2007-12-21: The Mobile Web Initiative Device Description Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of Device Description Repository Core Vocabulary. This document describes the Device Description Repository Core Vocabulary for Content Adaptation, that is, the properties that are considered essential for adaptation of content in the mobile Web. Its intended use is to define a baseline vocabulary for implementations of the Device Description Repository (DDR). Learn more about the Mobile Web Initiative Activity. (Permalink)
2007-12-21: The Web API Working Group has published the Last Call Working Draft of Selectors API. Selectors, which are widely used in CSS, are patterns that match against elements in a tree structure. The Selectors API specification defines methods for retrieving Element nodes from the Document Object Model (DOM) by matching against a group of selectors. Comments are welcome through 06 January 2008. The Working Group has also published a Working Draft of DOM Level 3 Events, a generic platform- and language-neutral event system which allows registration of event handlers, describes event flow through a tree structure, and provides basic contextual information for each event. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity. (Permalink)
2007-12-21: The Ubiquitous Web Applications Working Group has published the Candidate Recommendation of Delivery Context: Client Interfaces (DCCI) 1.0. This document defines platform and language neutral programming interfaces that provide Web applications access to a hierarchy of dynamic properties representing device capabilities, configurations, user preferences and environmental conditions. In addition, the Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of Delivery Context Ontology, which provides a formal model for the delivery context which other specifications can reference normatively. Learn more about the Ubiquitous Web Applications Activity. (Permalink)
2007-12-21: The SVG Working Group has published Last Call Working Drafts of SVG Print 1.2, Part 2: Language and SVG Print 1.2, Part 1: Primer. The former defines features of the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Language that are specifically for printing environments; the latter provides guidelines on how to use the print specification with SVG 1.2 Tiny and SVG 1.2 Full modules. Comments on both specifications are welcome through 08 February. Learn more about the Graphics Activity. (Permalink)
2007-12-20: On 23 January 2008, the W3C Spain Office will hold a virtual seminar where W3C staff will discuss the latest news in Web topics such as e-Government, Video on the Web, and Mobile Web in developing countries; see the program for the full list of topics and speakers. The public is invited to participate over the Internet in the seminar, which will take place in English from 15:00 to 18:00 (CET); see the participation instructions. The seminar, hosted by UPM, will also be broadcast online. Learn more about the W3C Spain Office. (Permalink)
2007-12-19: The Efficient XML Interchange (EXI) Working Group has published three documents: First Public Working Drafts of EXI Best Practices and EXI Primer, as well as a Working Draft of EXI Format 1.0. EXI is a very compact representation for the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Information Set that is intended to simultaneously optimize performance and the utilization of computational resources. Using a relatively simple algorithm, which is amenable to fast and compact implementation, and a small set of data types, it reliably produces efficient encodings of XML event streams. The primer and best practices documents complement the format specification. The best practices document also presents information suitable for the general reader interested in EXI's intended role in the expanding Web. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity. (Permalink)
2007-12-17: The Mobile Web Initiative Device Description Working Group has published the Group Note of Device Description Repository Requirements 1.0. This document describes the use cases for a Device Description Repository (DDR). Each use case is analyzed in order to determine the behavior expected of a DDR in order to realize it. These expected behaviors are captured as high-level requirements, which when normalized across all use cases, lead to a discrete set of DDR requirements. Learn more about the Mobile Web Initiative Activity. (Permalink)
2007-12-17: The Semantic Web Education and Outreach Interest Group has released a first Working Draft of a document explaining the effective use of URIs to enable the growth of the Semantic Web. URIs (Uniform Resource Identifiers) — more simply called "Web addresses" — are at the heart of the Web and also of the Semantic Web. Cool URIs for the Semantic Web discusses two strategies for choosing URIs for the Semantic Web, gives pointers to several Web sites that use these solutions, and briefly discusses why several other alternatives are less effective. Comments on this draft are requested by 21 January, to be integrated into a final document at the end of the Group's charter. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity. (Permalink)
2007-12-14: The Math Working Group has published three Working Drafts: Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) Version 3.0, A MathML for CSS profile, and the First Public Working Draft of XML Entity definitions for Characters. The first defines the Mathematical Markup Language (MathML), an XML application for describing mathematical notation and capturing both its structure and content, for publication on the Web. The second describes a profile of MathML 3.0 that admits formatting with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). The third defines several sets of names which are assigned to Unicode characters. Learn more about the Math Activity. (Permalink)
2007-12-12: The Voice Browser Working Group has published the Candidate Recommendation of Pronunciation Lexicon Specification (PLS) Version 1.0. Implementation feedback is welcome through 11 April 2008; please see the PLS 1.0 Implementation Report Plan for more information. PLS provides the basis for describing pronunciation information for use in speech recognition and speech synthesis, for use in tuning applications, e.g. for proper names that have irregular pronunciations. The Working Group has also updated Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) Version 1.1. Changes from the previous draft include addition of new "type" attribute with value of "ruby", change of references to "pronunciation alphabet" to be "pronunciation scheme", and modified attribute's names of audio element. Visit the Voice Browser home page. (Permalink)
2007-12-12: Video on the Web is hot! That is why Adobe, Apple, Canon, CBS Interactive, Cisco, Comcast, Disney, Hitachi, Motorola, Mozilla, Nokia, Opera, RealNetworks, Samsung, Sony, Sun, Turner Broadcasting, Web3D Consortium, YouTube, and other industry leaders have chosen to meet in San Jose (California) at the W3C Video on the Web Workshop on 12-13 December 2007 to discuss the video landscape. More and more people are publishing high-quality video, social networks are sprouting up around Web-delivered media, and IPTV (Internet-based delivery of television programming) is maturing rapidly. These and other changes pose challenges to the underlying technologies and standards to support the platform-independent creation, authoring, encoding/decoding, and description of video. To ensure the success of video as a "first class citizen" of the Web, W3C has invited the community to explore how to build a solid architectural foundation that enables people to create, navigate, search, and distribute video, and to manage digital rights; see the full agenda. W3C thanks Cisco for hosting the Workshop and to all the participants who sent position papers. (Permalink)
2007-12-11: The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Working Group has released a second Last Call Working Draft of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0, and Working Drafts of Understanding WCAG 2.0 and Techniques for WCAG 2.0. Following WCAG makes Web content more accessible to the vast majority of users, including people with disabilities and older users, using many different devices including a wide variety of assistive technologies. Comments are requested by 1 February 2008. Read the WCAG Overview, Call for Review, and about the Web Accessibility Initiative. (Permalink)
2007-12-11: The Multimodal Interaction Working Group has published the Candidate Recommendation of EMMA: Extensible MultiModal Annotation markup language. Implementation feedback is welcome through 14 April 2008. EMMA is a data exchange format for the interface between input processors and interaction management systems within the Multimodal Architecture and Interfaces, and defines the means to annotate application specific data with information such as confidence scores, time stamps, input mode, alternative recognition hypotheses, and partial recognition results. Visit the Multimodal Interaction home page. (Permalink)
