W3C

Talks by W3C Speakers (2008)

Many in the W3C community — including staff, chairs, and Member representatives — present W3C work at conferences and other events. Below you will find a list some of the talks. All material is copyright of the author, except where otherwise noted.

January 2008

February 2008

March 2008

April 2008

May 2008

  • 2008 5 May

    XBRL and the Semantic Web (panel)

    by Ivan Herman

    17th International XBRL Conference

    Eindhoven, The Netherlands

    Relevant technology area: Semantic Web .

  • 2008 5 May

    What is the Semantic Web?

    by Ivan Herman

    17th International XBRL Conference

    Eindhoven, The Netherlands

    Relevant technology area: Semantic Web .

  • 2008 6 May

    XForms 1.1 (tutorial)

    by Steven Pemberton

    XTech 2008

    Dublin, Ireland

    Relevant technology area: Web Design and Applications .

    Abstract:
    XForms 1.1 XForms is a new technology being widely adopted by industry: even though it was designed for forms, as the name suggests, it is capable of, and is being used for, much more. It has been adopted by Open Office for use in its ODF Document Format, and Yahoo! has recently announced its use on their new mobile platform Blueprint. Industry experience is showing that using XForms can greatly reduce the amount of work needed: one company reported that a task that in the past needed 150 person-years needed only 10 person-years with XForms. The advantages of XForms include: * It improves the user experience: XForms has been designed to allow much to be checked by the browser, such as types of fields being filled in, or that one date is later than another. This reduces the need for round trips to the server or for extensive script-based solutions, and improves the user experience by giving immediate feedback to what is being filled in. * It is XML, and it can submit XML. * It combines existing XML technologies: Rather than reinventing the wheel, XForms uses a number of existing XML technologies, such as XPath for addressing and calculating values, and XML Schemas for defining data types. This has a dual benefit: ease of learning for people who already know these technologies, and implementors can use off-the-shelf components to build their systems. * It is internationalized. * It is accessible: XForms has been designed so that it will work equally well with accessible technologies (for instance for blind users) and with traditional visual browsers. * It is device independent: the same form can be delivered without change to a traditional browser, a PDA, a mobile phone, a voice browser, and even some more exotic emerging clients such as an Instant Messenger. This greatly eases providing forms to a wide audience, since forms only need to be authored once. * It is easier to author complicated forms. The presenter is one of the authors of the XForms specifications, and is Forms Activity lead at the W3C. This tutorial introduces XForms step-by-step. It covers essentially all of XForms except some technical details about events, and no more than a passing reference to the use of Schemas. It particularly deals with what is new in XForms 1.1, which is currently at candidate recommendation phase, and is being implemented for several browsers. Emphasis is on how to improve the user experience, and how XForms improves accessibility and device independence, and makes the author's life easy in producing a better experience.
  • 2008 6 May

    Verordnete (Barriere-)Freiheit (Prescribed (Barrier-)Freedom) (panel)

    by Shadi Abou-Zahra

    Einfach-für-Alle Tagung
    (Easy-for-All Conference)

    Gelsenkirchen, Germany

    Relevant technology area: Web Design and Applications .

  • 2008 7 May

    Introduzione al Semantic Web (Introduction to Semantic Web) (tutorial)

    by Oreste Signore

    Web Senza Barriere '08
    (No barriers in the Web '08)

    Roma, Italy

    Relevant technology area: Semantic Web .

    Abstract:
    Basic principles of Semantic Web and related technologies
  • 2008 7 May

    Tecnologie W3C per l'e-inclusion (W3C Technologies for e-inclusion)

    by Oreste Signore

    Web Senza Barriere '08
    (No barriers in the Web '08)

    Roma, Italy

    Relevant technology area: Web Design and Applications .

    Abstract:
    Generalities about accessibility and main points of WCAG 2.0
  • 2008 8 May

    Claves de accesibilidad para las empresas

    by Jesús García

    Expansión Conferencias: Novedades Legislativas para el Impulso de la sociedad de la Información y la Protección de Datos

    Madrid, Spain

    Relevant technology area: Web Design and Applications .

  • 2008 8 May

    Why you should have a Website

    by Steven Pemberton

    XTech 2008

    Dublin, Ireland

    Relevant technology areas: Semantic Web and Web Design and Applications .

