mac has the new bitcoin Unicode character already!(i.redd.it)submitted by π Rendered by PID 12374 on app-162 at 2017-06-24 11:36:59.731779+00:00 running 3522178 country code: SG.A decades-old computer character standard has been updated with a symbol for bitcoin.The Unicode Consortium unveiled Unicode version 10.0 today, which includes the bitcoin "B" symbol.Overall, the update includes 8,518 characters, along with 56 new emojis.The move comes more than a year and a half after the Unicode Consortium, which oversees the Unicode computing text standard, approved a proposal that itself constituted a years-long process.Efforts toward a bitcoin Unicode symbol date back to as early as 2011.The proposal, submitted by technology blogger Ken Shirriff, was actually the second to be considered by the Consortium.An earlier push by Sander van Galoven of the Netherlands was rejected by the organization.Image via Shutterstock The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is an independent media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies.

Previous Article Illinois Government Sponsors Month-Long Blockchain Hackathon Next Article ICO Blues: Status Raises $64 Million (So Far) But Leaves...Phones Laptops Cameras Tablets Headphones Smartwatches VR Headsets This is my NextAs obvious an oversight as it could be, attempting to type the bitcoin symbol via text, email, or on webpages is not the easiest thing.However, after a successful vote at the latest Unicode meeting, users will be able to easily type the character.The #Bitcoin sign is accepted by Unicode.My second addition to Unicode, probably more useful than the group mark.https://t.co/ZOoBGGMmX3— Ken Shirriff (@kenshirriff) November 3, 2015 “The Bitcoin symbol is clearly popular enough that it should be in Unicode,” said Ken Shirriff, the author of the proposal, in an interview with Bitcoin Magazine.“Getting the Bitcoin symbol into the Unicode standard was clearly the right thing for Unicode and the right thing for the Bitcoin community.” Shirriff, who showed how one could mine for bitcoin with pencil and paper or with a 55 year old mainframe, felt that it was a huge oversight to not have the symbol part of Unicode.

Since he had experience getting another symbol approved by Unicode, “I figured I needed to make this happen.” In his proposal, he wrote, “There is substantial demand for [Bitcoin Symbol] to be added to Unicode, the user community supports adding the sign to Unicode and its addition would fill a significant gap in Unicode’s currency symbols.wow ethereal item upgradeThis proposal has the support of the Bitcoin Foundation as well as other Bitcoin organizations, companies and developers.” This wasn’t his first time getting a new symbol added to Unicode.ethereum virtual machine“I have been helping restore an IBM mainframe from the 1960s and it uses a strange character set (BCDIC).litecoin gbp exchange rateWhen I tried to write about the computer, I discovered that one symbol (the group mark symbol) was missing from Unicode.bitcoin quiz master

I figured I’d try to get that character added to Unicode, so I followed the steps that the power symbol people suggested, wrote up a proposal, and got the group mark symbol added to Unicode.” Shirriff explained that part of the process was showing the symbol used in “running text.ethereum usage“/ were very helpful and gave me a ton of examples, everything from web pages to research papers,” he said.ethereum total blocksOriginally, the Bitcoin Foundation was pushing to get the symbol added to Unicode, but after a year, there had been little progress.Shirriff submitted the proposal at the beginning of the month and gained acceptance last night.“The Unicode 9.0 standard will come out in June, so the Bitcoin symbol should be in that version,” Shirriff said, though he cautioned that font support could take longer.Between the next bitcoin halving and this symbol, it seems like Summer of 2016 should be a very exciting time.

Jacob Donnelly is a full-time product manager and freelance journalist covering stocks, business and bitcoin.He runs a weekly digital currency and blockchain newsletter called Crypto Brief.MacOS, the operating system behind tech giant Apple’s most popular laptop production series MacBook, introduced a new Unicode for Bitcoin.Unicode is an international encoding standard designed to be used with different languages and scripts.The core of multiple operating systems such as MacOS, Ubuntu and Microsoft is based on Unicode encodings, which enable users to embed symbols, characters, or numbers into a program of a piece of software without integrating additional features.On the image provided below the symbol of Bitcoin is used in correlation with other characters and digits seamlessly within the same program.On the MacOS, users can type the Bitcoin symbol in the same way they would type letters or numbers.Ubuntu, another leading operating system for computers and mobile devices also introduced support for Bitcoin Unicode recently, allowing users to embed the Bitcoin symbol on the UbuntuOS-supported programs without having to add or install custom fonts or symbols into a device.

In late 2015, Bitcoin Core developer Luke-Jr added the U+20BF Bitcoin symbol to the Droid Sans and Console fonts to enable any OS users to embed Bitcoin symbols.Some major operating systems such as Microsoft and Linux are yet to formally introduce native support of Bitcoin Unicode.For users using operating systems without the built-in support of the Bitcoin symbol, they can rely on alternative solutions like Luke-Jr’s font addition to embedding the Bitcoin symbol into a program.On January 1, Cointelegraph reported that Microsoft added native Bitcoin support for its Microsoft Excel software.The integration of Bitcoin support into the Microsoft Excel program effectively allowed users to calculate, recognize, format and analyze numbers represented in Bitcoin.Martin Butler, account executive at Microsoft, stated: “In 2017, Excel will be able to recognize, format, calculate and analyze numbers expressed in Bitcoin currency.The new feature will be available for Excel running under Windows 10, Android, Mac OS and iOS and will include Excel Mobile versions as well.” The Bitcoin community responded positively to the efforts of Microsoft in making Bitcoin official in its software for users.