New iConji Language For the Symbol-Minded Texter 195
billdar writes "As texting evolves into its own language, a Northern Colorado Business Review article covers an ambitious project to develop a new symbol-based language called iConji for mobile texting and online chatting. 'iConji is a set of user-created 32x32-pixel symbols that represent words or ideas, not dissimilar from ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics or American Sign Language.' There is an instructional video for the iPhone app and it is also integrated into Facebook."
Behind this project is Kai Staats, formerly CEO of Terra Soft Solutions, the original developer of Yellow Dog Linux.
them ancient egyptian hieroglyphics (Score:3, Interesting)
SMS is on the way out (at least for me) (Score:1, Interesting)
Personally I've moved away from SMS messaging. With my current mobile service, sending email from my phone is much more cost effective. I get 150 megabytes of free 3G Internet access per month. Even though traffic is counted in both directions, that's still a lot of free email per month. With email I can send messages that are both longer and more expressive than SMS messages can reasonably be, and I've configured my phone to notify me of new email just as it notifies me of a new SMS. So in this context I don't see the value (for me) of an abbreviated language like iConji.
Its like adwords except you use them to communicat (Score:4, Interesting)
the product itself is not open source; the code is proprietary. Symbols representing commercial products are verboten without a license, allowing iConji to remain free for users by generating revenue for commercial symbols. Companies would pay a nominal fee every time their symbol is used, and in return, would be able to know where and when people were discussing the product.
Okay so McDonalds will pay to have a unique symbol in the language and in return they get data on when and how people use it. So if I copy that symbol and write a free implementation I am presumably violating copyright.
Re:Already exists: 'Zlango - and it's user extensi (Score:2, Interesting)
To me, it looks a lot closer to Blissymbols (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blissymbol), but less well-developed.
Blissymbolics (Score:5, Interesting)
It could maybe become useful to some degree. If you can make people think of it as a game, a challenge, maybe it will develop to the point that it will be useful. People love the artificially constrained communication of Twitter, so why not?
Yet, I would advise the initiators to read the sad story of Blissymbolics. I wanted to link to wikipedia, but they don't tell it (in fact they tell an extremely sanitized story!) It's recounted in other places, such as Arika Orkent's book "In the land of invented languages".
In brief, Bliss wanted to create an internationally intuitive symbol language, suitable for full communication. That didn't work, but by chance, a centre working with CP children came across it. These are children who have normal intelligence, but extremely few ways of expressing themselves. They were also too young to have learned to read, so they couldn't slowly spell out what they want a la Hawkins. Instead they used Bliss' symbols as a sort of rebus: One kid who wanted to go as a vampire on halloween pointed to the signs for "dark", "man", "blood", "mouth" etc.
Bliss was at first overjoyed. Then he was furious, because he found out the teachers (and the kids) used it "wrong", not according to the rules he'd set up. He threatened to sue. Eventually they were forced to settle, for a large sum. So in essence he stole money from handicapped children, but had to give up his dream of an international symbol language.
Re:3000BC called... (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been saying for a while now that the last few decades have seen the devolution of language. I'm not a linguist, as I'm probably about to demonstrate, but the development of written language went (very) roughly like: pictograms -> consonants -> vowels -> punctuation
Each level adding a bit more subtlety and complexity while reducing ambiguity.
Computer based communication has followed this path backwards almost exactly. Punctuation was the first to suffer, followed by an increase in consonant only abbreviations, and smilies started the trend towards the final step. It looks like we've just hit rock-bottom.
The trouble is, all the previous developments in written communication happened for good reasons, which are generally not explained, taught or understood any more.
Re:There's this cool thing about letters (Score:3, Interesting)
Privacy issues? (Score:5, Interesting)
If this means that all conversations are recorded and stored by iConji when you use their apps, it is without any doubt a deal breaker for me.
Re:Its like adwords except you use them to communi (Score:5, Interesting)
Okay so McDonalds will pay to have a unique symbol in the language and in return they get data on when and how people use it.
Wait. A few questions:
- So if there is no symbol for a certain brand already licensed in the system, how do you, as a user, discuss it?
- What if I am a company that iConji disagrees with for some tedious moral/administrative reason and refuses to licence me? Could be double-plus ungood.
- What if the 'nominal fee' for my suddenly wildly-popular product is too much for me to bear or becomes irritating? Can I remove the symbol from usage? Does iConji come after me with hired goons for the cash?
- What if some other company licenses *my* symbol and uses it to track their efforts to dethrone me? Can I petition to get the symbol transferred to me?
- What if some other company licenses some sort of disparaging symbol to describe my fine product. Can I petition to get the symbol removed? Can I hire uber-lawyers and grind iConji into dust if they disagree?
All these questions will be running through the minds of company lawyers everywhere as soon as they hear of this.
Egyptian context Re:3000BC called... (Score:3, Interesting)
Context is interesting - it is a "big deal", really. Here is an example of context for Egyptian hieroglyphs:
The "northward" glyph was a lowered sail: the Nile flows north, so they would use current to travel (no sail).
The "southward" glyph was a raised, wind-filled sail since the prevailing winds blew south. South was literally "the direction one sails". Which is, by the way, very convenient when you need to go upstream without a motor.
These things were just obvious if your life and economy revolved around the Nile.
Without that context, it has no meaning.
Text-speak has gained huge popularity. :-) today.
Everybody understand LOL and
Why won't something like Iconoglyphs become very popular?
r.e. the hieroglyphs, this is just some trivia I picked up from a museum exhibit; interesting stuff - museums are cool :-)
More detail here: http://www.egyptianmyths.net/sail.htm [egyptianmyths.net]