The Unicode Consortium has released the latest version dubbed Unicode 7.0 adding 2,834 new characters to the list including about 250 pictographic symbols, or emojis.
Unicode, announcing the update in a blog post, said “This latest version adds the new currency symbols for the Russian ruble and Azerbaijani manat, approximately 250 emoji (pictographic symbols), many other symbols, and 23 new lesser-used and historic scripts, as well as character additions to many existing scripts.”
“These additions extend support for written languages of North America, China, India, other Asian countries, and Africa.”
While emojis will be colourful, other unicode images are usually little more than simple line drawings in black and white colours.
Notable additions made to the emoji list includes “hot pepper,” “sleuth or spy,” “man in business suit levitating,” “reversed hand with middle finger extended,” and “raised hand with part between middle and ring fingers” better known as the Vulcan salute from Star Trek.
Other interesting symbols include the Indian Om symbol, a black droplet, a thermometer, a white sun, fog, military medal, reminder ribbon, camera with flash, rolled up newspaper, chipmunk, cityscape, dove of peace and the fax sign.
Software makers including Apple, Google, Microsoft, and others that are already in the Unicode Consortium will need to add support for the update in their products to enable users to use the new characters. So, users will hopefully see the new characters in OS X, iOS, Android, and Windows platforms soon.
