Emojis for 2019 will have 55 characters with different gender, skins colours

The year is coming close to an end, which means its time for the announcement of the emojis we will be seeing next year. Unicode Consortium, announced in a blog, that it has shortlisted 179 candidates, which has  over  61 character variants, for the next day. For the uninitiated, the Unicode Consortium is the organisation that regulates the emoji. “These are the short-listed candidates for Emoji 12.0, which is planned for release in 2019 Q1 together with Unicode 12.0.” [caption id=“attachment_4939251” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”]  Emoji Draft Candidates for 2019[/caption] Giving a thumbs up to diversity, the organisation has dedicated a larger chunk of the total emojis to the 55 characters that represent couples of different genders and skin tones. The shortlisted emoji also includes representation of a person with hearing impairment, a changed service animal vest to safety vest, a service dog, and changed names and ordering for various characters. The list of draft candidates will be reviewed and finalised in the next meeting, which is scheduled to be held in September, Unicode Consortium said in a blog post. “The list of draft candidates will be reviewed and finalized in the next UTC meeting, this coming September. Feedback is solicited on short names, keywords, and ordering.” Additionally, eight “emoji provisional candidates” for 2020 have also been added which includes ninja, military helmet, mammoth, feather, dodo, magic wand, carpentry saw and a screwdriver, it said. With inputs from IANS.