Microsoft to refresh more than 1800 emojis; plans to bring back Clippit

Those who have been using Microsoft Office since the beginning know Clippit, the default office assistant, which was popularly called Clippy. Microsoft discontinued Clippy in 2007, following a large-scale backlash against the virtual assistant. However, through a tweet dated July 14, 2021, Microsoft expressed its plans for bringing back Clippy to Microsoft 365, and the post got a positive response from Microsoft users and fans worldwide. Read on to know more about Clippit. 

Microsoft plans to bring back Clippy  

A tweet from Microsoft dated July 14, 2021, says "If this gets 20k likes, we'll replace the paperclip emoji in Microsoft 365 with Clippy." Surprisingly, the tweet had more than 160k likes. The tweet comes ahead of World Emoji Day, which will be observed on Saturday, July 17, 2021. Microsoft is also planning to refresh 1,888 emojis across all Microsoft services and apps later this year. 

Reviving Clippy is a part of Microsoft's plans for refreshing emojis with 3D designs and animating them. The developments are in line with Microsoft's new design language called Fluent, which aims at producing brighter, more vibrant, and humanly designs. Microsoft Office and other services will also get five new emojis which are specially developed around the theme 'working from home'. 

A Medium blog post published by Microsoft Design on July 15, 2021 says that "We opted for 3D designs over 2D and chose to animate the majority of our emoji. While you’ll see these roll out in product over the coming months, we wanted to share a sneak peek with you in honor of World Emoji Day. We’re also excited to unveil five brand-new emoji that signal our fresh perspective on work, expression, and the spaces in between."

Microsoft is inclined towards providing the users with a seamless experience with its services and apps. Emojis are a popular way to communicate in the digital age as they can convey multiple emotions. The emojis are used globally and are based on Unicode technology, which enables them to be accessed and viewed on several platforms. According to the World Emoji Day website, over 900 million emojis are sent every day and the most commonly used emoji is the one with laughing tears. 

IMAGE: MICROSOFT TWITTER