Unicode consortium: that's behind the choice of emojis
There is a huge organization behind the selection of emojis. But very few people know what the Unicode consortium is and who assumes responsibility there. In the following practical tip, we will tell you the story behind the laughing poop emoticon.
What is the Unicode?
- The Unicode is important for text input on pretty much every computer, smartphone and tablet.
- It is an internationally distributed code that is considered a permanent standard for all fonts and drawing systems of all known font cultures. In addition to Unicode, there are numerous other codes that do not cover all characters.
- Ultimately, all known characters in Unicode are to be combined in a single character set. So far, the Unicode is the only project that has been successful.
- Without the Unicode there is no way to display data with different national character sets.
- A character set regulates the representation of text characters in the form of binary numbers by showing which byte value is represented as which character. You can think of the character set as a huge table that assigns a unique number to each character.
- The code is constantly being tweaked and new things are added - including emojis.
- Emojis have been an integral part of Unicode since October 2010; In June 2017, for example, 56 new smileys were added.
A consortium determines the available emojis
- The Unicode Consortium, a non-profit organization founded in 1991, is responsible for the content of the industry standard.
- The consortium works closely with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
- In addition to the character coding, the consortium also defines instructions for the correct use of the characters - also for the laughing poop.
- Membership of the Unicode consortium is open to everyone worldwide, provided the applicant can pay the membership fee and wants to work for the organization's goals.
- All major software companies are now part of the consortium - for example Apple, Microsoft, Adobe and Google. Facebook, Netflix and even the Indian government are also eligible members. You can find the entire list of members here.
- Mark Davis (Google) is currently the president of the California-based company.
In the video: The Russian legal system takes action against emojis
In the next practical tip, we'll tell you what the difference between emoji and emoticon is.