The Voice Browser Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of Voice Extensible Markup Language (VoiceXML) 3.0. This document specifies VoiceXML 3.0, a modular XML language for creating interactive media dialogs that feature synthesized speech, recognition of spoken and DTMF key input, telephony, mixed initiative conversations, and recording and presentation of a variety of media formats including digitized audio, and digitized video. The primary goal of this version is to bring the advantages of Web-based development and content delivery to interactive voice response applications. Learn more about the Voice Browser Activity.

The Geolocation Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of Geolocation API Specification. This specification defines an API that provides scripted access to geographical location information associated with the hosting device. The API defines a high-level interface to location information associated with the hosting device, such as latitude and longitude. The API itself is agnostic of the underlying location information sources. Common sources of location information include Global Positioning System (GPS) and location inferred from network signals such as IP address, RFID, WiFi and Bluetooth MAC addresses, and GSM/CDMA cell IDs. Learn more about the Ubiquitous Web Applications Activity.

The Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group has published a Working Draft of Mobile Web Application Best Practices. This document specifies Best Practices for the development and delivery of Web applications on mobile devices. The recommendations expand upon statements made in the Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0 (BP1), especially concerning statements that relate to the exploitation of device capabilities and awareness of the delivery context. Furthermore, since BP1 was written, networks and devices have continued to evolve, with the result that a number of Best Practices that were omitted from BP1 can now be included. Learn more about the Mobile Web Initiative Activity.

The Web Applications Working Group has published the Last Call Working Draft of Widgets 1.0: Packaging and Configuration. This document standardizes a Zip-based packaging format, an XML-based configuration document format and a series of steps that user agents follow when processing and verifying various aspects of widgets. The packaging format acts as a container for files used by a widget. The configuration document is an XML vocabulary that authors can use to declare metadata and configuration parameters for a widget. The steps for processing a widget resource describe the expected behavior and means of error handling for widget user agents while processing the packaging format, configuration document, and other relevant files. Comments are welcome through 31 January. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

The Web Applications Working Group has published the Working Draft of Web IDL. This document defines an interface definition language, Web IDL, that can be used to describe interfaces that are intended to be implemented in web browsers. Web IDL is an IDL variant with a number of features that allow the behavior of common script objects in the web platform to be specified more readily. How interfaces described with Web IDL correspond to constructs within ECMAScript and Java execution environments is also detailed. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

The Web Applications Working Group has published the W3C Recommendation of Element Traversal Specification. This specification defines the ElementTraversal interface, which allows script navigation of the elements of a DOM tree, excluding all other nodes in the DOM, such as text nodes. It also provides an attribute to expose the number of child elements of an element. It is intended to provide a more convenient alternative to existing DOM navigation interfaces, with a low implementation footprint. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

Creating beautiful and accessible interactive content was made easier today with the release of the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Tiny 1.2 Recommendation. Already implemented and deployed in mobile phones, media centers, and browsers around the world, this open standard allows authors to build documents and interfaces for the Web, with open-source and commercial authoring tools that output open, reusable content. Searchable, internationalized text and user-created metadata bring the Semantic Web to graphics, and improve the experience of users everywhere, while easier programming interfaces put the power in the hands of developers. A test suite helps to ensure interoperable SVG content in modern Web browsers, making it easier than ever to develop and deploy the right look and feel. Read the testimonials and start creating content today. Learn more about the Graphics Activity.

The Rule Interchange Format (RIF) Working Group published five new Working Drafts today. Since the Last Call Working Draft of RIF Basic Logic Dialect (BLD), the group has been developing other key dialects, components, and test cases. The new publications are:

1. RIF Use Cases and Requirementsminor changes
2. RIF Corenew design to support both BLD and PRD
3. RIF Datatypes and Built-Ins 1.0various improvements
4. RIF Production Rule Dialect (PRD)operational semantics are complete
5. RIF Test Casesearly stages of test suite

The Working Group is nearing Last Call on these remaining elements of RIF, and welcomes feedback from rulesystem users and designers. Please send comments by 23 January. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity.

The Forms Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of XForms for HTML. XForms for HTML provides a set of attributes and script methods that can be used by the tags or elements of an HTML or XHTML web page to simplify the integration of data-intensive interactive processing capabilities from XForms. The semantics of the attributes are mapped to the rich XForms model-view-controller-connector architecture, thereby allowing web application authors a smoother, selective migration path to the higher-order behaviors available from the full element markup available in modules of XForms. Learn more about the XForms Activity.

Today W3C published a report on the W3C Workshop on Semantic Web in Oil & Gas Industry. 54 experts from 33 organizations discussed how Semantic Web technologies can help to handle the staggering amount of new data that is produced every day as well as the challenges of interfacing to service companies and managing joint ventures between operators that are very important in this industry. Participants discussed issues related to data integration, ontology management and creation, presented applications and tool developments in the oil & gas area. The Workshop concluded with a panel that explored the next steps that this community may take, possibly in conjunction with W3C, to explore this area further. W3C thanks Chevron for hosting the Workshop, which took place in Houston, Texas, USA, on the 9 and 10 December, 2008. Read the 17 position papers and learn more about the Semantic Web.

The Multimodal Interaction Working Group has published the Proposed Recommendation of EMMA: Extensible MultiModal Annotation markup language. This document is part of a set of specifications for multimodal systems, and provides details of an XML markup language for containing and annotating the interpretation of user input. The interpretation of the user's input is expected to be generated by signal interpretation processes, such as speech and ink recognition, semantic interpreters, and other types of processors for use by components that act on the user's inputs such as interaction managers. See the group's implementation report. Comments are welcome through 15 January. Learn more about the Multimodal Interaction Activity.

The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group updated the Candidate Recommendation of CSS Mobile Profile 2.0. The specification defines in general a subset of CSS 2.1 that is to be considered a baseline for interoperability between implementations of CSS on constrained devices (e.g. mobile phones). Its intent is not to produce a profile of CSS incompatible with the complete specification, but rather to ensure that implementations that due to platform limitations cannot support the entire specification implement a common subset that is interoperable not only amongst constrained implementations but also with complete ones. This document is the same as the last working draft, except for editorial changes. Learn more about the Style Activity.

