Gadgetory

a fresh hot pizza is now just an emoji away I'm Bridget Carey this is your scene that update emojis are a powerful force in our digital culture the cute strange little icons programmed into our smartphone keyboards are changing the way we communicate with our friends and marketers want a piece of the action Domino's now let you order pizza by tweeting out the pizza emoji icon of course to better understand this technology we did a deep investigation a deep dish investigation you might say to order by tweet you need a first set up a Domino's profile and something called an easy order but if you've never made a Domino's order before you may find yourself annoyed the only way to set your easy order for emoji tweet ordering is to first place a boring old school online order and then it saves all those details payment address toppings as your easy order you also have to put your Twitter account in your dominoes profile and follow Domino's on Twitter and then after all that's done you can send a tweet at dominos with the pizza slice emoji that count will send you a private direct message asking you to confirm with a thumbs-up emoji and that's it in 30 minutes or less it's Pizza time some marketers are creating their own unique emoji icons outside of what's available in the standard emoji keyboard Star Wars work with Twitter to make special c-3po stormtrooper and bb-8 icons when you use Star Wars related hashtags other brands are taking it a step further and making their own sticker emoji keyboards in similar fashion to the stickers on facebook Messenger you can download an app that will put animated cartoon expressions inside your keyboard to send to friends they'll see it even if they don't have the sticker pack because it shows up as a photo the company Swift has made several for different brands including miller beer and 1 800 flowers and these aren't always free the cutesy Florida Gators pack costs a dollar to download but something to keep in mind companies love this because they can track exactly what you're sending to send these characters you have to go to settings add the keyboard and give it full access which warns you that anything you send will be shared with the company so beware the mms board which can track everything you type with its candy color keyboard the restaurant chain Chili's isn't using custom emojis but tech trends have actually influenced the menu Chili's changed its food so it looks better on Instagram it puts an egg wash on the burger buns to make it more photogenic as it glistens under the lights and since so many of us can't put down our phones during meals KFC is experimenting with a new type of Bluetooth keyboard tray you can type on it without getting your phone covered in fried chicken grease the struggles we live with today I tell you that your tech news update and there's more finger clicking good at cnet com from our studios in New York I'm Bridget Carey