Jesse Reed and Hamish Smyth, the design duo behind the republished MTA, NASA, and EPA standards manuals, are back with a new book: Emoji, a collection of the original 176 emoji characters.

The original emoji were designed by Shigetaka Kurita for Japanese telecommunications company DoCoMo in 1999 to use on pages in Japan. Those small, pixelated 12-by-12 grid images only bear a passing resemblance to today’s far more detailed emoji, but there’s a clear line that can be drawn between Kurita’s early work and the thousands of emoji characters on our phones. Kurita has been involved in the project; Reed and Smyth flew out to Tokyo to interview him for additional context on the original designs, and he’ll also be contributing an introduction to the book.

Reed and Smyth aren’t the first to realize the artistic importance of the original emoji. In 2016, the Museum of Modern Art in New York bought the original emoji artwork to add to its permanent collection. (Paola Antonelli and Paul Galloway from MoMA will also be penning an essay for the book.)

Emoji represents a bit of a shift for the pair, who have risen to design-world fame through their standards manuals. In an interview with The Verge, Reed and Smyth noted that they “liked the idea of doing something a little bit different here,” describing their goals as publishers to “archive and preserve lost artifacts and forgotten pieces of time.” It’s something that they have already started to do with the Standards Manual store in Brooklyn, which showcases and sells an extensive collection of graphic design works.

The book itself is set to be 360 pages long, featuring four versions of each emoji: color and black-and-white copies at the original 1:1 scale, an enlarged version in color, and an enlarged version in black and white with the underlying 12-by-12 grid. (The larger versions are made possible because the original emoji characters are actually vector art, so it’s easy to create blown-up versions without losing image quality.) Additionally, technical data from DoCoMo will be presented alongside each character.

Along with the book, Reed and Smyth are also releasing a keyboard extension for iOS and Android that will allow users to send these emoji, which will mark the first time that users outside of Japan will be able to send and receive the original 176 emoji characters. Backers will receive a free copy of the app. (It will also be sold on the iOS and Android app stores when the book ships this fall.)

Emoji is available to back Kickstarter for an early bird price of $65, (or $75 at full price once those run out), with an estimated release date of October 2018. As with all Kickstarter projects, there is always the possibility that something could go wrong, so use your best judgment. However, Reed and Smyth do have an excellent track record with other Kickstarter book releases, so there’s definitely less concern here.

In case your portable audio budget doesn’t quite stretch to the heights of Shure’s new $1,999 KSE1200, here’s a more attainable alternative: the $33 Tunai Drum. These earphones surfaced on my horizon courtesy of a Kickstarter campaign that had them going for as cheap as $9 for the earliest backers. I was curious to hear how much headphone one gets for such minimal cost, and it turned out that the Drum give you a hell of a lot. Lots of bass, lots of fun, and very little to complain about.

7.5 Verge Score

Good Stuff

• Lightweight, but sturdy build
• Easy fit
• Brimming with bass

Bad Stuff

• Recessed mids
• Bass sometimes feels bloated
• Sound leakage

Most people these days have multiple pairs of headphones and earphones. Some are fancier than others — we can differ in our preferences — but as a general rule, everyone needs a disposable pair that they can toss in their bag without a protective case or much care. This is the role that the Tunai Drum are ready to step into. They’re made out of simple, generic plastics, which makes them featherlight and quite durable. They also don’t exhibit any obvious branding and come in a choice of highlight colors.

The wire is vehemently resistant to tangling and kinks, and each earpiece feels rigid and durable. I’ve not been particularly kind to these earphones in the three weeks I’ve had them for testing, and they’ve endured tumbling around inside my backpack without a scratch or a blemish. The spot at which the cable attaches to the earphones isn’t protected by any sort of strain relief, and could thus be a potential point of failure, but I doubt that will be a problem without some truly awful calamity befalling these earphones.

The light weight of the Drum makes them easy to fit and comfortable to wear for long periods of time. I like the silicone tips provided in the box, and I expect most people will find a good fit with them. The wire doesn’t weigh these earphones down at all, making for a hassle-free experience of using and wearing them. I might have liked to see a volume control integrated rather than just the play/pause button and microphone, but in the current age of needing a dongle for most phones, a proper remote control probably would have been incompatible with a bunch of devices anyway. The only real downside to the Drum’s design is that they do leak out sound when I turn my music up, more so than a solid metal enclosure might allow.

If I sound especially forgiving about the Drum’s few deficiencies, that’s because I am. These earphones do the one thing I advocate all headphones should: they emphasize the bass. Their sound is sweet and enjoyable, easy to get into right away and also easy to disregard when you need to focus on something else. Mind you, it’s nothing groundbreaking or hi-fi (despite the Hi-Res Audio certification that Tunai touts for the Drum), as that bass can feel bloated and imprecise at times. The tuning of these earphones also pushes back the mids, which deadens vocals and makes the sound feel veiled. There’s not a huge deal of treble extension, though there’s enough to provide some high end excitement to contrast the bass.

In genre terms, don’t bother with these if you’re a classical or jazz music enthusiast, but feel free to buy half a dozen if your preferences lie closer to hip hop, EDM, or distorted rock guitar.