2007-12-11: W3C is pleased to announce the creation of the Emergency Information Interoperability Framework Incubator Group, sponsored by W3C Members NICTA, Google, SICS, and IBM. The mission of this Incubator Group is to review and analyze the current state-of-the-art in vocabularies used in emergency management functions and to investigate the path forward via an emergency management systems information interoperability framework. Read about the Incubator Activity, an initiative to foster development of emerging Web-related technologies. (Permalink)
2007-12-06: Browse W3C presentations and events also available as an RSS channel. (Permalink)
2007-11-30: On 28 November, W3C Chief Executive Officer Steve Bratt delivered two talks — a keynote entitled "The World Wide Web Needs World Wide Standards" and an overview of W3C's standards work — at the 2007 Open Standards International Conference in Beijing, China. Today he gave an invited lecture on "Now and Future Web Technologies" at Beihang University in Beijing, China, where he was appointed Guest Professor by University President Li Wei and Professor and Executive Vice President Huai Jinpeng. Read also about the W3C Office in Beijing. (Permalink)
2007-11-29: W3C is pleased to announce the reopening of the Emotion Markup Language Incubator Group (XG). The mission of this new instance of the XG is to propose a specification draft for an Emotion Markup Language, to document it in a way accessible to non-experts, and to illustrate its use in conjunction with a number of existing markups. Note that this document would not be a standards-track document until W3C charters a Working Group to develop it as a W3C Recommendation. The XG is sponsored by W3C Members DFKI; Deutsche Telekom T-Com; Image, Video and Multimedia Systems Lab; Loquendo, S.p.A.; Chinese Academy of Sciences; and SRI International. W3C Members may use this form to join the group. Read the final report of the original Emotion XG and the Incubator Activity, an initiative to foster development of emerging Web-related technologies. (Permalink)
2007-11-29: The Forms Working Group has published the Candidate Recommendation of XForms 1.1. XForms is an XML application that represents the next generation of forms for the Web. An XForms-based Web form gathers and processes XML data using an architecture that separates presentation, purpose and content. XForms is not a free-standing document type, but is intended to be integrated into other markup languages, such as XHTML, ODF, or SVG. The Working Group invites implementation experience of this technology from the community; see also the group's wiki for tracking XForms 1.1 implementations. Learn more about the XForms Activity. (Permalink)
2007-11-29: The XML Processing Model Working Group has published a Working Draft of XProc: An XML Pipeline Language. This specification describes the syntax and semantics of XProc, a language for describing XML pipelines. Pipelines are made up of simple steps which perform atomic operations on XML documents and constructs similar to conditionals, loops and exception handlers which control which steps are executed. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity. (Permalink)
2007-11-28: W3C has published a summary and full minutes of the Workshop on W3C's Multimodal Architecture and Interfaces , organized by the Multimodal Interaction Working Group in Fujisawa, Japan on 16-17 November. Participants from 17 organizations generated a list of requirements on the current MMI Architecture. The Working Group will review the list as a basis for improvements to the Multimodal Framework. Visit the Multimodal Interaction home page. (Photo credit: Kazuyuki Ashimura. Permalink)
2007-11-26: The HTML Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of HTML Design Principles. This document describes the set of guiding principles used by the HTML Working Group for the development of HTML5, expected to define the fifth major revision of the core language of the World Wide Web. These design principles are an attempt to capture consensus on design approach in the areas of compatibility, utility, interoperability, and universal access. Learn more about the HTML Activity. (Permalink)
2007-11-26: The XHTML2 Working Group has published a Working Draft of CURIE Syntax 1.0. The aim of this document is to outline an abbreviated syntax for expressing Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs). The proposed technology does not target the XHTML Family Markup Languages exclusively. The target audience for this document is designers of technology (e.g., markup languages), not the users of that technology. Learn more about the HTML Activity. (Permalink)
2007-11-26: The Web Application Formats Working Group has published a Working Draft of Access Control for Cross-site Requests. This document introduces an "opt-in policy" mechanism whereby people managing a resource can declare whether other sites can retrieve it. The document also defines a mechanism based on the same policy to allow a resource to opt-in to requests using an HTTP method other than GET. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity. (Permalink)
2007-11-13: The RDF Data Access Working Group has published three SPARQL Proposed Recommendations: SPARQL Query Language for RDF, SPARQL Query Results XML Format, and SPARQL Protocol for RDF. The first specification defines the syntax and semantics of the SPARQL query language for RDF. SPARQL can be used to express queries across diverse data sources, whether the data is stored natively as RDF or viewed as RDF via middleware. The results of SPARQL queries can be results sets or RDF graphs; the second specification defines an XML format for the variable binding and boolean results formats. The third specification uses WSDL 2.0 to describe an HTTP protocol for conveying SPARQL queries to an SPARQL query processing service and returning the query results to the party that made the request. Comments are welcome through 10 December. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity. (Permalink)
2007-11-13: The Web Services Policy Working Group has published two Group Notes: Web Services Policy 1.5 - Primer and Web Services Policy 1.5 - Guidelines for Policy Assertion Authors. The former introduces the Web Services Policy language with examples. The latter explains how to use the relevant specifications to maximize interoperability. Learn more about the Web Services Activity. (Permalink)
2007-11-13: The Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group has published the Candidate Recommendation of W3C mobileOK Basic Tests 1.0. This document defines the tests that provide the basis for making a claim of W3C mobileOK Basic conformance and are based on W3C Mobile Web Best Practices. You are invited to use the alpha version of the W3C mobileOK Checker to test your content. Read the press release and learn more about the Mobile Web Initiative Activity. (Permalink)
2007-11-13: Today, W3C provides new means for people to create and find mobile friendly content. W3C invites Web authors to run the alpha release of the W3C mobileOK checker and make their content work on a broad range of mobile devices. The checker runs the tests defined in the W3C mobileOK Basic Tests 1.0 Candidate Recommendation. Read the press release and testimonials, and come see W3C at Mobile Internet World in Boston, Massachusetts (USA). (Permalink)
2007-11-07: Authors of the next version of HTML mix it up
with Semantic Web developers, security experts, Web accessibility advocates,
and the media on the banks of the Charles River in Cambridge, Massachusetts
(USA). Over 400 experts from around the world will participate in a
compelling Plenary Day Program
(TPAC) where they will address issues shaping the future of the Web. The
program includes a panel on the growing relationships between W3C and the
at-large developer community, the challenges HTML5 and XHTML2 propose to
solve, and W3C's emerging vision of what's needed for video on the Web. The
day culminates with a talk by W3C Director Tim Berners-Lee: "Cracks and
Mortar", a review of the Web to date and a close look at the gaps for signs
of both wear and opportunity. Press are invited to the event; see the press release and contact
w3t-pr@w3.org.(Photo credit: Coralie Mercier. Permalink)
