New emoji are coming for this year. A month earlier than expected, the folks at Unicode and Emojipedia have unveiled the 230 new emoticons that will be available as part of Unicode 12.0. This is the sixth major update since 2014 with various novelties, among which we can find a flamingo, a wheelchair, onion and garlic, a team snorkel, a skunk, and even a Band-Aid for when you want to tell someone without words that you just cut yourself.
Although the representation of different skin colors was already available in other emoji, this new list now includes combinations of interracial couples holding hands, as you can see in the last video. Another new arrival is emoji of people with functional diversity,an initiative that Apple already proposed last year, and that has been fulfilled in the form of a wheelchair wheels. We will also find an illustration of a person with reduced vision and a cane, as well as prosthetic arms and legs.
And the South Americans are in luck, because the mate is also incorporated into the new list of emoji within this new update known as Unicode 12.0. So are animal lovers. New species have been added, such as a flamingo, one of nature's most beautiful birds, a sloth, a skunk or a otter.To be exact, this update is made up of 59 different new emojis, 75 if we take gender variations into account and 230 new emoji if we include all skin tone options.
As often happens with every update, once Unicode confirms the new generation of emoji, now it's the turn of technology companies, who will have to get down to business the work to develop their own illustrations that represent each new emoticon. This process could take months, until we see it available on platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook or Instagram. We have no choice, therefore, but to be patient.
