117 new emojis coming to smartphones this year

Unicode Consortium, the organisation behind your favourite emojis, announced this week that 117 new inclusive and gender-neutral emojis have been approved for 2020. Among the new icons is a polar bear, the transgender flag, gender ambiguous brides and grooms.

It’s already that time of year again, the time when the digital world is introduced to a new collection of emojis destined to make it to their devices in the fall.

This year, Unicode Consortium created a total of 117 new sample icons which companies like Apple, Samsung, and Google can use as a basis for their own renditions of the characters.

Following in the same vein as last year’s series, a handful of new gender-inclusive emojis were introduced including a woman wearing a tuxedo, a man wearing a bridal ensemble, and a non-binary version of the two.

Alongside these people icons, the Consortium also created an emoji of a polar bear, an anatomical heart and lungs, a potted plant and bubble tea.

Unicode Consortium estimates that these emojis will begin showing up on mobile phones around September or October.

Emojipedia, the online reference for all such icons, gives us a closer look at each one; the site will eventually display each vendor’s interpretation of the emojis when they launch to compare and contrast.

Based on previous years, Android users can expect to gain access to these icons in August or September, and Apple users should be able to start enjoying them in October or November.

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