Today W3C announced a new standard that will help Web designers and developers create sites that better meet the needs of users with disabilities and older users. Drawing on extensive experience and community feedback, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 improve upon W3C's groundbreaking initial standard for accessible Web content, apply to more advanced technologies, and are more precisely testable. W3C also published supporting resources, including Understanding WCAG 2.0, Techniques for WCAG 2.0, and How to Meet WCAG 2.0: A Customizable Quick Reference. Read the press release, testimonials, announcement, and WCAG Overview. Learn more about the Web Accessibility Initiative.

W3C launched a new initiative giving web developers and designers a chance to show their support for the W3C Validators. With millions of validations performed daily, the validator services are among the most popular applications on the web today. W3C appreciates the great work of the dedicated volunteers who have helped make the validator such a success. Donations and sponsorship from the community will help us fund hardware and staffing to build even better, faster and friendlier free tools, such as:

• Integrated the web quality checking with the central Unicorn framework
• A new generation of tools for CSS checking
• A multilingual, flexible and friendly Markup Validator
• New tools for SVG, accessibility, and more

We also welcome sponsorships from organizations that support Web Standards, and encourage Web Communities to spread the word about this campaign. Visit the Validator Donation page.

Today W3C made it easier to create content that will improve the user experience on a broad range of devices. The W3C mobileOK checker provides feedback on whether content is "mobileOK" and is based on the W3C Recommendation also published today, mobileOK Basic Tests 1.0. "Clean content offers a number of benefits to authors and users alike. The mobileOK checker does a nice job helping you improve your content one step at a time," said Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director. Read the press release, Member testimonials, and learn more about the Mobile Web Initiative.

The Mobile Web Initiative Device Description Working Group has published the W3C Recommendation of Device Description Repository Simple API. Web content delivered to mobile devices usually benefits from being tailored to take into account a range of factors such as screen size, markup language support and image format support. Such information is stored in "Device Description Repositories" (DDRs). This document describes a simple API for access to DDRs, in order to ease and promote the development of Web content that adapts to its Delivery Context. The Working Group also published a Group Note of Device Description Structures, an expression language for the structured categorization of devices in content adaptation. Learn more about the Mobile Web Initiative Activity.

The XML Query Working Group published five Working Drafts today relating to the XQuery language for querying and processing structured information:

1. XQuery Scripting Extension 1.0, giving procedural assignment, blocks and synchronization to XQuery; together with the XQuery Scripting Extension 1.0 Use Cases;
2. XQuery 1.1, adding new features to XQuery including windowing and grouping, published together with XQuery 1.1 Use Cases and diffs from the previous draft;
3. XQueryX 1.1, giving a detailed XML representation of a parsed query. This is a First Public Working Draft.

Learn more about the XML Activity.

The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group updated today the Candidate Recommendation of CSS Marquee Module Level 3. CSS Marquee allows the designer to specify a "marquee" effect for the display of overflow content; the content is animated and moves automatically back and forth. Learn more about the Style Activity.

W3C updated the Interest Group Note Cool URIs for the Semantic Web today to include a link to an errata page

The OWL Working Group published eleven documents today relating to the OWL 2 Web Ontology Language. OWL 2 extends OWL, a core standard of the Semantic Web, adding new features that users have requested and that software providers are prepared to implement. Six of these documents are last call drafts, indicating the Working Group believes the technical work in those areas is done. The documents are:

1. Structural Specification and Functional-Style Syntax (last call)
2. Direct Semantics (last call)
3. RDF-Based Semantics
4. Conformance and Test Cases (last call)
5. Mapping to RDF Graphs (last call)
6. XML Serialization (last call)
7. Profiles (last call)
8. Quick Reference Guide (first public working draft)
9. New Features and Rationale (first public working draft)
10. Manchester Syntax (first public working draft)
11. rdf:text: A Datatype for Internationalized Text (first public working draft)

The Manchester Syntax is an optional, alternative OWL serialization; this document is expected to become a Note. The XML datatype rdf:text was co-developed with the RIF Working Group for use with RDF data. Please send comments by 23 January. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity.

Today W3C announced a new standard to make it easier to author interactive multimedia presentations. Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL 3.0) allows video, audio, images, text, and hypertext links to be combined into interactive presentations, with fine-grain control of layout and timing. "The importance of SMIL 3.0 is that it contains a set of user-requested features that provide exciting new functionality, while retaining all the advantages of a declarative (that is, without scripting) approach to building a multimedia presentation," said Dick Bulterman, chair of the Synchronized Multimedia Working Group, which published the specification. Read the full press release, testimonials, and learn more about the Synchronized Multimedia Activity.

Browse W3C presentations and events also available as an RSS channel.

• 1 December, Valencia, Spain: El W3C y la Web ÚnicaMartín Álvarez presents at Jornada Divulgativa sobre Accesibilidad Web.
• 1 December, Vienna, Austria: e-Accessibility: A Dummy's Guide to Web AccessibilityJudy Brewer participates in a panel at E-Inclusion Ministerial Conference and Expo 2008.
• 3 December, United Nations, New York City, USA: Perspectives from Policy Makers, Civil Society Organizations representing persons with disabilities, Industry and Standard OrganizationsJudy Brewer participates in a panel at Seminar on Implementing the Digitial Accessibility Agenda of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
• 4 December, Malmö, Sweden: Standarder och Open SourceOlle Olsson presents at DFS-seminarium.
• 4 December, Llandudno, United Kingdom: Making the Web InternationalRichard Ishida presents at bloc.
• 5 December, Turn, Italy: Overlapping User Experiences: Mobile Web Usability and Accessibility for People with DisabilitiesShawn Henry presents at UPA Europe 2008, Usability and design: cultivating diversity.
• 6 December, Turin, Italy: How New Web Accessibility Standards Impact User Experience Design Shawn Henry presents at UPA Europe 2008, Usability and design: cultivating diversity.
• 8 December, Boston, MA, USA: Web Accessibility for Everyone and EverythingShawn Henry presents at Web Design World - Boston 2008.
• 9 December, Boston, MA, USA: Accessibility in a Web 2.0 WorldShawn Henry presents at Web Design World - Boston 2008.