2007-11-02: The Ubiquitous Web Applications Working Group has published a Working Draft of DIAL Part 0: Primer. This document provides an introduction to, and the benefits of, DIAL (the Device Independent Authoring Language). It summarizes the concept of device independence, the scenarios in which it could be used, and the considerations in order to achieve that goal. It then describes the role of DIAL in ensuring the delivery of content suitable for the user, device and inherent circumstances in which it was requested. Learn more about the Ubiquitous Web Applications Activity.(Permalink)
2007-11-01: The Internationalization Tag Set (ITS) Working Group has published the Working Draft of Best Practices for XML Internationalization. This document provides a set of guidelines for developing XML documents and schemas that are internationalized properly. Following the best practices describes here allow both the developer of XML applications, as well as the author of XML content to create material in different languages. Learn more about the Internationalization Activity.(Permalink)
2007-11-01: The Mobile Web Initiative Device Description Working Group has published two Group Notes: Device Description Ecosystem 1.0 and Device Description Landscape 1.0. The first describes the business models surrounding the creation, maintenance and use of device descriptions. It identifies the main actors in the current model, explores their motivations for participating, identifies the costs associated with participation and the benefits that accrue to participants. The second describes what efforts the W3C and other organizations are doing in order to provide accurate device descriptions, part of making it easier to author for the Mobile Web. Learn more about the Mobile Web Initiative Activity.(Permalink)
2007-11-01: The Web Security Context Working Group has published two documents: the First Public Working Draft of Web Security Context: Experience, Indicators, and Trust, which defines guidelines and requirements for the presentation and communication of Web security context information to end-users; ceremonies for secure data entry; and good practices for Web Site authors. The second is a Last Call Working Draft of Web Security Experience, Indicators and Trust: Scope and Use Cases, which helps explain what the group aims to achieve, what technologies may be used and how technical proposals will be evaluated. Last Call comments are welcome through 30 November. See also the companion to the Last Call draft, Web User Interaction: Threat Trees, a W3C Group Note. Learn more about the Security Activity.(Permalink)
2007-10-31: The User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG) Working Group has released the First Public Working Draft of User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 Requirements, which defines planned new work on the second generation of UAAG. UAAG provides guidance on designing Web browsers, media players, assistive technologies, and other 'user agents' to be accessible and to increase accessibility of Web content for people with disabilities. UAAG is part of a series of accessibility guidelines described in Essential Components of Web Accessibility. Read the UAAG Overview and about WAI.(Permalink)
2007-10-31: The Rule Interchange Format Working Group has published three documents: RIF Basic Logic Dialect , RIF RDF and OWL Compatibility, and RIF Core Design - Placeholder; the first two are First Public Working Drafts. Basic Logic Dialect specifies a basic format that allows logic rules to be exchanged between rule-based systems. Rules interchanged using the Rule Interchange Format RIF may depend on or be used in combination with RDF data and/or RDF Schema or OWL data models. RIF RDF and OWL Compatibility specifies compatibility of RIF with the Semantic Web languages RDF and RDFS; in the future the document will address OWL as well. Finally, the Placeholder document resets expectations about the core RIF design. The Working Group has decided that that the design previously published as RIF Core is better considered as the basis for Logic Rules, rather than all kinds of rules. In the future, a new Core may be published, but for now, interested parties should refer to the Basic Logic Dialect. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity.(Permalink)
2007-10-31: The Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER) Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER): Grouping of Resources. The Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER) facilitates the publication of descriptions of multiple resources such as all those available from a Web site. This document describes how sets of resources may be defined, either for use in Description Resources or in other contexts. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity.(Permalink)
2007-10-31: The Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER) Working Group has published the Group Note of POWDER: Use Cases and Requirements. This document sets out the use cases and requirements that have motivated the development of the Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER). The use cases address social and commercial needs to provide information about groups of Web resources, such as those available from a Web site, to aid the annotation and/or personalization of content for end users in varying delivery contexts. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity.(Permalink)
2007-10-31: The Geospatial Incubator Group published theirs reports on Geospatial Vocabulary and Geospatial Ontologies. The first document define a basic ontology and OWL vocabulary for representation of geospatial properties for Web resources. The second gives an overview and description of geospatial foundation ontologies to represent geospatial concepts and properties on the Web. Use cases for this work are described in the charter of the XG. Both publications are part of the Incubator Activity, a forum where W3C Members can innovate and experiment.(Permalink)
2007-10-31: Browse W3C presentations and events also available as an RSS channel. (Permalink)
2007-10-31: The XML Schema Patterns for Databinding Working Group published updated Working Drafts of Basic XML Schema Patterns for Databinding Version 1.0 and Advanced XML Schema Patterns for Databinding Version 1.0. The patterns can describe XML 1.0 representations of commonly used data structures independent of any particular programming language, database or modelling environment. Contribute to the test suite, and read the interoperability report and about Web services. (Permalink)
2007-10-30: W3C is pleased to announce the
launch of the W3C Brazil Office, hosted by
the NIC.br (Brazilian Network Information
Center) institute, in São Paulo, Brazil. Vagner Diniz is Office Manager. W3C
looks forward to increasing interaction with the Portuguese-speaking
community through this Office, its first in South America. The IT landscape
in Brazil aligns with exciting current trends at W3C such as mobile Web, Web
applications and video on the Web. Read the press release and visit the Offices home page. (Photo
credit: W3C Brazil Office. Permalink)
2007-10-29: The World Wide Web Consortium today released XForms 1.0 Third Edition as a Recommendation. The document responds to implementor feedback, brings the XForms 1.0 Recommendation up to date with second edition errata and reflects clarifications already implemented in XForms processors. XForms separates presentation and content, minimizes the need for scripting and round-trips to the server, and offers device independence. Visit the forms home page. (Permalink)
2007-10-26: The Semantic
Web Deployment Working Group and the XHTML2 Working
Group jointly published an updated Working Draft of the RDFa Primer 1.0. The
primer is an introduction to RDFa, a method
for embedding structured data in XHTML. Among changes in this draft are the
term "chaining," previously called striping, and a new
instanceof attribute. Visit the XHTML2
and Semantic Web home pages. (Permalink)
2007-10-26: W3C has named Shadi
Abou-Zahra to the position of WAI International Program
Office Activity Lead. The Activity's groups are responsible for education
and outreach, coordination with research, general discussion on Web
accessibility, coordination with the WAI Technical
Activity, and WAI liaisons with other organizations including standards
organizations. Shadi joined W3C in 2003. He coordinates WAI outreach in
Europe, accessibility evaluation techniques, and worked on the WAI-TIES
Project, and currently with the WAI-AGE
Project. Shadi will continue to lead development of the Evaluation and Report
Language (EARL) and chair the Evaluation and Repair Tools Working Group (ERT
WG). W3C wishes to thank Judy Brewer who led
the Activity, and continues her roles as Director of the Web Accessibility
Initiative, and WAI Technical Activity Lead. Read more about WAI. (Permalink)
XMLHttpRequest Object for Ajax: Working Draft2007-10-26: The Web API Working Group released
an updated Working Draft of The XMLHttpRequest Object.
