Twenty-five years ago, Carnegie Mellon University professor Scott E. Fahlman says, he was the first to use three keystrokes — a colon followed by a hyphen and a parenthesis — as a horizontal "smiley ...

Stay on top of what’s happening in the Bay Area with essential Bay Area news stories, sent to your inbox every weekday. The Bay Bay Area-raised host Ericka Cruz Guevarra brings you context and ...

We already know that sarcasm is hard to communicate via email. Well, according to this study, it turns out that warmth is as well. People often use smiley face emoticons in their emails as a way to ...

When computer science professor Scott Fahlman posted a sideways smiley face on an electronic message board at Carnegie Mellon University in 1982, he could not possibly have known that combination of ...

The humble smiley face emoticon, now a staple of online communication, owes its origin to a physics joke that didn't hit quite right at Carnegie Mellon University in 1982—and the three days of ...

Happy birthday, sideways smiley face! Wednesday marks the 30th birthday of the emoticon. The computer symbol for “not serious” or now more generally “happiness,” made up of a colon, dash and a right ...

PITTSBURGH - It was a serious contribution to the electronic lexicon: Twenty-five years ago, Carnegie Mellon University professor Scott E. Fahlman says, he was the first to use three keystrokes - a ...

PITTSBURGH -- It was a serious contribution to the electronic lexicon. :-) Twenty-five years ago, Carnegie Mellon University professor Scott Fahlman says, he was the first to use three keystrokes -- a ...