The XML Processing Model Working Group invites implementation of the Candidate Recommendation of XProc: An XML Pipeline Language. This specification describes the syntax and semantics of XProc, a language for describing operations to be performed on XML documents. A pipeline consists of steps. Like pipelines, steps take zero or more XML documents as their inputs and produce zero or more XML documents as their outputs. The inputs of a step come from the web, from the pipeline document, from the inputs to the pipeline itself, or from the outputs of other steps in the pipeline. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity.

The XML Core Working Group has published the W3C Recommendation of Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 (Fifth Edition). This fifth edition of the widely deployed standard XML incorporates corrections to errata found in previous versions. In particular, one correction relaxes the restrictions on element and attribute names, thereby providing in XML 1.0 the major end user benefit currently achievable only by using XML 1.1. As a consequence, many possible documents that were not well-formed according to previous editions of this specification are now well-formed, and previously invalid documents using the newly-allowed name characters in, for example, ID attributes, are now valid. XML has been designed for ease of implementation and for interoperability with both SGML and HTML. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity.

W3C announced a Workshop on Africa Perspective on the Role of Mobile Technologies in Fostering Social and Economic Development, April 1-2 2009, in Maputo, Mozambique. Participants will explore ways to fulfill the potential of mobile phones as a platform for deploying development-oriented ICT services towards the poorest segments of populations in developing countries, with an emphasis on the African context. The Workshop is open to the public; learn how to participate. You may also become a Workshop Sponsor to help support the participation of those with expertise who might not otherwise be able to attend due to travel or other costs. The Workshop is hosted by the Ministry of Science and Technology of the Government of Mozambique and is organized as part of the Digital World Forum project (European Union's FP7). Read the press release and learn more about W3C's Mobile Web Initiative (MWI).

The XML Schema Working Group has published the Last Call Working Draft of W3C XML Schema Definition Language (XSD): Component Designators. XML Schema: Component Designators defines a scheme for identifying XML Schema components as specified by XML Schema Part 1: Structures and XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes. Comments are welcome through 19 January. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity.

The Emotion Markup Language Incubator Group published their final report. As the web is becoming ubiquitous, interactive, and multimodal, technology needs to deal increasingly with human factors, including emotions. The report provides elements for an Emotion Markup Language striking a balance between scientific well-foundedness and practical applicability. The language is conceived as a "plug-in" language suitable for use in three different areas: (1) manual annotation of data; (2) automatic recognition of emotion-related states from user behaviour; and (3) generation of emotion-related system behaviour. This publication is part of the Incubator Activity, a forum where W3C Members can innovate and experiment. This work is not on the W3C standards track.

The Service Modeling Language Working Group invites implementation of the Candidate Recommendations of Service Modeling Language, Version 1.1 and Service Modeling Language Interchange Format Version 1.1. The former defines the Service Modeling Language, Version 1.1 (SML) used to model complex services and systems, including their structure, constraints, policies, and best practices. The latter defines the interchange format for SML 1.1 models. This format identifies the model being interchanged, distinguishes between model definition documents and model instance documents, and defines the binding of rule documents with other documents in the interchange model. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity.

The Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines Working Group has published an updated Working Draft of the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) 2.0. ATAG defines how authoring tools should help Web developers produce Web content that is accessible and conforms to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. ATAG also defines how to make authoring tools accessible so that people with disabilities can use them. Read the invitation to review the ATAG 2.0 Working Draft and about the Web Accessibility Initiative.

The SOAP-JMS Binding Working Group has published the Last Call Working Draft of SOAP over Java Message Service 1.0. This document specifies how SOAP should bind to a messaging system that supports the Java Message Service (JMS). The specification helps to ensure interoperability between the implementations of different Web services vendors. It should also enable customers to implement their own Web services for part of their infrastructure, and to have this interoperate with vendor provided Web services. Comments are welcome through 13 January. Learn more about the Web Services Activity.

The SVG Working Group has published the Proposed Recommendation of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Tiny 1.2 Specification.This specification defines the features and syntax for Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Tiny, Version 1.2, a language for describing two-dimensional vector and mixed vector/raster graphics in XML. The specification enables the creation of graphical content, from static images to animations to interactive Web applications. SVG 1.2 Tiny is a profile of SVG intended for implementation on a range of devices, from cell phones and PDAs to desktop and laptop computers, and thus includes a subset of the features included in SVG 1.1 Full, along with new features to extend the capabilities of SVG. Comments are welcome through 15 December.

The Web Applications Working Group has published the Proposed Recommendation of Element Traversal Specification. This specification defines the ElementTraversal interface, which allows script navigation of the elements of a DOM tree, excluding all other nodes in the DOM, such as text nodes. It also provides an attribute to expose the number of child elements of an element. It is intended to provide a more convenient alternative to existing DOM navigation interfaces, with a low implementation footprint. Comments are welcome through 15 December. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

The Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group has published an update of Working Draft of W3C mobileOK Scheme 1.0. The document provides an overview of how the mobileOK specification helps ensure that content is suitable for use on very basic mobile devices. Learn more about the Mobile Web Initiative Activity.

The Math Working Group has published a Working Draft of Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) Version 3.0, which defines the Mathematical Markup Language, or MathML. 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. Learn more about the Math Activity.

The Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER) Working Group published four Working Drafts today. The purpose of the Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER) is to provide a means for individuals or organizations to describe a group of resources through the publication of machine-readable metadata.

• Description Resources (Last Call); which details the creation and lifecycle of Description Resources (DRs), which encapsulate metadata
• Grouping of Resources (Last Call); which describes how sets of IRIs can be defined such that descriptions or other data can be applied to the resources obtained by dereferencing IRIs that are elements of the set.
• Formal Semantics (Last Call); which describes how the relatively simple operational format of a POWDER document can be transformed for processing by Semantic Web tools
• Primer (First Public Draft)

Last Call comments are welcome through 5 December. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity.

The XML Security Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of XML Signature Best Practices. This document collects best practices for implementors and users of the XML Signature specification. Most of these best practices are related to improving security and mitigating attacks, yet others are for best practices in the practical use of XML Signature, such as signing XML that doesn't use namespaces, for example. Learn more about the Security Activity.