The core component of Ajax, the
XMLHttpRequest object is an interface that allows scripts to
perform HTTP client
functions, such as submitting form data or loading data from a remote Web
site. Read about the Rich Web Clients Activity.
(Permalink)
2007-10-25: The Content Transformation Task Force of the Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group released the First Public Working Draft of Content Transformation Landscape 1.0. This document identifies some issues surrounding the use of transforming proxies in the delivery of Web content. Discussion of these issues is expected to influence the (future) requirements document for Content Transformation Guidelines. Read about the Mobile Web Initiative. (Permalink)
2007-10-23: The Web API Working Group released an updated Working Draft of Progress Events 1.0. These five events and their interfaces are used for data transfer in Ajax Web applications as described in XHR and for media access events. When additional data is downloaded on demand, scripts can monitor progress, construct loading bars, and take action once data has been transferred. Read about the Rich Web Clients Activity. (Permalink)
2007-10-23: The report of the Workshop on Next Steps for XML Signature and XML Encryption is available. The report shows strong interest in additional work on XML security at W3C. A basic signature profile, the referencing and transform models, updating the set of supported cryptographic algorithms, and revisiting XML canonicalization were seen as highest priority among the several topics identified by the participants. The Workshop was held in September in Mountain View, CA, USA, hosted by VeriSign and chaired by Frederick Hirsch (Nokia) and Thomas Roessler (W3C). Read about W3C Workshops and about the Security Activity. (Permalink)
2007-10-23: Tim
Berners-Lee (W3C) presents "Escaping the Walled Garden: Growing the
Mobile Web with Open Standards" at Mobile Internet
World, 13-15 November in Boston, MA, USA. W3C's Mobile
Web Initiative holds a pre-conference Developers Summit on 13 November with
initiative sponsors including Google, MobileAware, mTLD, Nokia, Opera
Software, France Telecom Group and Vodafone to discuss the "One Web" vision
and mobile standards. W3C hosts a media and analyst luncheon with the
speakers on 14 November. Read the media
advisory and about the Mobile Web Initiative.
(Photo credit: Le Fevre Communications. Permalink)
2007-10-19: We thank the thousands of people who participated in the QA Activity which has completed its work and closed as of 18 October 2007. However, we anticipate further developing the dialog with the community; we welcome your comments on the Q&A Weblog. W3C will continue to maintain and develop tools, the most popular resources on w3.org. We congratulate and thank Daniel Dardailler, Dominique Hazaël-Massieux and Karl Dubost of W3C who led the Activity, Lofton Henderson (OASIS), Lynne Rosenthal (NIST), Patrick Curran (Sun Microsystems), and Karl Dubost and Olivier Théreaux (W3C) who served as Chairs. Read the QA Activity Statement and visit the Q&A Weblog. (Permalink)
2007-10-19: The Protocols and Formats Working Group published updated Working Drafts of the WAI-ARIA Roadmap, WAI-ARIA Roles, and WAI-ARIA States and Properties. The WAI-ARIA Suite of documents addresses the accessibility to people with disabilities of dynamic Web content built with Ajax and DHTML. WAI-ARIA includes technologies to map controls, Ajax live regions, and events to accessibility APIs, including custom controls used for rich Internet applications. It also describes new navigation techniques to mark common Web structures as menus, primary content, secondary content, banner information and other types of Web structures. Implementation of WAI-ARIA in languages such as HTML 4, HTML 5 and XHTML is in active development. Read the WAI-ARIA Overview and about the Web Accessibility Initiative. (Permalink)
2007-10-19: The Semantic Web Deployment Working Group and the XHTML2 Working Group jointly have published the First Public Working Draft of RDFa in XHTML: Syntax and Processing. RDFa attributes can be used with languages such as HTML and XHTML to express structured data. RDFa allows terms from multiple independently-developed vocabularies to be freely intermixed. This document has parsing rules for those creating an RDFa parser as well as guidelines for users in organizations who wish to use RDFa. For those who would like start using RDFa, the RDFa Primer is an introduction to its use and shows real-world examples. Visit the Semantic Web and XHTML2 home pages. (Permalink)
2007-10-19: The CSS Working Group released a Working Draft of CSS Mobile Profile 2.0. Comments are welcome through 15 November. This subset of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) 2.1 is a baseline for implementations of CSS on constrained devices like mobile phones, written with WICD Mobile 1.0 to ensure interoperability and for alignment with OMA's Wireless CSS Specification 1.1. Visit the CSS home page. (Permalink)
2007-10-19: The CSS Working Group released the First Public Working Draft of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Snapshot 2007. All stable specifications that have been implemented for the Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) language at all Levels are given in this single document as a guide for authors. The snapshot is not a guide to what features are implemented. The group expects it to be a future Working Group Note. Visit the CSS home page. (Permalink)
2007-10-19: The CSS Working Group released an updated Working Draft of Behavioral Extensions to CSS. Behavioral extensions provide a way to link to binding technologies such as XBL from CSS style sheets. Bindings thus can be selected using the CSS cascade and can transparently benefit from the user style sheet mechanism, media selection, and alternate style sheets. Visit the CSS home page. (Permalink)
2007-10-19: The Web API Working Group released an updated Working Draft of Selectors API. Widely used in CSS, selectors are patterns that match against elements in a tree structure. These methods are defined to retrieve element nodes from the DOM by matching against a group of selectors, and simplify the process of acquiring specific elements, especially compared with more verbose techniques used in the past. Visit the Web API home page. (Permalink)
2007-10-17: Position papers are due 21 November for the Workshop on Video on the Web on 12-13 December 2007 in San Jose, California, USA, hosted by Cisco Systems. The Workshop goal is to help make video a first class Web citizen. Attendees will discuss topics such as the impact of video on the Web, user experience, search, accessibility, parental control, video production, description, digital rights, adaptation, mobile access, Web architecture, scalability, formats and delivery. Read about W3C Workshops. (Permalink)
2007-10-17: The Web API Working Group released the First Public Working Draft of Language Bindings for DOM Specifications. The draft specifies the IDL language for use by W3C specifications that define DOM interfaces and specifies conformance requirements for their ECMAScript and Java bindings. This guide for implementors of DOM specifications is also a reference for new ones, written to ensure conforming implementations of DOM interfaces are interoperable. Read about rich Web clients. (Permalink)
2007-10-16: The Web Application Formats Working Group released an updated Working Draft of Widgets 1.0. Written for users to run in their Web browser environment, widgets are small applications that display and update remote data, for example, clocks, stock tickers, news casters, weather forecasters and games. The group is specifying widgets' packaging format, their configuration and processing model, launching by the user agent, version control, DOM APIs and events including communication between widgets, digital signing, accessibility, and discovery within HTML documents. Read about Rich Web Clients. (Permalink)
2007-10-16: W3C
holds Technical Plenary Week on 5-10 November in
Cambridge, MA, USA. A record 39 W3C Working Groups plus the Advisory
Committee and Advisory Board hold face-to-face meetings and network about the
future of the Web. For the first time, members of the media are invited to
join Plenary Day on Wednesday, 7 November, when program includes the
developer community, discussion of HTML5 and XHTML2, and video on the Web.
