Lack of Emoji diversity is one of the biggest cultural failings of our time. Just ask Miley. Finally though, the powers that be have elected to act. A bumper new crop of Emojis is on the way.
Or, at least, it should be. The problem lies in the implementation, not the creation. See, Emojis are a part of a larger standard of characters called Unicode. Unicode is basically the form of coding which allows us to see special characters on our various screens and devices and operating systems outside of the basic alphanumeric set.
Unicode 7.0 has just been announced, and with it have come a whole load of important new additions, for example the actual characters for the Russian Ruble (â½) and Azerbaijani Manat. There’s also now support for the general character sets of languages found around India, China and North America. Obviously that’s all well and good, but what we really want here is more goddamn Emojis.
As Unicode 7.0 is now officially released, it’s simply a matter of time for when we’ll be getting them. See the Emojis already exist, it’s just that companies like Apple and Google are yet to integrate it. When they do, however, you’ll be granted full access to a whole load of new icons.
And when we say a whole load, we mean over 250. That’s a hefty set of additions. There’s even a list where you can see what’s in store – of course the problem is that right now, you can’t actually view them. But you can read their names, and we’re intrigued by more than a few. ‘Man In Business Suit Levitating’ is a particular favourite. Check out the full list here.
Whether or not we receive a set of racially diverse smiley faces is yet to be seen. Sorry Miley.
UPDATE: We now have a full visual list of all 240 upcoming additions. Unfortunately they’re only in black-and-white, basic form for now. Of course when Apple, Google et al. eventually integrate them to their existing Emoji setup they’ll be a bit more colourful and fleshed out. You can see them right here, courtesy of the Unicode Consortium.
All of the big updates you’ve been after are present: two different types of Hibiscus flower… four different crossed checkmarks… about fifteen different forms of stationery… they’re all there alright.