W3C Mobile Web Initiative Sponsors to Reveal Vision in London on 15 November 2005

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http://www.w3.org/ -- 25 October 2005 -- The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and sponsors of the Mobile Web Initiative (MWI) are organizing a morning of presentations related to challenges and opportunities for the mobile Web on Tuesday 15 November 2005. The half-day event will take place at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) in London.

"The Mobile Web Initiative's goal is to make browsing the Web from mobile devices a reality," explains Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director and inventor of the Web. "W3C and mobile industry leaders are working together to improve Web content production and access for mobile users and the greater Web."

Mobile Web Initiative Aims to Provide a Richer and Easier Web User Experience

The rich Web environment is one that users now expect to access from mobile devices as well as the desktop. Yet interoperability and usability problems persist, and mobile Web access still suffers as a result. With the support of international mobile industry leaders, W3C recently launched the Mobile Web Initiative, which aims to use existing standards in documentable ways — Mobile Web Best Practices (see news item) — to improve the mobile experience on the Web.

Mobile Web Initiative to Hold Its First Outreach Event in Europe

This public MWI event will focus on current mobile Web challenges and opportunities. The program opens with a video welcome from Tim Berners-Lee, followed by a presentation on the vision and ambitions for the mobile Web by Dr. Philipp Hoschka, Deputy Director for W3C Europe and W3C's Mobile Web Initiative leader.

Mobile Web Initiative sponsors will speak on two panels: "Mobile Web Challenges and Potential" and "Putting the Vision into Practice", chaired respectively by Rotan Hanharan, chief architect at MobileAware, and Daniel Appelquist, senior technology strategist for the Vodafone Group.

The content of this half day's talks is to be made available to the public. W3C is organizing this event to further the MWI mission of educating operators, content developers, and handset manufacturers on available options and new developments.

Mobile Web Initiative Boasts Strong International Sponsorship

The current nineteen MWI sponsors are key players in the mobile production chain, including authoring tool vendors, content providers, adaptation providers, handset manufacturers, browser vendors and mobile operators. They are:

Afilias, Argogroup, Bango.net, Drutt Corporation, Ericsson, France Telecom, HP, Jataayu Software, mTLD, MobileAware, Nokia, NTT DoCoMo, Opera Software, TIM Italia, RuleSpace, Segala M Test, Sevenval, Vodafone, and Volantis.

Logistics and Contact Information

Date: 15 November 2005
Time: from 8:30 am until 12:30pm
Location: The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), 195 Piccadilly, London - W1J 9LN, UK
To register, press should contact Salli Roskilly at w3c@saffroncoms.com (Tel: +44 (0)1763 208708 -- Mob: +44 07977 573003) or fill out the online registration form.
Contact Americas and Australia --
Janet Daly, <janet@w3.org>, +1.617.253.5884 or +1.617.253.2613
Contact Europe, Africa and Middle East --
Marie-Claire Forgue, <mcf@w3.org>, +33 4 92 38 75 94 or +33 6 76 86 33 41
Contact Asia --
Yasuyuki Hirakawa <chibao@w3.org>, +81.466.49.1170

About W3C's Mobile Web Initiative (W3C-MWI)

The mission of W3C’s Mobile Web Initiative (W3C MWI) is to make Web access from a mobile device as simple, easy, and convenient as Web access from a desktop device. Through the MWI Sponsorship Program, key players in the mobile production chain, including authoring tool vendors, content providers, adaptation providers, handset manufacturers, browser vendors and mobile operators lead the Initiative. MWI participants develop authoring guidelines, checklists and best practices, as well as a database of descriptions that can be used by content authors to adapt their content to a particular device. For more information see http://www.w3.org/Mobile/

About the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

The W3C was created to lead the Web to its full potential by developing common protocols that promote its evolution and ensure its interoperability. It is an international industry consortium jointly run by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL) in the USA, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) headquartered in France and Keio University in Japan. Services provided by the Consortium include: a repository of information about the World Wide Web for developers and users, and various prototype and sample applications to demonstrate use of new technology. To date, nearly 400 organizations are Members of the Consortium. For more information see http://www.w3.org/

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