Read the media advisory. W3C thanks platinum sponsors BEA, Cisco, IBM and
Nokia for their generous support of this meeting. Registration is
required. Join W3C and attend the next
Technical Plenary planned for October 2008 in France (tentative). (Photo credit: Coralie Mercier. Permalink)
2007-10-12: The report of the Workshop on Mobile Ajax co-sponsored by W3C
and the OpenAjax Alliance is
available. Among areas the Workshop identified as needing attention are
JavaScript access to device APIs, offline/disconnected
operation, widgets, mashups and security. The Workshop was held in Mountain
View, CA, USA, hosted by Microsoft. Read about W3C Workshops and about the Mobile Web Initiative. (Photo credit:
Daniel K. Appelquist. Permalink)
2007-10-05: The Math Working Group published an updated Working Draft of Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) Version 3.0. MathML is an XML application for describing mathematical notation and capturing both its structure and content. The goal of MathML is to enable mathematics to be served, received, and processed on the World Wide Web, just as HTML has enabled this functionality for text. Version 3 adds features such as support for bidirectional text and elementary math. Learn more about the Math Activity. (Permalink)
2007-10-05: The XHTML2
Working Group released a Last Call Working Draft of XHTML Role Attribute Module. With
the role attribute, authors can annotate XML languages with
machine-readable semantic information about the purpose of elements. Use
cases include accessibility, device adaptation, server-side processing and
complex data description. The attribute can be integrated into any markup
language based on XHTML
Modularization. Visit the XHTML2 home page. (Permalink)
2007-10-04: W3C is pleased to announce the relaunch of the Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group. Daniel Appelquist (Vodafone) and Jo Rabin (mTLD) chair the group which is chartered to produce guidelines, checklists and best practice statements to enable the reach of the Web to be easily extended onto mobile devices. W3C Members may use this form to join the Working Group. Read about the W3C Mobile Web Initiative. (Permalink)
2007-10-03: The W3C Spain
Office is pleased to present noted Web standards
experts at the third edition of Fundamentos Web 2007 (Web Foundations 2007) on 3-5
October in Gijón, Asturias, Spain. Presenters include Arthur Barstow
(Nokia), Dan Brickley (Joost), Tantek Çelik (Tantek.com), Fernando Claver
(PC ACTUAL), Hannah Donovan (Last.fm), Jeremy Keith (Clearleft), Eduardo
Manchón Aguilar (Panoramio), Matt May (Adobe), Charles McCathieNevile
(Opera), Ismael Nafría (Prisacom), George Oates (Yahoo!), Allan Sandfeld
(Change Networks), Mike Schroepfer (Mozilla), Doug Stamper (Microsoft),
Jeffrey Veen (Google) and Tim Berners-Lee (by video link), Bert Bos and Rigo
Wenning (W3C). (Photo credit: Dan Brickley. Permalink)
2007-10-03: W3C is pleased to announce the launch of the Policy Languages Interest Group (PLING), chaired by Marco Casassa-Mont (HP Labs) and Renato Iannella (NICTA). The group is chartered to discuss interoperability, requirements and related needs for integrating and computing the results when different policy languages used together, for example, OASIS XACML (eXtensible Access Control Markup Language), IETF Common Policy, and P3P (W3C Platform for Privacy Preferences). Participation is open to W3C Members and the public. Read about the Privacy Activity. (Permalink)
2007-10-01: Browse W3C presentations and events also available as an RSS channel. (Permalink)
2007-10-01: The Web Application Formats Working Group released an updated Working Draft of Enabling Read Access for Web Resources. Sandbox restrictions on cross-site access to browsers can be relaxed selectively with this mechanism. An HTTP header or XML processing instruction or both can indicate that read access is allowed. Read about the Rich Web Clients Activity. (Permalink)
2007-09-28: The Web Services Policy Working Group released two Last Call Working Drafts. Comments are welcome through 19 October. The Web Services Policy 1.5 - Primer introduces the policy language and policy attachment mechanisms. The Web Services Policy 1.5 - Guidelines for Policy Assertion Authors provide best practices for creating policy assertions. Both are companions to the Web Services Policy 1.5 Framework and Attachment specifications. Read about Web services. (Permalink)
2007-09-28: The Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group has released a third Last Call Working Draft of W3C mobileOK Basic Tests 1.0. Comments are welcome through 19 October. These tests provide the basis for making a claim to be W3C mobileOK Basic compliant and are based upon W3C's Mobile Web Best Practices. Read about the Mobile Web Initiative. (Permalink)
2007-09-28: The POWDER Working Group published First Public Working Drafts of Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER): Description Resources and Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER): Web Description Resources (WDR) Vocabulary and Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER): Web Description Resources Datatypes (WDRD). POWDER is a way to attach small, easily-produced annotations to large collections of Web content. Web resources can then be retrieved, personalized and delivered in a variety of delivery contexts to meet both social needs for content labels and commercial requirements for content adaptation. Visit the Semantic Web home page. (Permalink)
2007-09-28: The Service Modeling Language (SML) Working Group released updated Working Drafts of Service Modeling Language, Version 1.1 and its Service Modeling Language Interchange Format Version 1.1. SML is used to model complex services and systems including their structure, constraints, policies and best practices. Based on XML Schema and Schematron, SML allows inter-document references and user-defined constraints. Read more about XML. (Permalink)
2007-09-25: W3C is pleased to announce the advancement of SPARQL Query Results XML Format to Candidate Recommendation. The SPARQL Query Language for RDF offers developers and end users a way to write and consume search results across a wide range of information and provides a means of integration over disparate sources. With this format, SPARQL variable binding and boolean results can be expressed in XML. Read about the RDF Data Access Working Group and visit the Semantic Web home page. (Permalink)
2007-09-25: The POWDER Working Group published First Public Working Drafts of Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER): Description Resources and Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER): Web Description Resources (WDR) Vocabulary. POWDER is a way to attach small, easily-produced annotations to large collections of Web content. Web resources can then be retrieved, personalized and delivered in a variety of delivery contexts to meet both social needs for content labels and commercial requirements for content adaptation. Visit the Semantic Web home page. (Permalink)
2007-09-25: The Workshop on Mobile Ajax co-sponsored by W3C
and the OpenAjax Alliance will be held
28 September in Mountain View, CA, USA, hosted by Microsoft. Attendees will
explore use cases for mobile Ajax to help
shape its use in mobile Web browsers. Topics may include user experience,
application development, support in today's devices and browsers, and whether
needs exist for standardization and best practices. Results will be linked
from the Workshop page in October. Read the media advisory and about the Mobile Web Initiative and W3C Workshops. (Photo credit:
Daniel K. Appelquist. Permalink)
2007-09-24: The Math Working Group has published an updated Working Draft of A MathML for CSS profile. This subset of MathML 3.0 can be used to capture the structure of mathematical formulas in a way particularly suitable for further CSS formatting. Coordinated with ongoing work on CSS Level 3, the profile is expected to facilitate adoption of MathML in Web browsers and CSS formatters. Visit the Math home page. (Permalink)
