by Jason Snell
Unicode 8: Taco emoji yes, facepalm emoji no
I swear this site isn’t turning into an emoji blog, but I’m sort of fascinated by the strange process that leads to the development of new emoji.
There are standards bodies, platform vendors, and members of the public all offering input. If the standards bodies love your favorite new emoji but your platform vendor of choice (let’s say Apple) doesn’t, then you just won’t see that emoji.
For example, Apple has thus far not implemented the middle-finger emoji, but Microsoft has. On the other hand, Apple has implemented the Spock emoji. On Upgrade this week I called this emoji fragmentation.
Anyway, Unicode 8 has been released, with 37 new emojis, including a face with rolling eyes, a cheese wedge, and (most importantly) a taco! Your hopes for a facepalm emoji will need to wait for Unicode 9, I guess.