    Abstract:
    The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis postulates a link between thought and language: if you haven’t got a word for a concept, you can’t think about it; if you don’t think about it, you won’t invent a word for it. The term “Web 2.0” is a case in point. It was invented by a book publisher as a term to build a series of conferences around, and conceptualises the idea of Web sites that gain value by their users adding data to them. But the concept existed before the term: Ebay was already Web 2.0 in the era of Web 1.0. But now we have the term we can talk about it, and it becomes a structure in our minds, and in this case a movement has built up around it. There are inherent dangers for users of Web 2.0. For a start, by putting a lot of work into a Web site, you commit yourself to it, and lock yourself into their data formats. This is similar to data lock-in when you use a proprietary program. You commit yourself and lock yourself in. Moving comes at great cost. This was one of the justifications for creating the eXtended Markup Language (XML): it reduces the possibility of data lock-in – having a standard representation for data helps using the same data in different ways too. As an example, if you commit to a particular photo-sharing Web site, you upload thousands of photos, tagging extensively, and then a better site comes along. What do you do? How about if the site you have chosen closes down (as has happened with some Web 2.0 music sites): all your work is lost. How do you decide which social networking site to join? Do you join several and repeat the work? How about geneology sites, and school-friend sites? These are all examples of Metcalf’s law, which postulates that the value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of nodes in the network. Simple maths shows that if you split a network into two, its value is halved. This is why it is good that there is a single email network, and bad that there are many instant messenger networks. It is why it is good that there is only one World Wide Web. Web 2.0 partitions the Web into a number of topical sub-Webs, and locks you in, thereby reducing the value of the network as a whole. So does this mean that user contributed content is a Bad Thing? Not at all, it is the method of delivery and storage that is wrong. The future lies in better aggregators.
  • 2008 8 May

    CSS Template Layout is not only for big grids

    by Bert Bos

    XTech 2008

    Dublin, Ireland

    Relevant technology area: Web Design and Applications .

    Abstract:

    The CSS Advanced Layout module that is currently under development in W3C grew out of a need to easily create “portal” pages in HTML with different layouts on screens of different sizes, in particular on mobile phones. But it can not only create grids for positioning text boxes and images, but also create very small grids, such as for placing the elements of a mathematical formula.

    This presentation shows how the same idea, the traditional layout grid, can be used at different scales, from a whole document or a printed page, via forms and GUIs, down to an inline formula.

    The CSS rule to define a grid is typically only one line. And the grids are quite independent of the mark-up, which is what makes it possible, e.g., to render subscripts in MathML in front of a symbol, although they come after the symbol in the mark-up.

    The Advanced Layout module thus promises not only to make the “visual semantics” of a document easier to express, but also to make the mark-up, which embodies the rest of the meaning, less dependent on the desired rendering.

    The presentation includes a demo with a (partial) prototype implementation.

  • 2008 10 May

    Proposal, shared type/text specification for the desktop

    by Liam Quin

    Relevant technology areas: XML Core Technology and Web of Devices .

  • 2008 14 May

    Internationalisering och lokalisering -- språk på webben (Internationalization and Localization - languages on the web)

    by Olle Olsson

    Språk och Internet
    (Languages and the Internet)

    Stockholm, Sweden

    Relevant technology area: Web Design and Applications .

  • 2008 15 May

  • 2008 16 May

  • 2008 18 May

    State of the Semantic Web

    by Ivan Herman

    Relevant technology area: Semantic Web .

    Abstract:
    The history of the Semantic Web goes back several years now. It is worth looking at what has been achieved, where we are, and where we are going. Ivan Herman, Semantic Web Activity Lead for the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) leads us through this as we prepare for a week of deep discussions with people from all parts of the community of semantic technologies.
  • 2008 19 May

    Abstract:
    It’s no secret that just as the web has revolutionised business, the media, and many other parts of our lives, it is also revolutionising how governments and citizens interact, and how government provide services. But how to do it well is still something of a black art. In this keynote presentation, the lead of the W3C's eGovernment initiative, Jose Manuel Alonso, looks at the opportunities the web provides governments, the challenges, old and new, the web poses, and the role of the W3C in helping to develop underlying, interoperable technologies with which to build these services. Jose's presentation will cover best practices and methodologies for providing eGovernment services, and look at case studies of how governments and communities are connecting via the web around the world.
  • 2008 20 May

    Fast Forward: Get Ready for Web 3.0

    by Steve Bratt , in cooperation with the Spain Office

    Abstract:
    The Web has been a tremendous vehicle for global communication, commerce and change. A suite of emerging technologies is leveraging the fundamental principles that has made Web a success, and will enable the useful integration of data, information and knowledge from across the entire Web. Steve Bratt, CEO of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), will discuss how new, interoperable standards in areas such Web 2.0 semantic Web, mobility, ubiquity, accessibility and security will foster unbounded, Web-scale mashups of information made available on an increasing range of devices. The benefits of this new "Web 3.0" will be felt by everyone everywhere -- from physicians seeking critical information to deliver better medical care, to farmers in rural Africa looking for the most favorable markets for their produce.
  • 2008 21 May

  • 2008 21 May

    Towards eGovernment 2.0

    by José Manuel Alonso , in cooperation with the Australia Office

    Abstract:
    eGovernment services are achieving the highest levels of sophistication ever. Several countries are at 100% of online availability and close to perfectly sophisticated services but even so, their usage is not taking off and some good old problems are still unsolved. This talk will review the challenges that governments are still facing and propose ways to tackle them by using open standards, improving transparency and participation and achieving seamless integration of data.
  • 2008 22 May

    Bringing SemTech Back to the Business (panel)

    by Ivan Herman

    Relevant technology area: Semantic Web .

