San Francisco, Aug 10 (IANS): Unicode Consortium, the organisation that regulates emojis has shortlisted 179 candidates -- 61 characters plus variants -- for release in 2019.
Giving a thumbs up to diversity, making up a large chunk of those new emoji are 55 characters to represent couples of different genders and skin tones, The Verge reported on Thursday.
The shortlisted emoji includes representation of a person with hearing impariment as well.
The list of draft candidates will be reviewed and finalised in the next meeting, this coming September, Unicode Consortium said in a blog post.
Additionally, eight "emoji provisional candidates" for 2020 have also been added which includes ninja, military helmet, mammoth, feather, dodo, magic wand, carpentry saw and a screwdriver, it said.