2007-09-20: The XML Processing Model Working Group published a Last Call Working Draft of XProc: An XML Pipeline Language. Comments are welcome through 24 October. Used to control and organize the flow of documents, the XProc language standardizes interactions, inputs and outputs for transformations for the large group of specifications such as XSLT, XML Schema, XInclude and Canonical XML that operate on and produce XML documents. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity. (Permalink)
2007-09-18: The XML Protocol Working Group released a First Public and Last Call Working Draft of MTOM Serialization Policy Assertion 1.1. Comments are welcome through 15 October. Indicating endpoint support for the serialization of SOAP messages, this domain-specific policy assertion can be specified within a policy alternative and can be attached to a WSDL description. MTOM optimizes hop-by-hop exchanges between SOAP nodes. Read about Web services. (Permalink)
2007-09-12: The Web Application Formats Working Group has published Declarative Formats for Applications and User Interfaces as a Working Group Note. The note recommends that the Working Group stop formal work on this deliverable and includes some potential options if W3C Members choose to do related work. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity. (Permalink)
2007-09-12: The CSS Working Group released the First Public Working Draft of the CSS Grid Positioning Module for Level 3 of the Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) language. It applies the traditional grid systems used in books and newspapers to online content and complements the different approach defined in the CSS Advanced Layout Module. Grids may be explicitly authored or implied and combined with Media Queries. Visit the CSS home page. (Permalink)
2007-09-11: The World Wide Web Consortium today released GRDDL and GRDDL Test Cases as Recommendations. GRDDL enables authors to extract data from their documents automatically, enabling them to reuse their data and enrich it by connecting to the Semantic Web. Give the W3C GRDDL Service a try! Read the GRDDL Primer, the press release and testimonials, and about the Semantic Web. (Permalink)
2007-09-06: W3C is pleased to announce the launch of the OWL Working Group. Ian Horrocks (Oxford University) and Alan Ruttenberg (ScienceCommons) chair the group which is chartered to produce a W3C Recommendation for an extended Web Ontology Language (OWL), adding a small set of extensions and defining profiles identified by users and tool implementers. W3C Members may use this form to join the Working Group. Read about Semantic Web. (Permalink)
2007-09-05: W3C is pleased to announce that the Web Services Addressing Working Group has successfully completed its work: the Web Services Addressing 1.0 Core, SOAP Binding and Metadata Recommendations and a Working Group Note, SOAP 1.1 Request Optional Response HTTP Binding. The core properties allow uniform addressing of Web services and messages, independent of the underlying transport. Read about Web services. (Permalink)
2007-09-05: The Voice Browser Working Group released an updated Working Draft of Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) Version 1.1. Changes from the previous draft include the usage of XML 1.1 and IRIs, and the specification of voice selection and language speaking control. Version 1.1 improves on W3C's SSML 1.0 Recommendation by adding support for more conventions and practices of the world's languages. Visit the Voice Browser home page. (Permalink)
2007-09-04: The XML Schema Working Group has released a Last Call Working Draft of XML Schema 1.1 Part 1: Structures. Comments are welcome through 8 November. XML schemas define shared markup vocabularies, the structure of XML documents which use those vocabularies, and provide hooks to associate semantics with them. Simplifications and changes in this draft are to sections on rules for checking validity, "all" groups, the PSVI, conformance, fallback for lax validation, particles and wildcards, among other revisions. Visit the XML home page. (Permalink)
2007-09-04: The POWDER Working Group has released POWDER: Use Cases and Requirements as a Working Group Note. The document will guide the development of a way to attach small, easily-produced annotations to large collections of Web content. Web resources can then be retrieved, personalized and delivered in a variety of delivery contexts to meet both social needs for content labels and commercial requirements for content adaptation. Visit the Semantic Web home page. (Permalink)
2007-09-04: W3C is pleased to announce that the Semantic Annotations for WSDL Working Group has successfully completed its work: the W3C Recommendation Semantic Annotations for WSDL and XML Schema (SAWSDL) and its companion Usage Guide. With SAWSDL, semantic annotations can be added to Web Services Description Language (WSDL) components for use in classifying, discovering, matching, composing and invoking Web services. Read about Web services. (Permalink)
2007-09-04: The World Wide Web Consortium today released Web Services Policy 1.5 - Framework and Web Services Policy 1.5 - Attachment as Recommendations. The framework defines a model for expressing the nature of Web services in order to convey conditions for their interaction. Attachment defines how to associate policies, for example within WSDL or UDDI, with subjects to which they apply. Read the press release, the testimonials and about the Web Services Policy Working Group and Web services. (Permalink)
2007-09-04: The World Wide Web Consortium today released Web Services Addressing 1.0 - Metadata as a Recommendation. The specification is used to indicate support for Web Services Addressing 1.0 using Web Services Policy 1.5 and defines how to express WS-Addressing properties in WSDL. Read about the Web Services Addressing Working Group and about Web services. (Permalink)
2007-09-01: Browse W3C presentations and events also available as an RSS channel. (Permalink)
2007-08-31: SVG Open 2007, the 5th International Conference on Scalable Vector Graphics, will be held 4-7 September at Keio University, Japan, on the Mita Campus in Tokyo. Over 40 presentations will be delivered, from SVG experts all over the world, tackling topics such as mobile SVG, Web mapping, geo-location based services and much more. The conference schedule and confirmed keynote speakers are now available. The conference language is English; translation facilities will be available to encourage English-Japanese communication. On-site registration will be also available at the registration desk during the conference. Please also note that g-Contents WORLD 2007 will be a joint event of SVG Open 2007 Conference. (Permalink)
2007-08-29: The XML Query Working Group published a Last Call Working Draft of the XQuery Update Facility 1.0. Comments are welcome through 31 October. XML Query can perform searches, queries and joins over collections of XDM instances such as documents or databases. The update facility provides expressions to create, modify and delete nodes within those instances. The specification's Requirements and Use Cases were also published as updated Working Drafts. Visit the XML home page. (Permalink)
2007-08-28: Position papers are due 5 October for the Workshop on W3C's Multimodal Architecture and Interfaces on 16-17 November 2007 in Fujisawa, Japan, hosted by W3C/Keio. Attendees will discuss the support and integration of user interface components such as speech, GUI and handwriting recognition from multiple vendors, to help the Multimodal Interaction Working Group make the Multimodal Architecture and Interfaces specification more useful in current and emerging markets. Read about multimodal interaction and about W3C Workshops. (Permalink)