The Web Applications 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 DOM by matching against a group of selectors. It is often desirable to perform DOM operations on a specific set of elements in a document. These methods simplify the process of acquiring specific elements, especially compared with the more verbose techniques defined and used in the past. Comments are welcome through 12 December. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

The XML Security Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of XML Signature Best Practices. The XML Signature specification offers powerful and flexible mechanisms to support a variety of use cases. This flexibility has the downside of increasing the number of possible attacks. One countermeasure to the increased number of threats is to follow best practices, including a simplification of the use of XML Signature where possible. This document outlines best practices noted by the XML Security Specifications Maintenance Working Group, the XML Security Working Group, and other ideas cited at the Workshop on Next Steps for XML Security. While most of these best practices are related to improving security and mitigating attacks, yet others are for best practices in the practical use of XML Signature, such as signing XML that doesn't use namespaces. Learn more about the Security Activity.

The XML Core Working Group has published the Group Note of Legacy extended IRIs for XML resource identification. For historic reasons, some formats have allowed variants of IRIs that are somewhat less restricted in syntax, for example XML system identifiers and W3C XML Schema anyURIs. This document provides a definition and a name (Legacy Extended IRI or LEIRI) for these variants for easy reference. These variants have to be used with care; they require further processing before being fully interchangeable as IRIs. New protocols and formats should not use Legacy Extended IRIs. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity.

The Voice Browser Working Group invites implementation of the Candidate Recommendation of Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) Version 1.1. The Speech Synthesis Markup Language Specification is designed to provide a rich, XML-based markup language for assisting the generation of synthetic speech in Web and other applications. The essential role of the markup language is to provide authors of synthesizable content a standard way to control aspects of speech such as pronunciation, volume, pitch, rate, etc. across different synthesis-capable platforms. See the implementation report plan and learn more about the Voice Browser Activity.

W3C today launched the Web Services Resource Access Working Group with a mission to produce W3C Recommendations for a set of Web Services specifications by refining the WS-Transfer, WS-ResourceTransfer, WS-Enumeration, WS-MetadataExchange and WS-Eventing Member Submissions. The group will address existing issues in those specifications, and review implementation experience and interoperability feedback from implementers and considering composition with other Web services standards. Learn more about the Web Services Activity.

Browse W3C presentations and events also available as an RSS channel.

• 5 November, Aarhus, Denmark: E-gov and the citizen - transformation by new technologyOlle Olsson presents at jboye08.
• 6 November, Monterrey, Mexico: Improving government through better use of the WebJosé Manuel Alonso gives a keynote at Seminario Internacional de Usabilidad y Accesibilidad para la Web 2008.
• 14 November, Paris, France: La mode se démode, le Style jamaisDaniel Glazman presents at Paris Web 2008.
• 18 November, Sophia Antipolis, France: The W3C Multimodal ArchitectureIngmar Kliche presents at ETSI Workshop on Multimodal Interaction on Mobile Devices .
• 28 November, Berlin, Germany: Towards eGovernment 2.0 through better use of the WebJosé Manuel Alonso gives a keynote at E-Government-Standards Kongress.

The Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group has published the Proposed Recommendation of W3C mobileOK Basic Tests 1.0. This document defines the set of machine-verifiable tests that provide the basis for making a claim of W3C mobileOK Basic conformance and is based on W3C Mobile Web Best Practices. Content which passes the tests has taken some steps to provide a functional user experience for users of basic mobile devices whose capabilities at least match those of the Default Delivery Context. Comments are welcome through 1 December 2008. Learn more about the Mobile Web Initiative.

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Working Group has published the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 as a Proposed Recommendation, and published updated Working Drafts of Understanding WCAG 2.0, Techniques for WCAG 2.0, and How to Meet WCAG 2.0. WCAG defines how to make Web sites, Web applications, and other Web content accessible to people with disabilities. Comments are welcome through 2 December 2008. Read the announcement, Overview of WCAG 2.0 Documents, and about the Web Accessibility Initiative.

W3C is pleased to announce the creation of the Model-Based User Interfaces Incubator Group, sponsored by W3C Members Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, JustSystems, Siemens, Telefónica de España, and Université Catholique de Louvain. The group's mission is to evaluate research on model-based user interface design as a framework for authoring Web applications and with a view to proposing work on related standards. Read more about the Incubator Activity, an initiative to foster development of emerging Web-related technologies. Incubator Activity work is not on the W3C standards track.

All this week, the World Wide Web Consortium holds its annual Technical Plenary week near its European host site in France. More than 350 software engineers, developers, and other experts in a wide range of technologies such as HTML, XML, CSS, Mobile Web, Semantic Web, and Video in the Web, come together to address a variety of challenges in the development of Web standards. Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director and inventor of the Web, will open the 22 October plenary session with a keynote and discussion on the technical direction of W3C for the next several years and where Web applications, documents, and data come together. In the keynote, Berners-Lee will also share thoughts on the future of HTML in the browser and how HTML and XML communities can learn from each other. Slides and minutes from the plenary day will be publicly available. Read the press release for more information, including information for media wishing to cover the event.

The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group has published the Last Call Working Draft of Media Queries. HTML4 and CSS2 currently support media-dependent style sheets tailored for different media types. For example, a document may use sans-serif fonts when displayed on a screen and serif fonts when printed. 'screen' and 'print' are two media types that have been defined. Media queries extend the functionality of media types by allowing more precise labeling of style sheets. Comments are welcome through 21 November. Learn more about the Style Activity.

The Multimodal Interaction Working Group has published an updated Working Draft of Multimodal Architecture and Interfaces (MMI Architecture), which defines a loosely coupled architecture for multimodal user interfaces. The main change in this draft is the addition of the rules and guidelines which will allow modality experts to describe the features, capabilities and APIs for specific modality components in sufficient detail so that the components will be interoperable in implementations of the Multimodal Architecture. The architecture envisioned by the Working Group will provide a general and flexible framework providing interoperability among modality-specific components from different vendors - for example, speech recognition from one vendor and handwriting recognition from another. Learn more about W3C's Multimodal Interaction Activity.

