Unicode 6.1 released complete with emoji characters and a pile of poo

Ray Walters, Geek.com

The Unicode Consortium recently announced the release of the Unicode 6.1 standard, updating the set with 732 new characters. Included in the update is support for the popular “emoji” icons widely used by consumers in China on mobile devices. One of the most interesting interesting characters added to the set is U+1F4A9, or to be more specific, “pile of poo.”

We crap you not (see what we did there?), the Consortium thought enough people wanted to communicate their displeasure on a topic of conversation by depicting a steaming pile of waste that it included the icon in the official standard. Along with pile of poo, “love hotel” was also added… you can use your imaginations as to why.

For those of you who are more interested in the less amusing additions to the set, you won’t be disappointed. Also included are seven new script extensions as well as support for identifying emoticons, text-style symbols as well as the aforementioned emoji icons. Line breaks have been updated as well to better serve text written in Japanese and Hebrew. In addition language support for Thai and Chinese has been updated.