SoylentNews

takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

Emoji 12.0 brings us waffles, more diversity, suggestive "finger pinch" glyph [arstechnica.com]

There's a push for more diversity with this new emoji release. We have emojis for deaf people in three genders (male, female, and genderless) and five skin tones, an ear with a hearing aid, people in motorized and unmotorized wheelchairs, prosthetic arms and legs, a guide dog and a service dog, and people with a probing cane. There are actually only 59 distinct new emoji types in this release, but everything that depicts a human comes in five skin tones and three genders, which pumps up the numbers. You can really see this with the "People holding hands" emoji, which is completely configurable for a total of 70 possible combinations.

The emoji that's causing the most buzz [google.com] is "pinching hand." Emojipedia's example shows a thumb and pointer finger with a small distance between them, which could also be interpreted as a hand signal for "small." People are already coming up with, uh, "suggestive" uses for such a glyph, and if the actual implementations follow Emojipedia's design, the glyph could end up on the naughty list next to peach and eggplant.

Thank you, Emojesus. ✝

By the way, what happened to calling it Unicode 12.0? Maybe they'll call it that in June [wikipedia.org].

Unicode Consortium blog post [unicode.org]. Also at Emojipedia [emojipedia.org] and 9to5Mac [9to5mac.com].

Previously: 38 New Emojis to be Introduced in 2016 [soylentnews.org]
Unicode Considering 67 New Emoji for 2016 [soylentnews.org]
Unicode 9.0 Serves up Bacon Emoji, 71 others, and Six New Scripts [soylentnews.org]
Unicode 10.0's New Emojis [soylentnews.org]
Stink Over Frowning Poo Emoji at the Unicode Consortium [soylentnews.org]

Related: Apple's New iPhone X will let You Control the Poo Emoji with Your Face [soylentnews.org]
Google CEO Drops Everything to Fix Cheeseburger Emoji [soylentnews.org]
Microsoft Briefly Left Holding the Gun Emoji [soylentnews.org]
Battle of the Bagel Emoji [soylentnews.org]

Original Submission