Thursday, November 27, 2014

Updated Unicode Emoji document


The “Unicode Emoji” draft document has been updated. Changes include the addition of a draft description of emoji selection factors and draft chart images for the Unicode 8.0 candidate emoji.

Feedback on the document—including the candidate characters—can be submitted with the contact form.

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Closing the Unicode Web Forum

Over the last several years, the Unicode Forum hosted on the Unicode website has not seen sufficient activity to justify its continuing maintenance. Accordingly, the Unicode Consortium is planning to close the forum, effective December 31, 2014. Most of the existing content in the forum will be kept available as a read-only archive, but any existing forum accounts will be locked, and new sign-up will be turned off.

We encourage forum users to join the ongoing, active discussions about Unicode topics on the email lists: http://www.unicode.org/consortium/distlist.html

Those who wish to follow only official announcements can also find those regularly posted on the Unicode Blog: http://unicode-inc.blogspot.com/

Announcement postings from the blog are also tweeted https://twitter.com/unicode as well as echoed on our Google+ and Facebook pages.

Friday, November 14, 2014

New Emoji Candidates for Unicode 8.0

taco emoji The Unicode Consortium has accepted 37 new emoji characters as candidates for Unicode 8.0, scheduled for mid-2015. These are candidates—not yet finalized—so some may not appear in the release.

There are many possible emoji that could be added, but releases need to be restricted to a manageable number. Many other emoji characters, such as other food items and symbols of religious significance, are still being assessed, and could appear in a future release of the Unicode Standard. Feedback can be sent via the reporting form.

Faces, Hands, and Zodiac Symbols

The following proposed additions are for compatibility with other messaging and mail systems.

ZIPPER-MOUTH FACE
MONEY-MOUTH FACE
FACE WITH THERMOMETER
NERD FACE
THINKING FACE
FACE WITH ROLLING EYES
UPSIDE-DOWN FACE
FACE WITH HEAD-BANDAGE
ROBOT FACE
HUGGING FACE
SIGN OF THE HORNS
CRAB
SCORPION
LION FACE
BOW AND ARROW
AMPHORA

Symbols of Religious Significance


PRAYER BEADS
KAABA
MOSQUE
SYNAGOGUE
MENORAH WITH NINE BRANCHES
PLACE OF WORSHIP
DHYANI BUDDHA

Most Popularly Requested Emoji


HOT DOG
TACO
BURRITO
BOTTLE WITH POPPING CORK
POPCORN
TURKEY
UNICORN FACE
CHEESE WEDGE

Missing Top Sports Symbols


CRICKET BAT AND BALL
VOLLEYBALL
FIELD HOCKEY STICK AND BALL
ICE HOCKEY STICK AND PUCK
TABLE TENNIS PADDLE AND BALL
BADMINTON RACQUET AND BIRDIE

Monday, November 3, 2014

New Unicode Emoji draft, available for review

egg hatching emoji The Unicode Consortium has released the draft “Unicode Emoji” document, whose main goal is to help improve the interoperability of emoji characters across implementations by providing guidelines and data.

This draft document also includes a section on Diversity, with a mechanism using 5 new proposed characters to provide a variety of skin tones for existing emoji characters.



The document is in “Proposed Draft” state, and made available for public review and comment.