Unicode, the world’s standard for text and emoji, has unveiled 217 new emojis to be rolled out in 2021. Emoji 13.1 comes with 7 brand new images and 210 couples images with varying skin tones.
In Jan 2020, the Unicode Consortium approved the release of Emoji 13.0 with 117 new emojis. These emojis will come out to devices by the end of 2020. The image below shows the sample of new emojis to release with this update.
Data files for the emojis have been published and are available for vendors to consult when implementing Emoji 13.1. Incidentally, these have been available since Tuesday 15 September 2020, effectively confirming the release three days before today’s Unicode announcement. The emoji chart by the officials is available here.
Emoji 13.1 is an emoji-only release from Unicode. There is no accompanying Unicode 13.1 release with non-emoji characters. The next major release from The Unicode Consortium will be Unicode 14.0, in approximately 12 months. The image below shows the updates with Emoji 13.1.
The Consortium had to push back its annual Unicode Standard release by six months due to COVID-19: Unicode 14.0, which was supposed to come out in March 2021, will now be released in September. As Emojipedia explains, that means operating systems won’t be able to incorporate Unicode 14.0 updates until very late next year or in the first half of 2022. For Emoji 14.0, additions are expected to include mixed skin tone support for 🤝 Handshake, which until now has been only default yellow on most major platforms.