The Semantic Web Deployment Working Group and the XHTML2 Working Group published the W3C Recommendation RDFa in XHTML: Syntax and Processing. This specification allows publishers to express structured data on the Web within XHTML. This allows tools to read it, enabling a new world of user functionality, allowing users to transfer structured data between applications and web sites, and allowing browsing applications to improve the user experience. For those looking for an introduction to the use of RDFa and some real-world examples, please consult the updated RDFa Primer. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity and the HTML Activity.

Participants from four W3C Groups — CSS, Internationalization Core, SVG and XSL Working Groups — as part of the Japanese Layout Task Force published an update of Requirements of Japanese Text Layout. This document describes requirements for general Japanese layout realized with technologies like CSS, SVG and XSL-FO. The document is mainly based on a standard for Japanese layout, JIS X 4051. However, it also addresses areas which are not covered by JIS X 4051. This draft contains most of the material which the task force intends to publish as a Group Note in December 2008. A Japanese version is also available. Learn more about W3C's Internationalization Activity.

W3C published today a standard that will simplify the development of Web applications that speak and listen to users. The Pronunciation Lexicon Specification (PLS) 1.0 is the newest piece of W3C's Speech Interface Framework for creating Web applications driven by voice and speech. PLS can reduce the cost of developing these applications by allowing people to share and reuse pronunciation dictionaries. "There are 10 times as many phones in the world as connected PCs. Phones will become the major portal to the Web," said James A. Larson, co-Chair of the Voice Browser Working Group, which produced the new standard. Read the press release and testimonials, and learn more about the W3C Voice Browser Activity.

Social networking is a complex, rapidly expanding, and in some cases, disruptive sector of the information economy. For example, user-generated content is causing changes in the traditional content/media industry structure. In the future, community features may well become an integral part of all digital experiences — from information/publishing to business and entertainment. Companies providing services for social media and social networking must anticipate barriers to industry growth and stability. W3C believes that now is the time for industry to gather to discuss their experience so far, and what barriers they foresee in the near- and medium-term. W3C therefore invites people to participate in a Workshop on the Future of Social Networking, to analyze risks and opportunities of the social networking industry, and to define plans for the future. The Workshop will be held 15-16 January 2009 in Barcelona (Spain) and is hosted by Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya and ReadyPeople. Anyone may attend, but position papers are required and are due November 20. Instructions for workshop registration/participation will be sent exclusively to authors of submitted position papers. Read more about the Workshop scope and sponsorship opportunities.

W3C invites people to participate in a Workshop on Speaker biometrics and VoiceXML 3.0 on 5-6 March 2009 in Menlo Park, California (USA), hosted by SRI International. Attendees will discuss directions for Speaker Identification and Verification (SIV) standards work, and in particular, requirements for SIV and SIV standards relevant to VoiceXML 3.0. The goal of the Workshop is to help the Voice Browser Working Group integrate existing and in-process standards with VoiceXML 3.0 specification and make the specification more useful in current and emerging markets. Position papers are due 18 December 2008. Read about Voice Extensible Markup Language (VoiceXML) 3.0 Requirements, Voice Browser and learn more about W3C Workshops.

The Web Applications Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of Widgets 1.0: Updates. This specification defines a model to allow a widget user agent to locate and replace a widget resource with a new or different version of a widget resource. The updates model is designed to work both over HTTP and from local storage. For updates performed via the Web, the model makes use a simple XML documents that authors place on a Web server to indicate, amongst other things, where the next most suitable version of a widget resource can be retrieved from. It also defines a mechanism that allows authors to be notified of installation errors or success. This specification also describes how to renegotiate security policies when widgets are updated. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

The OWL Working Group published seven documents yesterday relating to the OWL 2 Web Ontology Language. OWL 2 extends OWL, a core standard of the Semantic Web, adding new features that users have requested and that software providers are prepared to implement. The documents are:

1. Structural Specification and Functional-Style Syntax
2. Direct Semantics
3. RDF-Based Semantics (First Public Draft)
4. Mapping to RDF Graphs
5. XML Serialization
6. Profiles
7. Conformance and Test Cases (First Public Draft)

The first three documents form the technical core of OWL 2, which has both a traditional "direct" semantics (for OWL DL) and a new "RDF-based" semantics (for OWL Full). Documents 4 and 5 specify two different serializations for OWL ontologies, one based on RDF and one using XML more directly. Document 6 defines useful subsets of OWL which may be easier to implement or may better meet certain performance requirements. Finally, document 7 specifies conformance and will later enumerate the OWL 2 test cases. Five other documents are under development; but they are not yet ready for public review. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity.

W3C updated its XHTML Modularization standard today with support for designing modular languages using XML Schema. The addition of schemas to XHTML Modularization 1.1 is an important step towards the XHTML2 Working Group's goal that XHTML support rich Web content and be extensible, while remaining interoperable. A modularization standard allows language designers to reuse elements defined by multiple parties (including other W3C standards such as SVG and MathML) and combine them into new formats to meet specific application needs. The standard allows people to use schema-enabled, off-the-shelf tools to immediately begin authoring and validating documents written in those new languages. The XHTML2 Working Group, which gained experience using Modularization 1.1 to build some modules and languages, now plans to add schema support to other XHTML standards. Learn more about the HTML Activity.

The SYMM Working Group has published the Proposed Recommendation of Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL 3.0), pronounced "smile." SMIL 3.0 allows authors to write interactive multimedia presentations. Using SMIL 3.0, an author may describe the temporal behavior of a multimedia presentation, associate hyperlinks with media objects and describe the layout of the presentation on a screen. SMIL 3.0 is a modular XML application: its components may be used in other XML formats. SMIL also defines mobile profiles that incorporate features useful within the industry. Comments are welcome through 6 November. Read more about the Synchronized Multimedia Activity. See also W3C's new Video on the Web Activity.

The Web Applications Working Group has published the Working Draft of XMLHttpRequest Level 2. The specification enhances XMLHttpRequest with new features, such as cross-site requests, progress events, and the handling of byte streams for both sending and receiving. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

Browse W3C presentations and events also available as an RSS channel.

