Jeremy Burge of Emojipedia has an in-depth look at the latest batch of emoji that have been approved:
These include smileys, people, food, drink, flags, and for the first time: new fantasy characters such as a mermaid, genie, and vampire.
We are today releasing the final version of our sample images for this update. These have been designed in the “Apple style” to picture how these emojis may look when hitting phones later in the year.
And Paul Hunt looks at the role of gender in emoji:
Filling out the middle of the spectrum, we have a set of three new people emoji with inclusive gender, characters that were conceived to represent all people regardless of gender.
These emoji are intended to depict a child, an adult, and an older person. I proposed the addition of the gender inclusive emoji characters in order to provide better representation for people who want to express themselves in emoji as exactly that: just people.
Not everyone identifies as male or female. Some of us identify as a bit of both, or neither, or something else altogether. Regardless of your gender identity, I hope we can all find adequate ways to express ourselves in emoji.