Number of Posts: 63
Posts 11 - 20
«In Japan steht für Danke, im Westen für Beten»
("In Japan it means thank you, in the West it signals praying")
Newspaper | Sonntagszeitung
Date | 20.8.2017
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | emojis, marketing, misunderstanding, research/study, texting, translation
Summary | Keith Broni, one of the first emoji translators world-wide, has been chosen from 500 applicants. He has researched the use of emojis at the University of London and he is an expert of how people from different cultures understand emojis. He works as a makerting consultant to various companies and advises them on how to use emojis as a corporation. Using emojis can be fraught with risk as hand gestures can mean very different things in different cultures. Even within the same culture emoji use can be risky. At this point, it is more risky not to use any emojis in casual texting because of the negativity effect which means that messsages without emojis seem cold or distanced.
Image Description | N/A
Überwachung von WhatsApp gefordert
(Surveillance of WhatsApp wanted)
Newspaper | Welt
Date | 2.4.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | law, privacy, texting, threat, WhatsApp
Summary | Politicians demand that WhatsApp let them access WhatsApp communications for surveillance. WhatsApp is withholding that access to protect user privacy. Terrorists are aware that the police can read their messages if they text them via SMS but that they cannot read them as long as they are on WhatsApp. This is a huge security gap.
Image Description | N/A
Erdogan schaltet sich auf die Handys der Türken
(Erdogan tunes into the cell phones of Turkish residents)
Newspaper | Welt
Date | 16.7.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | politics, privacy, texting, threat
Summary | The Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has previously sent all his citizens a text message during the attempted government coup urging them to keep fighting the rebels. Now, a year after the attempted coup, he has tuned into the citizen's phones again and has recorded a voice message which is played on all smartphones when they try to make a call. In the message he makes the defeat of the coup seem heroic and by making it a voice message he forces all citizens to listen to it first if they want to make a phone call.
Image Description | Tweets from people who are shocked by the recodorded voice message from Erdogan.
Image Tags | male(s), Twitter
Mit SMS zum Suizid gedrängt – Junge Frau muss 15 Monate ins Gefängnis
(Pressured to commit suicide with SMS - young woman get 15 months prison)
Newspaper | Welt
Date | 4.8.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | (mental) health, law, texting, youth
Summary | A young woman has been sentenced to 15 months in prison for pressuring her ex-boyfriend to commit suicide via text messages. Although she was not physically involved in helping with his suicide, the woman is held accountable for encouraging him and not calling the police when she knew he was about to commit suicide.
Image Description | Image of a woman crying.
Image Tags | female(s)
"Mit 5G erreichen wir die Geschwindigkeit unserer Nervengefäße"
("With 5G we'll achieve the speed of our nerve tracts")
Newspaper | Welt
Date | 25.2.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | marketing, smartphone, texting, WhatsApp
Summary | Mobile service providers in Germany have to change their marketing strategies because the market is changing. Fewer people are sending traditional SMS text messages and more people use WhatsApp or similar instant messaging services. Now, mobile service providers have to put everything on the resources they still control: mobile data. They are working on faster mobile data connections (5G).
Image Description | Portrait of the interviewee (Vodafone director).
Image Tags | male(s)
Mein bester Freund ist jetzt ein SMS-Butler
(My new best friend is an SMS butler)
Newspaper | Welt
Date | 28.1.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | emojis, Google, marketing, politeness, texting
Summary | A new text messaging service is available: an SMS butler. It is an actual human who can be contacted via text message at all times to perform little tasks like find out some simple information (that one is too lazy to Google) or order pizza. The former taks is free, the latter one costs a little extra. The butler takes a provision on services that require payment. He is however always very happy to perform his task - whether he gets paid or not. This is indicated by the obligatory smiley face attached to every message.
Image Description | N/A
Der digitale Beifahrer – Damit die Hände am Lenkrad bleiben, sollen Bordcomputer zuhören
(The digital front-seat passenger - bord computers are supposed to listen in so that the hands stay on the steering wheel)
Newspaper | Die Zeit
Date | 26.1.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, texting, threat
Summary | A new bord computer is supposed to help drivers not only navigate to their destination and make hands-free phone calls, but also assisst them with texting. For safety reasons, they however take the liberty to withold an incoming message if the driver needs to be particularly focused. All this is voice operated.
Image Description | N/A
Auf nach Münschen
(To Munich)
Newspaper | Die Zeit
Date | 18.2.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, research/study, texting, translation
Summary | German car manufacturers are working on voice-operated artificial intelligence assistants in cars which can operate navigation systems, phonecalls, text messages, and music selection. Operating this technology verbally is the most safe option while driving. The voice recognition is now so advanced thanks to lots of research and data collection that it can even understand voice commands in regional dialects.
Image Description | Hand operating a navigation system in a car.
Image Tags | hand(s)
Der schleichende Niedergang der SMS
(The creeping descent of text messages)
Newspaper | Welt
Date | 2.2.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | abbreviations, texting, WhatsApp
Summary | Texting has revolutionized our mobile communication in teh 1990s. Text messages have created a culture of abbreviations that we have kept going until today. The text message is however slowly going extinct. WhatsApp and other similar instant messaging apps are taking over because they do not charge per message. They do not charge at all - the only thing needed is a device with internet connection.
Image Description | N/A
Punkt: Am Ende
(Period: the end)
Newspaper | Die Zeit
Date | 31.3.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | diversity, emojis, language threat, punctuation, research/study, texting
Summary | The neutral punctuation mark "." is disappearing from our written language. The most likely reason is that with text messages we no longer need a period to tell us when a sentence is finished. Linguists are not worried about the extinction of the period. Language is ever-changing, they say. It is quite sad though, that the period is being omitted more and more and hardly anyone cares. All debates now center around emojis: can Apple just replace the gun emoji with a water pistol one? Is it racist to use a black emoji as a White person?
Image Description | The sunset over the ocean.
Page 2 of 7
Back |
Next