• 2 October, London, United Kingdom: Working Across BordersJosé Manuel Alonso participates in a panel at OASIS Open Standards Forum.
• 2 October, Utrecht, The Netherlands: 'Sterke verhalen' over standaardisatieSteven Pemberton participates in a panel at HubHolland.
• 2 October, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: On the Way to the Semantic WebKlaus Birkenbihl, Ivan Herman present at Rio Info 2008.
• 6 October, Nice, France: Les applications et services de l'Internet mobilePhilipp Hoschka participates in a panel at Internet of Things Internet of the Future.
• 7 October, Göteborg, Sweden: Webben, Open Source och standarderOlle Olsson presents at DFS-seminarium.
• 8 October, Kista, Sweden: Webb 2.0 och bortomOlle Olsson presents at ISOC.SE seminarium.
• 13 October, Las Vegas, NV, USA: Accessibility in a Web 2.0 WorldShawn Henry presents at Web Builder 2.0.
• 14 October, Las Vegas, NV, USA: Getting Real with AccesibilityShawn Henry presents at Web Builder 2.0.
• 16 October, Bålsta, Sweden: Klarspråk och förståelighet på webben — webben som utmaning och möjlighetOlle Olsson presents at Klarspråkskonferensen 2008.
• 17 October, Poznan, Poland: The Policy-Aware Web meets Virtual GoodsRenato Iannella gives a keynote at 6th International Workshop for Technical, Economic and Legal Aspects of Business Models for Virtual Goods.
• 26 October, Karlsruhe, Germany: RDFa — Bridging the Web of Documents and the Web of DataMichael Hausenblas, Ivan Herman, Ben Adida give a tutorial at 7th International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC2008).

W3C invites people to participate in a Workshop on Security for Access to Device APIs from the Web to be hosted by Vodafone in London (UK) on 10-11 December 2008. The goal of this workshop is to bring together people from a wide variety of backgrounds (API designers, security experts, usability experts, ...) to discuss the security challenges involved in allowing Web applications and widgets to access the APIs that allow to control these features (e.g., cameras, gps, address books, etc.). Participants will also advise the W3C on appropriate next steps for any gap that needs to be addressed with new technical work. Position papers are due 30 October. W3C invites you to read more about the Workshop scope.

The Mobile Web Initiative Device Description Working Group has published the Proposed Recommendation of Device Description Repository Simple API. Web content delivered to mobile devices usually benefits from being tailored to take into account a range of factors such as screen size, markup language support and image format support. Such information is stored in "Device Description Repositories" (DDRs). This document describes a simple API for access to DDRs, in order to ease and promote the development of Web content that adapts to its Delivery Context. Comments are welcome through 31 October. Learn more about the Mobile Web Initiative Activity.

The Efficient XML Interchange Working Group has published the Last Call 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. The EXI format uses a hybrid approach drawn from the information and formal language theories, plus practical techniques verified by measurements, for entropy encoding XML information. 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. Comments are welcome through 07 November. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity.

The Web Applications Working Group has published the Last Call Working Draft of Widgets 1.0: Requirements. A Widget is an interactive single purpose application for displaying and/or updating local data or data on the Web, packaged in a way to allow a single download and installation on a user's machine or mobile device. Typical examples of widgets include clocks, CPU gauges, sticky notes, battery-life indicators, games, and widgets that make use of Web services, like weather forecasters, news readers, e-mail checkers, photo albums and currency converters. This document lists the design goals and requirements that specifications would need to address in order to standardize various aspects of widgets. Comments are welcome through 13 October. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

The number of location-aware Web devices has increased dramatically as of late: built-in Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers and mobile phone tower triangulation services have made mobile phones location-aware, Wifi triangulation services brings location information to Wifi enabled devices, GPS receivers now have Web connectivity. Location, location, location!

Thus far there has been no standard method for these devices to make their location available to Web applications, and so in response to requests from the community W3C has created the new Geolocation Working Group, which is chartered to develop a standardized interface to provide location information to Web applications and thus enable an exciting new class applications. This new group is part of W3C's Ubiquitous Web Applications Activity.

The WebCGM Working Group has published the First Public Last Call Working Draft of WebCGM 2.1. Computer Graphics Metafile (CGM) is an ISO standard, defined by ISO/IEC 8632:1999, for the interchange of 2D vector and mixed vector/raster graphics. WebCGM is a profile of CGM, which adds Web linking and is optimized for Web applications in technical illustration, electronic documentation, geophysical data visualization, and similar fields. First published (1.0) in 1999, WebCGM unifies potentially diverse approaches to CGM utilization in Web document applications. It therefore represents a significant interoperability agreement amongst major users and implementers of the ISO CGM standard. Comments are welcome through 01 November. Learn more about the Graphics Activity.

The SVG Working Group has published the Last Call Working Draft of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Tiny 1.2 Specification. This specification defines the features and syntax for Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Tiny, Version 1.2, a language for describing two-dimensional vector and mixed vector/raster graphics in XML. Its goal is to provide the ability to create a whole range of graphical content, from static images to animations to interactive Web applications. SVG Tiny 1.2 is a profile of SVG intended for implementation on a range of devices, from cellphones and PDAs to desktop and laptop computers. Comments are welcome through 13 October. Learn more about the W3C Graphics Activity.

Before a gathering of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation in Washington, D.C. (USA), Tim Berners-Lee announced today the creation of the World Wide Web Foundation. The mission of the Foundation is:

• to advance One Web that is free and open,
• to expand the Web's capability and robustness,
• and to extend the Web's benefits to all people on the planet.

Following Berners-Lee's speech, Alberto Ibargüen, Knight Foundation's president and CEO, announced a $5 million seed grant in support of the mission. Learn more about the World Wide Web Foundation at www.webfoundation.org, which also includes a FAQ and video and photos from the event.

The Service Modeling Language Working Group has published the Last Call Working Drafts of Service Modeling Language, Version 1.1 and Service Modeling Language Interchange Format Version 1.1. The former specification defines the Service Modeling Language, Version 1.1 (SML) used to model complex services and systems, including their structure, constraints, policies, and best practices. The latter defines the interchange format for SML 1.1. This format identifies the model being interchanged, distinguishes between model definition documents and model instance documents, and defines the binding of rule documents with other documents in the interchange model. Comments are welcome through 03 October. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity.

