The Unicode Consortium lately announced version 7.0 of the Unicode Standard, which will bring forth approximately 250 new emojis that could one day be included in future Android, iOS and Windows Phone devices.
The new Unicode characters are derived from Wingdings and Webdings fonts, according to the Unicode Consortium. Unicode member platforms like Android and iOS are required to implement support for the new standard, along with creating pictographs to represent the emoji, since they are only described by Unicode in plain text.
"Version 7.0 of the Unicode Standard is now available, adding 2,834 new characters. This latest version adds the new currency symbols for the Russian ruble and Azerbaijani manat, approximately 250 emoji (pictographic symbols)," writes Unicode via a blog post on Monday.
Notable emoji additions include hot pepper, spy, levitating man in business suit, middle finger and the peace sign fingers.
Missing from the new emoji are more racial diverse characters, which Apple was planning to introduce back in March of this year. There are several characters that promote progress, but none of them introduces parity between black and white skinned icons, or even other skin tones.
This is not surprising since these things take a long time to change. However, we hope more changes are made in future Unicode releases. Still, diverse racial skin tones are a fairly sensitive topic, and Unicode might just be holding off on diversity until the team can do it right, comprehensively.
Since Apple, Google and Microsoft will have to create new icons to allow their devices to support version 7.0 of the Unicode Standard, it might take a long time before users see an update that brings the new characters to their devices.
Folks who are interested in getting an overview of the new emojis, can visit Emojipedia and witness what might make it to their smartphones in the near or distant future.
For those who are waiting eagerly for the new emojis, just know that one can finally use the middle finger in a text message when a friend is being extremely annoying.