Photography by Vlad Savov / The Verge

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Microsoft’s latest Windows 10 update is arriving for PCs and tablets today. Like the previous Fall Creators Update, it’s full of small features that improve Windows 10. Microsoft is only adding one major feature with this update, and it’s the Timeline feature that lets you resume where you left off across multiple Windows 10 machines.

Elsewhere there’s easy sharing, quick Bluetooth pairing, a dictation feature, and the ability to mute tabs in Microsoft Edge. Microsoft is also continuing to tweak and improve the Fluent Design system it introduced with the Fall Creators Update. You’ll notice more hover effects when you’re using your mouse in the Start menu or notification center, and there’s a new blur effect on the taskbar. I’ve been testing the Windows 10 April 2018 Update for months now, and these are my favorite new additions.

Timeline

Timeline is the major new feature here, and it replaces the familiar Task View button that shows what apps are currently running on a system. Timeline lets you see what apps are running, but also what apps and activities you’ve used on your Windows 10 PC in the past 30 days. These activities and apps sync across multiple machines, so if you’ve been using a laptop for a document you can easily pick up the same activity on a desktop PC that you’re also signed into.

You can also combine Timeline with Microsoft Edge for iOS and Android, and access the smartphone browser history on your PC. Microsoft is updating its mobile Edge apps to support this, and it’s one of the main reasons you might use Timeline. If you’re concerned over the privacy aspects of having documents, apps, and activity history in your Task View, Microsoft disables the device sync by default and you can disable activity history.

Dictation

Windows has had a variety of dictation tools over the years, but Microsoft is creating a quick way to access the built-in Windows 10 version with the April 2018 Update. You can launch it with the windows key + H keyboard shortcut, and it will let you dictate into any app. I even wrote this part of the article using the dictation tool, and if you’ve got a good mic it works really well.

Microsoft Edge tab muting and PWAs

Chrome added tab muting recently, and now Microsoft is bringing the same feature to Edge. You can mute loud and annoying websites with this feature, and spare any audio blasting out of your speakers. Microsoft has also tweaked the performance and design of Edge. Microsoft Edge certainly feels better to use as a default browser with this update, but it still needs work to truly compete with Chrome.

Microsoft is also adding support for Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) in this April 2018 update. PWAs are essentially web apps, but they have the full support of Google, Apple, and now Microsoft across mobile and desktop operating systems. This could improve the Windows 10 app situation, and we’re expecting to hear a lot more about PWAs for Windows 10 at Microsoft’s Build conference in May.

Fix blurry apps

Scaling desktop apps has always been an issue in Windows, but this latest April 2018 Update is trying to make blurry apps a thing of the past. Windows 10 will now detect if an app is blurry because of a monitor change or if you docked a laptop, and it will attempt to scale it better to stop apps from scaling too small or blurry.

Audio preferences per app

Microsoft is adding in some great new audio features with this Windows 10 April 2018 Update. You can now set the input or output audio devices per application. You could have Spotify audio blasting out of your speakers, while your browser audio comes through a headset. The new audio settings let you customize both the input and output per application, so it’s also useful if you use different microphones across a variety of apps.

Quick Bluetooth pairing

Microsoft is adding a simple and quick way to pair Bluetooth accessories. Windows 10 will now produce a notification to quickly connect to a Bluetooth peripheral and pair it. Microsoft is supporting its Surface Precision Mouse for now, and the company is working with Logitech and others to ensure additional hardware will support this quick way to Bluetooth pair in the future.

Windows Defender notification reduction

Ever get annoyed with those Windows Defender notifications that tell you Microsoft’s anti-virus just scanned your machine and it’s fine? Yeah, who cares. With the Windows 10 April 2018 Update, you can now suppress these notifications so you’re not told every single time there’s a successful scan.

Nearby sharing

Nearby sharing lets you easily share websites, photos, or documents to nearby Windows 10 machines. It’s not a feature you’re probably going to use all that often, but it works over Bluetooth and is similar to Apple’s AirDrop feature. You can share to devices that are colleagues or friends nearby, and it’s a lot quicker than emailing over a file. Nearby sharing is disabled by default, and you can set it to only receive files from your own devices or everyone nearby. Hopefully Microsoft adds the option to customize this further in the future so you can only receive from contacts.

Focus Assist

Microsoft is changing and updating its do-not-disturb mode for Windows 10 with this new update. Previously known as Quiet Hours, Focus Assist is a smarter way of stopping notifications popping up when you’re busy. Focus Assist will now automatically mute notifications when you’re playing a game or projecting your presentation to a screen. This stops annoying notifications during a gaming session, or equally important meetings when you don’t want your emails, messages, and other notifications being displayed to the whole conference room.

You can also let particular apps break through and still trigger notifications, which is useful if you have a messaging app that you still want to see notifications from while you’re playing a game.

Gaming changes and Xbox game bar

Microsoft is making some neat gaming-focused changes to Windows 10 with this update. You can now customize graphics performance per game, allowing you to set games to high performance or power saving. This is particularly useful if you’re using a laptop that’s capable of gaming, but you want certain games not to draw the best performance in order to save battery life. The new feature is available in “graphics settings” in the main settings app. Microsoft is also redesigning the Xbox game bar so it now has a white or black theme with this update.