Posted 05/01/09 at 04:39:20 PM by Andy Salisbury

Google has recently announced yet another addon to their web-based Gmail platform, which allows you to add roughly 1,200 more emoticons to the selector tool.

Among the new emoticons are national flags, road signs, more animals and various animations. With a total of 13 categories (a huge boost on the two that come with vanilla Gmail) there’s a strong possibility that people will be able to carry out conversations without typing a single word. :\

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Posted 12/12/08 at 04:15:03 PM by Andy Salisbury

Straight out of the “really?” file, it looks like a Russian businessman that goes by the name of Oleg Teterin is claiming that he owns the trademark for the ;-) emoticon.

Mr. Teterin is looking to go after corporations that are using the emoticon for profit - or any others that resemble it, including :-), ;) or :). “Legal use will be possible after buying an annual license from us,” stated Mr. Teterin. “It won't cost that much - tens of thousands of dollars.”

Many critics doubt the legality of the trademark because the emoticon has been in the public domain for so many years. One opponent of the claimed trademark is the president of the Russian social networking site odnoklassniki.ru, Nikita Sherman. She’s been quoted as saying “You're not likely to find any retards in Russia who'll pay … for the use of emoticons.”

And it doesn’t help that Mr. Teterin isn’t the first Russian to lay claim to the emoticon. Sadly, he might end up :’(, instead of :-D.

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Posted 07/22/08 at 06:08:15 PM by Mark Edward Soper

Jealous of Dr. Evil's Mini-Me? Worried about running out of Hot Pockets if you had a miniaturized version of yourself? Stop worrying - you can now create your very own 2D "mini-me" for free with Minimise-Me.

To learn more about the process, and to find out how you can put your screen-sized 2D double to work, join us after the jump.

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