Showing you I'm #1 —

Windows 10 gives users the finger with new emojis

Unicode 7 added a flip the bird emoji, which most platforms curiously omit.

What better way to tell your Twitter followers that you're number one.
What better way to tell your Twitter followers that you're number one.

Unicode 7.0, standardized last June, added 2,834 new symbols to its lexicon. Around 250 of these were emoji, and operating systems have been updated in the months since to include support for many of these new pictograms.

However, one of the Unicode 7.0 emoji has gone unimplemented: the catchily named "Reversed Hand With Middle Finger Extended," codepoint U+1F595. Or as it's known in common parlance, the finger.

iOS, OS X, and Android all omit this important and expressive gesture. The emoji obsessives of Emojipedia, however, noticed that Windows 10 bucks the trend and includes support for the one finger salute. As with other emojis representing humans and their body parts, the flip the bird emoji supports Unicode skin color. By default, it uses a non-human tone—Windows 10 uses grey for this, in contrast to iOS's Simpsonesque yellow—but it can also be shown with a variety of roughly humanoid skin tones.

I'm not convinced that emoji will ever be able to capture the full diversity of humanity.
Enlarge / I'm not convinced that emoji will ever be able to capture the full diversity of humanity.

Windows 10 will still have some gaps in its Unicode support, with my favorite feature, the national flag capability, sadly missing. But if you want to show people who's the boss—and really, who doesn't?—Microsoft's new operating system is the one to go for.

Channel Ars Technica