    Abstract:
    With a panel of leaders from the semantic technology industry, this session will give us the opportunity to reflect on the many discussions that have taken place during the week of SemTech 2008 and help us map the course as we prepare to extend those conversations back into our workplaces. We will touch on issues of ROI, making the case for semantic technologies in the enterprise, and what to expect in the coming year in the semantic tech space.
  • 2008 23 May

    Il supporto delle ontologie nella ricerca dell' informazione (Ontology support in information retrieval)

    by Oreste Signore

    La strutturazione delle informazioni nella documentazione tecnica
    (Information structuring in technical documentation)

    Udine, Italy

    Relevant technology area: Semantic Web .

  • 2008 25 May

  • 2008 27 May

    One Big Happy Family: Practical Collaboration on Meaningful Markup

    by Dan Brickley

    Microformats vEvent

    London, United Kingdom

    Relevant technology areas: Semantic Web and Web Design and Applications .

    Abstract:
    This talk explores some ways in which the Microformat and RDF approaches can complement each other, and some ways in which we can share data, tools and experiences between these two technologies. It will outline the often-unarticulated history of the RDF design, the techniques used for parsing and querying RDF data, and the things made easy and hard through this approach. RDF techniques can be contrasted with the different choices made for Microformats. However these differences obscure an underlying similarity that comes from shared ‘Webby’ values.

June 2008

July 2008

August 2008

  • 2008 1 Aug

    Why do we need Internet standards and W3C

    by Ori Idan , in cooperation with the Israel Office

    August Penguin

    Tel-Aviv, Israel

  • 2008 8 Aug

    Webstandards e usabilidade para SEO (Webstandards and usability in SEO) (panel)

    by Vagner Diniz and Carlos Cecconi, cecconi@nic.br

    SMX Search Marketing Expo

    São Paulo, Brazil

    Abstract:
    A panel focused on the convergence of webstandards, usability and search engine ranking
  • 2008 8 Aug

    Webstandards e usabilidade para SEO (Webstandards and usability in SEO)

    by Vagner Diniz and Carlos Cecconi, cecconi@nic.br

    SMX Search Marketing Expo

    São Paulo, Brazil

    Abstract:
    During 40 days, W3C Brazil gave 17 talks in 11 different towns in the State of Paulo as part of SENAC\'s series of lectures Planet Web. The audience were about 900 students and small business men and women.
  • 2008 8 Aug

    Conversa sobre padrões web e a evolução da Internet (Talking about webstandards and the future of Internet)

    by Vagner Diniz

    Certforum

    São Paulo, Brazil

    Abstract:
    Like a talk show, runned by Cristina de Lucca, a web journalist, this talk focused on the future of Internet , the role of the open source and a few aspects of security in the Internet
  • 2008 16 Aug-17 Aug

    Hot and Spicy Style with CSS (tutorial)

    by Molly E Holzschlag

    Relevant technology area: Web Design and Applications .

    Abstract:
    From image replacement to effective navigation and background graphic design, integration with Flash in standards-based design, to anecdotes, and wit and wisdom from the entertaining Molly E. Holzschlag, this two day CSS hands-on methods helps any modern Web designer advance his or her work with CSS, no matter which tool or level of CSS knowledge.
  • 2008 18 Aug

    A importância dos padrões na evolução da Web (The importance of standards in the future of the web)

    by Vagner Diniz

    Seminário da Arquitetura e-Ping
    (Seminar on e-Ping Interoperable architecture)

    Rio Branco, Acre, Brazil

  • 2008 18 Aug

    Tecnologia, mercado e novos modelos de produção (Technology, market and new models of production) (panel)

    by Vagner Diniz

    Seminário Ponto Livre
    (Seminar Free Point)

    Brasilia, Brazil

    Abstract:
    In this panel W3C presented its collaborative way of producing web technologies.
  • 2008 18 Aug

    Interoperabilidade e Desenvolvimento de Aplicações Orientadas a Serviços (Interoperability and Service Oriented Application Development) (panel)

    by Vagner Diniz

    CONSEGI Congresso Internacional Sociedade e Governo Eletrônico
    (International Conference on Society and e-Government)

    Brasilia, Brazil

    Abstract:
    Panelists debated the Government Framework for Application Systems Interoperability, based on SOA architecture. W3C presented the improtance of webstandards to evolve this framework.
  • 2008 20 Aug

    Multimodal Standards and Applications

    by Deborah Dahl , Ingmar Kliche , and Raj Tumuluri

    SpeechTEK

    New York, USA

    Relevant technology area: Web of Devices .

    Abstract:
    This presentation will showcase standards-based multimodal applications developed by member companies of the W3C Multimodal Interaction Working Group. It will also demonstrate some laboratory applications that illustrate the principles of the W3C Multimodal Architecture and a deployed healthcare application that enables users to type, speak, and scribble on their mobile devices to record vital readings, highlight regions of interest on images, and submit them wirelessly.
  • 2008 22 Aug

  • 2008 28 Aug

    Affärsmodeller och samarbete på framtidens webb (Business models and collaboration on the future web)

    by Olle Olsson

    Världshandelsdagen 2008 -- "Bortom Web 2.0"
    (World Trade Day 2008 -- "Beyond Web 2.0")

    Stockholm, Sweden

September 2008

October 2008