Emoji characters are hands down the best thing that has ever happened to mobile based IM and chat services. With an array of emoji characters already at our disposal on the iOS and Android platform, fans are in for a treat where as many as 38 new emoji could be headed to the aforementioned mobile platforms soon enough.
According to a document released by Unicode Consortium – the guys responsible for the emoji standard – the team is currently considering 38 new emoji characters as part of an update to the existing collection. These new emoji characters have been drawn up in response to developing search trends for images on Google, as well as some that have been requested by fans across the globe. “These symbols are considered for incorporation into Unicode for reasons such as compatibility usage, popular requests from online communities, and filling the gaps in the existing set of Unicode emoji.”
Below is a complete list of the emoji characters that are being considered, but have not been approved by the consortium as yet.
- “Call me” hand
- Avocado
- Bacon
- Bat
- Black heart
- Carrot
- Clinking glasses
- Clown face
- Croissant
- Cucumber
- Drooling face
- Duck
- Eagle
- Face palm
- Face with cowboy hat
- Fox face
- Hand with first and index finger crossed
- Handshake
- Left-facing fist
- Lying face
- Man dancing
- Man in tuxedo
- Mother Christmas
- Motor scooter
- Nauseated face
- Octagonal sign
- Owl
- Potato
- Pregnant woman
- Prince
- Raised back of hand
- Right-facing fist
- Rolling on the floor laughing
- Scooter
- Selfie
- Shark
- Shrug
- Wilted flower
Now whether all 38 of these expressive bits of images will actually qualify for public use is unclear, but considering that these have been forged with requests and developing trends in mind, we may just see them land on our mobile phones, I mean, can there be enough emoji anyways?
According to Unicode: “It should be noted that the web search engine results in the ‘Notes’ is not a definitive selection factor; it is an indicator, but may not fully reflect the potential popularity of the corresponding image among online communities.”
The Unicode Consortium had previously announced a set of 250 new emoji characters, which it has been working on in conjunction with Apple. With the release of iOS 8.3, Apple had diversified its ‘people’ emoji set with skin color. And let’s just hope today’s update from Unicode bears fruit sooner rather than later.
It’s time we start seeing more emoji!
(Source: Unicode)
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