The Unicode Consortium finalized the Emoji 13.1 update which adds a total of 217 new emoji characters to the existing list. Seven of these are brand new characters, while the remaining 210 comprise of new skin tone grouping variations for the multi-person "couple with heart" and "couple kissing" emoji.
The new characters are "heart on fire", "mending heart" , "woman with beard", "person with beard", "face exhaling", "face in clouds", and "face with spiral eyes".
This is certainly a minor update since Emoji 14.0 release was postponed from March 2021 to September of the same year owing to the Coronavirus pandemic. Those graphics will start showing up in devices in 2022 only, which would have meant no new emoji in 2021, if not for this tiny update.
The Unicode Consortium thanks its volunteers who made this possible so that new emoji can debut in 2021, and hopes that the new additions will "begin appearing on devices in the coming months". It is worth noting that characters added in Emoji 13.0, which was released in the beginning of this year, are yet to roll out completely. Google has shipped them with Android 11, while Apple is yet to add them. Other manufacturers are expected to follow suit when they update their custom UI layers with the latest Android build.
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