2007-08-28: The World Wide Web Consortium today released Semantic Annotations for WSDL and XML Schema (SAWSDL) as a Recommendation. With these attributes, semantic annotations can be added to Web Services Description Language (WSDL) components for use in classifying, discovering, matching, composing and invoking Web services. The companion Usage Guide is a Working Group Note that shows through examples how to associate semantic annotations with a Web service. Read about the SAWSDL Working Group and about Web services. (Permalink)
2007-08-27: W3C plans a Workshop on W3C's Multimodal Architecture and Interfaces on 16-17 November 2007 in Fujisawa, Japan, hosted by W3C/Keio. Attendees will discuss the support and integration of user interface components such as speech, GUI and handwriting recognition from multiple vendors, to help the Multimodal Interaction Working Group make the Multimodal Architecture and Interfaces specification more useful in current and emerging markets. A Call for Participation is expected shortly. Read about multimodal interaction and about W3C Workshops. (Permalink)
2007-08-16: The Multimedia Semantics Incubator Group published their report on Image Annotation on the Semantic Web. The report describes the use of RDF and OWL to create, store, exchange and process information about images. The previously published Multimedia Vocabularies on the Semantic Web discusses a number of individual vocabularies that are relevant for image annotation. Both publications are part of the Incubator Activity, a forum where W3C Members can innovate and experiment. (Permalink)
2007-08-10: The Web Services Policy Working Group released two updated Working Drafts. The Primer introduces the policy language and policy attachment mechanisms. The Guidelines for Policy Assertion Authors provide best practices for creating policy assertions. Both are companions to the Web Services Policy 1.5 Framework and Attachment specifications. Read about Web services. (Permalink)
2007-08-09: The CSS Working Group released two updated Working Drafts for the Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) language Level 3. The CSS basic box model describes the basic layout of textual documents in visual media. The CSS3 Advanced Layout Module defines visual order independent of document order, position and alignment of user interface widgets, and page and window grids. Visit the CSS home page. (Permalink)
2007-08-08: W3C's most popular service just
got better, prettier, faster, and smarter. The W3C Markup Validator has a new user
interface and a validation engine with improved accuracy and performance.
Among new features are an automatic cleanup option using HTML Tidy, and
checking of HTML fragments. Driven by W3C as an open-source
software project, the markup validator is made by Web professionals for
Web professionals, and aims to be a major step in any Web development quality
process. Read the change
log for a list of all changes and new features. (Permalink)
2007-08-07: The Service Modeling Language (SML) Working Group released the First Public Working Drafts of the Service Modeling Language, Version 1.1 and its Interchange Format. SML is used to model complex services and systems including their structure, constraints, policies and best practices. Based on XML Schema and Schematron, SML allows inter-document references and user-defined constraints. Read more about XML. (Permalink)
2007-08-06:
The report of the Workshop on Declarative Models of Distributed Web
Applications is available. The report recommends that W3C create
requirements for declarative modeling of Web applications, and a gap analysis
that identifies where existing standards are insufficient. The Workshop was
hosted in Dublin by MobileAware with the support of the Irish State
Development Agency, Enterprise Ireland. Read about W3C Workshops and about the Ubiquitous Web. (Photo credit:
Marie-Claire Forgue. Permalink)
2007-08-03: A Patent Advisory Group (PAG) for the WebAPI and SVG Working Groups has published its report, which suggests that W3C stop work on Remote Events for XML (REX) 1.0. W3C launched the PAG when France Telecom excluded patent claims from the W3C Royalty-Free Licensing Commitment. W3C continues work on a future, differently scoped version of REX in the Ubiquitous Web Applications Working Group. W3C appreciates the cooperation from the patent holder, France Telecom, in helping the PAG reach their conclusion. (Permalink)
2007-07-31: Browse W3C presentations and events also available as an RSS channel. (Permalink)
2007-07-31: W3C is pleased to announce the advancement of Web Services Addressing 1.0 - Metadata to Proposed Recommendation. The specification is used to indicate support for the Web Services Addressing 1.0 mechanisms using the Web Services Policy 1.5 framework and defines how to express WS-Addressing properties in WSDL. Comments are welcome through 30 August. Read about the Web Services Addressing Working Group and about Web services. (Permalink)
2007-07-30: The Mobile Web Test Suites Working Group is launching an Open Mobile Web Test Suite built by the community for the community to describe support for technologies in mobile Web browsers available today. Mobile Web developers can submit test cases (as described in the submissions guidelines) illustrating authoring practices. Submissions will contribute to a better understanding of the current limitations of user agents, which helps pave the way to better mobile Web browsers tomorrow. Read the Call for Contributions and about the Mobile Web Initiative. (Permalink)
2007-07-27: The Web API
Working Group released the First Public Working Draft of ElementTraversal
Specification. The ElementTraversal interface defines four properties
that scripts can use to navigate DOM Elements and also provides
the property childElementCount for preprocessing. The
specification was originally part of SVG Tiny
1.2. Read about rich Web clients. (Permalink)
2007-07-27: The Ubiquitous Web Applications Working Group has published an updated Working Draft of Device Independent Authoring Language (DIAL). DIAL describes data, styling, layout, and interaction independently, making Web content adaptable for a wide variety of platforms including the thousands of mobile devices in use and devices to come. Read more about the Working Group and the Ubiquitous Web. (Permalink)
2007-07-25: The W3C Multimedia Semantics Incubator Group, which includes thirty seven representatives from organizations in Europe and North America, published its final report. The report describes multimedia metadata formats and relevant vocabularies for developers of Semantic Web applications. This publication is part of the W3C experimental Incubator Activity that develops new, potentially foundational technologies and Web-based applications in a rapid time frame. (Permalink)
2007-07-25: The Forms Working Group published a Proposed Edited Recommendation for XForms 1.0 Third Edition. The document responds to implementor feedback, brings the XForms 1.0 Recommendation up to date with second edition errata and reflects clarifications already implemented in XForms processors. Comments are welcome through 31 August. XForms separates presentation and content, minimizes the need for scripting and round-trips to the server, and offers device independence. Visit the forms home page. (Permalink)
2007-07-25: W3C is pleased to announce the advancement of Content Selection for Device Independence (DISelect) 1.0 and Delivery Context: XPath Access Functions 1.0 to Candidate Recommendations. Implementation feedback is welcome. DISelect supports the creation of Web sites that can be used from diverse devices. Based on the evaluation and conditional processing of XML information sets, DISelect is used for Web content selection and filtering. The XPath functions are used to access the > Delivery Context associated with a request for content. Read about Ubiquitous Web applications. (Permalink)