The Web Applications Working Group has published a Working Draft of Access Control for Cross-Site Requests. Other specifications that wish to enable cross-siterequests in an API they define can use the algorithms defined by this specification. If such an API is used on http://example.org resources, a resource on http://hello-world.example can opt in using the mechanism described by this specification. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

The XML Schema Working Group has published a Working Draft of W3C XML Schema Definition Language (XSD): Component Designators. This document defines a system for designating XML Schema components. Schema components are the building blocks that comprise the abstract data model of the schema. They are specified by XML Schema Part 1: Structures and XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes. The XSD specification divides the problem of constructing schema component designators into two parts: defining a designator for an assembled schema, and defining a designator for a particular schema component or schema components, understood relative to a designated schema. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity.

The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group has published a Working Draft of CSS Backgrounds and Borders Module Level 3. CSS is a language for describing the rendering of structured documents (such as HTML and XML). This draft contains the features of CSS level 3 relating to borders and backgrounds. It includes and extends the functionality of CSS level 2. The main extensions compared to level 2 are borders consisting of images, boxes with multiple backgrounds, boxes with rounded corners and boxes with shadows. Learn more about the Style Activity.

The Evaluation and Repair Tools Working Group today published Representing Content in RDF as a First Public Working Draft. This document provides a vocabulary to represent content in RDF, and is flexible for any type of content available on the Web or in local storage media. The Working Group also published an an updated Working Draft of HTTP Vocabulary in RDF, which defines terms to allow HTTP headers that have been exchanged between a client and a server to be recorded in RDF. These documents can be used to extend the Evaluation and Report Language (EARL) 1.0 Schema, an RDF vocabulary to record test results such as those generated by Web accessibility evaluation tools. They are part of the EARL Specification. Learn more about the Web Accessibility Initiative.

The Semantic Web Deployment Working Group and XHTML2 Working Group have published the Proposed Recommendation of RDFa in XHTML: Syntax and Processing. The modern Web is made up of an enormous number of documents that have been created using HTML. These documents contain significant amounts of structured data, which is largely unavailable to tools and applications. When publishers can express this data more completely, and when tools can read it, a new world of user functionality becomes available, letting users transfer structured data between applications and web sites, and allowing browsing applications to improve the user experience. RDFa is a specification for attributes to express structured data in any markup language. The groups have also published an implementation report as part of the Candidate Recommendation phase. Comments are welcome through 03 October. Learn more about the Semantic Web.

The Efficient XML Interchange Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of Efficient XML Interchange (EXI) Impacts. EXI defines a new representation for the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Information Set. The introduction of such a format may cause disruption in systems that have so far been able to assume XML as the only representation of XML Information Set data. This document reviews areas where the introduction of EXI may disrupt or otherwise have an impact on existing XML technologies, XML processors, and applications. It also describes EXI design features and steps that may be taken by implementors to reduce or eliminate disruption and impacts. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity.

Browse W3C presentations and events also available as an RSS channel.

• 1 September, Liverpool, United Kingdom: Web Accessibility and the Older PopulationAndrew Arch presents at HCI and the Older Population 2008.
• 2 September, Amsterdam, The Netherlands: From pages to applications: Mobile Web Best PracticesFrançois Daoust presents at Mobile Internet User eXperience (MIUX'08).
• 4 September, Erlangen, Germany: Senioren im Web: Barrierefreiheit für Ältere MenschenShadi Abou-Zahra presents at Webkongress 2008.
• 16 September, Yahoo!'s Mission College Campus, Santa Clara, California, USA: Introduction to the Protocol for Web Description ResourcesPhil Archer, Matt Womer are at POWDER: More of what you want, when you want it.
• 23 September, York, United Kingdom: How web accessibility guidelines apply to design for the ageing populationAndrew Arch, Shadi Abou-Zahra present at Accessible Design in the Digital World.
• 23 September, London, United Kingdom: Standardisation vs. Openness vs. Proprietary Systems - Examining in which Direction the Mobile Web Industry is heading and why this really MattersDominique Hazaël-Massieux presents at Mobile Web Europe 2008.
• 24 September, Washington, DC, USA: Introducing the W3C eGovernment Interest GroupKevin Novak presents at The Next Generation of Our Public Record:Many Voices, One Voice.
• 24 September, Vienna, Austria: Introduction to the Semantic WebIvan Herman gives a tutorial at 2nd European Semantic Technology Conference.

The Semantic Web Deployment Working Group has published the Group Note of Best Practice Recipes for Publishing RDF Vocabularies. This document describes best practice recipes for publishing vocabularies or ontologies on the Web (in RDF Schema or OWL). It is intended for the creators and maintainers of vocabularies in RDFS and OWL (vocabulary and ontology are used interchangeably in the context of this specification). It provides step-by-step instructions for publishing vocabularies on the Web, giving example configurations designed to cover the most common cases. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity.

The Web Applications Working Group has published the Working Draft of Web IDL. This specification defines a syntactic subset of OMG IDL version 3.0 for use by specifications that define interfaces. Web IDL is an IDL variant with a number of features that allow the behavior of common script objects in the web platform to be specified more readily. A number of extensions are given to the IDL to support common functionality that previously must have been written in prose. In addition, precise language bindings for ECMAScript 3rd Edition and Java are given. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

The Semantic Web Deployment Working Group has published the Last Call Working Draft of SKOS Simple Knowledge Organization System Reference. This document defines the Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS), a common data model for sharing and linking knowledge organization systems via the Web. The SKOS data model provides a standard, low-cost migration path for porting existing knowledge organization systems to the Semantic Web. SKOS also provides a light weight, intuitive language for developing and sharing new knowledge organization systems. It may be used on its own, or in combination with formal knowledge representation languages such as the Web Ontology language (OWL). Comments are welcome through 03 October. The group has also published an update of the companion SKOS Primer. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity.

