What is an unicode?
In one sentence: The worldwide list that gives every letter, symbol and emoji its own number, so all computers agree on what was typed.
A little more
Computers only store numbers, so text needs an agreed list saying which number means which character. Unicode is that list for the whole world: about 150,000 characters covering almost every writing system, plus maths symbols and around 3,800 emojis. Capital A is U+0041; the pizza emoji is U+1F355.
New emojis are added roughly once a year. Phone and computer makers then draw their own pictures for them, which is why the same emoji looks a little different on different devices, and why an old device that hasn't been updated shows an empty box: it knows the number but has no drawing.
It's a bit like… A giant numbered dictionary that every computer shares, so number 128512 always means grinning face.
See it in action
- BonusWhy do emojis turn into boxes, question marks or gibberish?X-ray any emoji to see the secret numbers and bytes inside it, solve four crime scenes where emojis seem to vanish (empty boxes, ?, mojibake and broken families) and glue your own emoji together.6 min · interactive
- BonusWhy can two passwords look the same but only one works?Drag a magnifying glass over a pretend message to reveal glowing ghost footprints left by invisible Unicode characters, read a plain-words card for what each blank does, paste any text into an X-ray, repair broken messages while keeping ordinary spaces, and solve three cases where a password, filename or file looked identical but wasn't..7 min · interactive
- BonusWho stole all the emojis?Interview four suspects in a Byte Bakery chat heist, X-ray the fake paw prints, and discover how autocorrect and a spam cleaner teamed up to frame the cat.7 min · interactive