We live in a time where almost every day is celebrating something, and today is World Emoji Day. Every year, Unicode adds news emoji to the Unicode standard, and companies like Microsoft, Google, and Apple, update their emoji sets with the new additions. The latter two companies mentioned above have taken today"s opportunity to announce inclusion of the emojis introduced with Emoji 12.0 in February via their respective upcoming OS updates.
Continuing a trend that"s been growing over the past few years, this year"s new emoji focus on inclusivity, both in terms of racial diversity and people with disabilities. As such, the new emoji sets include representations of over 70 combinations of interracial couples holding hands, as well as new emoji such as a prosthetic arm and leg, wheelchair users, service dogs, and more.
| | |
Other miscellaneous additions include animals such as a sloth and an otter, waffles, a kneeling stance, and some other objects, such as a one-piece swimsuit or a yo-yo. All of these emoji will be available to the general public with upcoming updates to both of the company"s operating systems - Google with Android Q and Apple through an update coming to iPhones later this year.
Microsoft isn"t making such announcements this time because these new emoji were already introduced with the Windows 10 May 2019 Update. Instead, the Redmond company is giving fans some insight into how its emoji are designed through a new blog post.