Windows 10 emoji give new skin tones, middle finger and some sass

Microsoft is adding a number of new emoji symbols for Windows 10, and one of them will offer a way to give other people the finger. For the first time, an operating system has officially added an emoji with one raised middle finger as a way of communicating with others.

Putting edginess aside, there are some other notable changes too.

While emoji symbols have been around for a while, they have seen a surge of popularity in the last couple of years as mobile phone users have begun to incorporate them more in their text messages. Microsoft started incorporating emojis out of the box starting with Windows 8 in 2012 and added color support for Windows 8.1 in 2013.

According to the Emojipedia website, there will be six color variations for the many emoji in Windows 10. It adds that another emoji look's like Mr. Spock's Vulcan Salute in Star Trek in Microsoft's new OS, similar to the one that was added by Apple in April's iOS emoji update.

These are the other notable changes noted on the blog:

  • Unicode 7 Additions
  • People/face icons are less comical
  • Diversity (pale, cream white, moderate brown, dark brown, and black skin tones)
  • Neutral gray skin tone

The article notes that Microsoft has decided to make gray as the default skin color for emoji people, rather than a bright shade of yellow for iOS or Android users. This change to a more neutral skin tone is meant to reflect the increased demand for color diversity from users, who may not identify with 'white' emoji. If users do not want the gray version, they can choose one of six color variations mentioned above.

Source: Emojipedia; Via: Reddit

John Callaham