative and is influenced by our ancestors' language. Writer Stéphane Ribeiro claims that young people's language is a melting pot; it is a mix of American and historical expressions. Moreover, the language used by today's youth has been influenced by new technologies and the texting culture. It is not a threat to the French language; language is constantly changing and evolving
Image Description | Photograph of five young people looking happy, screenshots of two tweets depicting the use of abbreviations, and "Top Wesh" video.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), text, Twitter

Les « emoji » constituent-ils un langage à part entière?

(Are emojis part of a fully-fledged language?)

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Newspaper | Le Monde
Date | 15.3.2016
Language | French
Country | France
Topic Tags | emojis, language threat, research/study
Summary | In 2015, an emoji was chosen as the word of the year, and two years before that, the novel Moby Dick was translated in emojis. Emojis are everywhere; are they becoming a new universal language? Two linguists conducted a study and revealed that emojis are like a cultural mirror. They also investigated emoji use in different countries and revealed geographical differences in the type of emoji used. Emojis are not a language; they are a complement to language. Some people might think it’s a language because emojis look like hieroglyphics. Emojis are mostly used to transmit emotions.
Image Description | Photograph of a hand clicking on several emojis on a screen, and screenshot of Andy Murray's tweet composed of emojis.
Image Tags | emojis, hand(s), tablet, Twitter

Un emoji de fusil retiré de la liste des 72 nouveaux symboles

(A rifle emoji dropped from the list of 72 new symbols)

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Newspaper | Le Monde
Date | 20.6.2016
Language | French
Country | France
Topic Tags | emojis
Summary | The Unicode Consortium decided not to include the rifle emoji in its latest update. The rifle emoji was created for the Rio 2016 Summer Olympics. The Unicode refused to explain this political decision.
Image Description | Two images of the rifle emoji.
Image Tags | emojis

Au Japon, des emojis « lost in translation »

(In Japan, emojis "lost in translation")

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Newspaper | Le Monde
Date | 7.12.2016
Language | French
Country | France
Topic Tags | emojis, misunderstanding
Summary | The 2020 Summer Olympics' organizers are encountering a series of problems. The Japanese government and the Olympic committee want to make sure of the unambiguity of certain emojis before thousands of foreign visitors come to Japan for the Olympics. One symbol seem to be misunderstood: a symbol representing hotsprings is seen as a bowl of hot soup. This reminds us of the fact that emojis do not bear enough information to make it a fully-fledge language.
Image Description | Image of the hotsprings emoji.
Image Tags | emojis

L’emoji, un caractère envahissant

(The emoji, an invading character)

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Newspaper | Le Monde
Date | 10.5.2016
Language | French
Country | France
Topic Tags | emojis, language threat
Summary | The Unicode Consortium (UC) was accused of spending too much time on emojis and not enough time on minority languages. Michael Everson complained because his propositions (e.g. coding medieval punctuation marks) have been ignored by the UC. However, the UC only counts 1500 emojis out of 120000 characters. Accoding to linguist Gretchen McCulloch, emojis are not a fully-fledge language; they are a complement to language.
Image Description | Screenshot of a new text message with with many different emojis.
Image Tags | emojis, text

Apple va remplacer l'emoji revolver par un pistolet à eau

(Apple is going to replace the gun emoji with a squirt gun)

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Newspaper | Le Figaro
Date | 2.8.2016
Language | French
Country | France
Topic Tags | emojis, misunderstanding, threat
Summary | Apple decided to get rid of its gun emoji because authorities thought it was difficult to interpret this new form of communication. With this decision, Apple takes a stand in the U.S. gun debate. The expansion of emojis in the world reminds us of the idiom "a picture is worth a thousand words". The emoji trend can also lead to problems; sending a bomb emoji or gun emoji to someone can be perceived as a threat and people can be arrested for that.
Image Description | Series of gun emojis next to squirt emojis.
Image Tags | emojis

Apple transforme son emoji pêche

(Apple transforms its peach emoji)

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Newspaper | Le Figaro
Date | 3.11.2016
Language | French
Country | France
Topic Tags | emojis, language threat, spelling
Summary | Not everyone agrees with the new iOS update; some emojis have disappeared. For instance, the old peach emoji was replaced by another emoji that looks more like an apricot. Changing emojis is another way of saying "you should write this way and not that way", which is similar to a spelling reform. Emojis are becoming political. Finally, emojis are not a threat to language; they are a way to complement it.
Image Description | Images of the old and new peach emojis, and photograph of a cap with the message "make peach (picture of the new peach emoji) peach (picture of the old peach emoji) again".
Image Tags | emojis

Dans le secret de la très discrète Académie des emojis

(The secret behind the very discrete Emoji Academy)

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Newspaper | Le Figaro
Date | 31.10.2016
Language | French
Country | France
Topic Tags | emojis, spelling
Summary | Emojis have to go through a lot before they can be available on our phones and apps; they first have to be approved by the Unicode Consortium. The Unicode Consortium was first created to codify all the different written characters in the world so that they would look similar on any platform. Now, the organization does not only focus on the normalization of words, but also of emojis. People working for the Unicode Consortium (mostly white 50-year old men) meet four times every year to discuss the evolution of emojis. They all agree on one point: emojis cannot be considered a “language”. Emojis complement language (by transmitting certain emotions for instance). Nevertheless, some debates surrounding emojis mirror certain debates related to spelling reforms.
Image Description | Images of different emojis, and logos of companies members of the Unicode Consortium.
Image Tags | emojis, logo

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