2007-07-25: The Efficient XML Interchange Working Group released an updated Working Draft of Efficient XML Interchange Measurements Note. An analysis of the expected performance characteristics of a potential Efficient XML Interchange (EXI) encoding format, the draft covers the "compactness," "processing efficiency" and "roundtrip support" properties and outlines plans for future updates. Visit the XML home page. (Permalink)
2007-07-20: The Web Application Formats Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of XBL 2.0 Primer: An Introduction for Developers. This practical guide to using the XML Binding Language introduces both basic and advanced concepts and describes best practices. XBL extends the appearance and behavior of elements in Web formats such as HTML. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity. (Permalink)
2007-07-20: The Web Services Policy Working Group has published WSDL 1.1 Element Identifiers as a Working Group Note. These fragment identifiers and IRI-references, designed to be easy for authors to understand and compare, are for use in Web Services Description Language (WSDL) 1.1 documents. Read about Web services. (Permalink)
2007-07-20: The XML Schema Working Group has released an updated Working Draft of Guide to Versioning XML Languages using XML Schema 1.1. XML Schema 1.1 introduces new features that make it easier to define XML languages which are flexible enough to tolerate later revision in a forward-compatible way. Written for application and schema developers, the guide shows the new mechanisms and illustrates several techniques. Visit the XML home page. (Permalink)
2007-07-20: Position papers are due 10 September for the Workshop on RDF Access to Relational Databases to be held 25-26 October in Cambridge, MA, USA, hosted by Novartis. Workshop attendees from the Semantic Web and relational database communities will examine commonalities, distinctions and next steps for expressing relational data in RDF. Read about W3C Workshops and about the Semantic Web. (Permalink)
2007-07-20: The Compound Document Formats Working Group has released four Candidate Recommendations: Compound Document by Reference Framework 1.0, WICD Core 1.0, WICD Full 1.0, and WICD Mobile 1.0. Implementor feedback is welcome through 1 December. A preliminary implementation report is available, and a test suite is under development. The Web Integration Compound Document (WICD, pronounced "wicked") is a device independent Compound Document profile based on XHTML, CSS and SVG. The drafts describe presentation, linking and navigation behavior when multiple documents are combined. Read more about Rich Web Clients. (Permalink)
2007-07-19: W3C is pleased to announce the
advancement of Cascading Style Sheets
(CSS) 2.1 to Candidate Recommendation. Implementation feedback is welcome
through 20 December. CSS is one of the Web's most widely implemented
languages. By separating the presentation of style from the content of
documents, CSS simplifies Web authoring and site maintenance. CSS 2.1 is
derived from and is intended to replace CSS Level 2. A snapshot of usage, the
specification brings the language in line with implementations, fixes errata
and adds a few highly requested features including the
inline-block value for the display property, the
color orange and the values pre-wrap and
pre-line for the white-space property. Visit the CSS home page. (Permalink)
2007-07-16: W3C is pleased to announce the advancement of GRDDL and GRDDL Test Cases to Proposed Recommendations. Comments are welcome through 24 August. Linking microformats to the Semantic Web, the GRDDL mechanism is used to extract RDF statements from XHTML and XML content using programs such as XSLT. Read about the Semantic Web. (Permalink)
2007-07-16: The Efficient XML Interchange Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of Efficient XML Interchange (EXI) Format 1.0. EXI is a very compact representation for the eXtensible Markup Language (XML) Information Set that is intended to simultaneously optimize performance and the utilization of computational resources. Using a relatively simple algorithm and a small set of data types, it reliably produces efficient encodings of XML event streams. Learn more about XML. (Permalink)
2007-07-13: W3C is pleased to announce the advancement of XHTML™ Basic 1.1 to Candidate Recommendation. The specification adds four new features for small devices which are the language's primary users. Version 1.1 is intended to be the convergence of the XHTML Basic 1.0 W3C Recommendation for mobile devices, released in coordination with the WAP Forum in 2000, and the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) XHTML Mobile profile. Implementation feedback is welcome through 31 August. Visit the HTML home page. (Permalink)
2007-07-13: The SYMM Working Group has published the Last Call Working Draft of Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL 3.0). This the third version of the Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL, pronounced "smile"), an XML-based language that allows authors to write interactive multimedia presentations. This version will extend the functionality of SMIL 2.1, facilitate the reuse of SMIL syntax and semantics in other XML-based languages, and define new SMIL profiles. Comments are welcome through 14 September. Learn more about the Synchronized Multimedia Activity. (Permalink)
2007-07-12: W3C has named Dominique Hazaël-Massieux to the position of Mobile
Web Initiative Activity Lead. The W3C Mobile Web
Initiative is a joint effort by vendors, providers, manufacturers and
mobile operators to make Web access from a mobile device as simple, easy, and
convenient as Web access from a desktop device. Dominique first joined W3C as
Webmaster, did early work on GRDDL,
contributed to QA at W3C, served as
Team Contact for the Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group, serves as
co-Chair of the MWI Test Suites
Working Group, and works on mobileOK. W3C wishes to thank
Philipp Hoschka who previously led the Activity and continues his roles as
W3C Deputy Director for Europe and Ubiquitous Web Domain Leader. Read more about W3C. (Permalink)
2007-07-10: W3C is pleased to participate in Web標準の日々 (The Days of Web Standards 2007), one of the largest Web-related events in Japan. Web developers and designers will gather on 15 July in Tokyo to discuss the usefulness and pleasure in using Web standards and how they are popular. Members of the W3C staff, Karl Dubost, Tatsuya Hagino, Olivier Thereaux present and Yasuyuki Hirakawa runs a booth. Browse W3C presentations and events also available as an RSS channel. (Permalink)
2007-07-10: The W3C Emotion Incubator Group, which includes representatives from sixteen institutions in eleven countries on three continents, published its final report. The report contains scope, requirements and use cases for a general-purpose Emotion Markup Language. This publication is part of the W3C experimental Incubator Activity that develops new, potentially foundational technologies and Web-based applications in a rapid time frame. (Permalink)
2007-07-09: The Ubiquitous
Web Applications Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of
Delivery Context: Client Interfaces
(DCCI) 1.0. DCCI (formerly DCI) provides access to device properties
including capabilities, configuration, user preferences and environmental
conditions such as remaining battery life, signal strength, ambient
brightness, location, and display orientation. Comments are welcome through
27 July. This draft has one normative change to show DCCI inheriting from the
DOM Element interface. Learn more about the Ubiquitous Web Applications Activity. (Permalink)
2007-07-09: The POWDER Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER): Grouping of Resources. POWDER is a way to attach small, easily-produced annotations to large collections of Web content. Web resources can then be retrieved, personalized and delivered in a variety of delivery contexts to meet both social needs for content labels and commercial requirements for content adaptation. Visit the Semantic Web home page. (Permalink)
2007-07-07: W3C is ple