Verizon has announced that the Android 4.4 KitKat update for the Motorola Droid Mini, Ultra, and Maxx will begin begin rolling out to users in phases starting today. It makes the trio the first carrier-exclusive smartphones to receive Google’s latest KitKat software.

SwiftKey has today rolled out a new beta release, which finally brings support for Emoji to the most popular third-party keyboard on Android, and the option to add a number row. There are over 500 Emoji icons to enjoy, and you can get Emoji recommendations based on the words you type.

Google has announced that its latest Android 4.4 KitKat update is rolling out to the Wi-Fi Nexus 7 (2012 and 2013 models) and the Nexus 10 starting today. The update will be available to download over-the-air, and it will deliver all of the new Android features that made their debut on the Nexus 5 late last month.

Google has pushed out a new update to its official Google Keyboard app for Android, introducing a number of new KitKat features — including support for Emoji — and some small design tweaks. It’s available to devices running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, and you’ll find it in Google Play right now.

Google Hangouts received a minor update on the Play Store earlier this week, which is only now just rolling out to its users. This upgrade to version 1.1 brings some new emoji’s, bug fixes and the inclusion of some “butter” to Hangouts, in an effort to make it run faster and increase the fluidity of the app.

I’m pretty sure you’ve all used those cute little emoticons built into your messaging app, but did you know Jelly Bean has a whole slew of Emoji just waiting to be unleashed? What’s an Emoji you ask? It’s basically the Japanese equivalent of emoticons. Now I’ll admit, most of these are lame, but still, if you’re a pictograph kind of person, you’re going to at least want to know how to activate them for use.