W3C announced today its new Licenses for W3C Test Suites. Two licenses promote two goals:

1. A 3-clause BSD License is designed to enable developers to use test cases easily, and promote software development and bugtracking.
2. A W3C Test Suite License is designed to enable a W3C Working Group to create a branded, "Authoritative W3C Test Suite" to reflect the group consensus process, and to promote interoperability and stability of performance claims.

W3C appreciates the support of those who suggested these changes, who provided use cases, and who patiently reviewed drafts.

The Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER) Working Group has published five Working Drafts. The purpose of the Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER) is to provide a means for individuals or organizations to describe a group of resources through the publication of machine-readable metadata.

• Description Resources (Last Call); which details the creation and lifecycle of Description Resources (DRs), which encapsulate metadata
• Grouping of Resources (Last Call); which describes how sets of IRIs can be defined such that descriptions or other data can be applied to the resources obtained by dereferencing IRIs that are elements of the set.
• Formal Semantics (Last Call); which describes how the relatively simple operational format of a POWDER document can be transformed for processing by Semantic Web tools
• Primer (First Public Draft)
• Test Suite (First Public Draft)

Last Call comments are welcome through 14 September. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity.

The Voice Browser Working Group has published the Proposed Recommendation of Pronunciation Lexicon Specification (PLS) Version 1.0. 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. Changes from the previous Working Draft can be found in Appendix D of the specification. Comments are welcome through 18 September. Learn more about the Voice Browser Activity.

Web-based video is exploding, for advertising, enterprise collaboration, entertainment, product reviews, and other applications. As prices drop for consumer electronics, amateur and professionals alike are creating increasingly high quality videos. Social networks are sprouting up around Web-delivered media. W3C today launched a new Video in the Web Activity to make video a "first-class citizen" of the Web. The initial scope of work, determined as a result of a successful W3C Workshop on Video will be conducted by three groups:

• Media Annotations, which will provide an ontology designed to facilitate cross-community data integration of information related to media objects in the Web, such as video, audio and images.
• Media Fragments, which will address temporary and spatial links (i.e., into a particular moment of a multimedia track, or location in two visual dimensions) using Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs).
• Timed Text, which will work on a standard for online captioning.

W3C continues to investigate the important topics of audio and video codecs on the Web. Learn more about the new Video in the Web Activity.

The XML Processing Model Working Group has published the Last Call Working Draft of XProc: An XML Pipeline Language. This specification describes the syntax and semantics of XProc: An XML Pipeline Language, a language for describing operations to be performed on XML documents. A pipeline consists of steps. Like pipelines, steps take zero or more XML documents as their inputs and produce zero or more XML documents as their outputs. Comments are welcome through 26 September. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity.

The Web Applications Working Group invites implementation of the Candidate Recommendation of Element Traversal Specification. This specification defines the ElementTraversal interface, intended to provide a more convenient alternative to existing Document Object Model (DOM) navigation interfaces, with a low implementation footprint. It does so by allowing script navigation of the elements of a DOM tree, excluding all other nodes in the DOM, such as text nodes. It also provides an attribute to expose the number of child elements of an element. See the disposition of Last Call Comments and learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

The Voice Browser Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of Voice Extensible Markup Language (VoiceXML) 3.0 Requirements. VoiceXML 2.0 is designed for creating audio dialogs that feature synthesized speech, digitized audio, recognition of spoken and DTMF key input, recording of spoken input, telephony, and mixed initiative conversations. VoiceXML 3.0 is the next major release of VoiceXML. Its purpose is to provide even more powerful dialog capabilities that can be used to build advanced speech applications and to provide these capabilities in a form that can be easily and cleanly integrated with other W3C languages. Learn more about the Voice Browser Activity.

The XML Query Working Group has published the Candidate Recommendation of XQuery Update Facility 1.0. This document defines an update facility that extends the XML Query language, XQuery. The XQuery Update Facility provides expressions that can be used to make persistent changes to instances of the XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Data Model. This document incorporates changes made against the Candidate Recommendation of 14 March 2008. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity.

The Protocols and Formats Working Group published an updated Working Draft of Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA). WAI-ARIA defines a way to make Web content and Web applications more accessible to people with disabilities. It especially helps with dynamic content and advanced user interface controls developed with Ajax, HTML, JavaScript, and related technologies. WAI-ARIA is introduced in the WAI-ARIA Overview and the WAI-ARIA FAQ. Read the updated WAI-ARIA Specification announcement that requests feedback on host language embedding, and about the Web Accessibility Initiative.

The Rule Interchange Format (RIF) Working Group published six documents yesterday:

• RIF Basic Logic Dialect (Last Call)
• RIF RDF and OWL Compatibility (Last Call)
• RIF Framework for Logic Dialects
• RIF Use Cases and Requirements
• RIF Production Rule Dialect (First Public Draft)
• RIF Datatypes and Built-Ins 1.0

"RIF Basic Logic Dialect" (BLD) specifies an XML format for rules at an intermediate expressive power. The language is roughly Horn rules with URIs, datatypes, and builtins. This goes beyond datalog (it has function terms), but does not provide any kind of negation. "RIF RDF and OWL Compatibility" explains and specifies how RIF rulesets are to be used in combination with RDF and OWL. Comments on these documents welcome until 19 September. In addition, RIF Production Rule Dialect (PRD) specifies an XML format for the exchange of production rules. PRD and BLD are expected to be the basis of the two main dialect-branches, with RIF Core being the things in common between the two. RIF Framework for Logic Dialects (FLD) and RIF Datatypes and Builtins (DTB) provide common elements for specific dialects to use. RIF Uses Cases and Requirements (UCR), last published about two years ago, has been simplified and now has examples written in the PRD and BLD presentation syntaxes. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity.

Browse W3C presentations and events also available as an RSS channel.

• 1 August, Tel-Aviv, Israel: Why do we need Internet standards and W3COri Idan presents at August Penguin.
• 16 August, Honolulu, HI, USA: Hot and Spicy Style with CSSMolly E Holzschlag gives a tutorial at Hot and Spicy Style with CSS.
• 20 August, New York, USA: Multimodal Standards and ApplicationsDeborah Dahl, Ingmar Kliche, Raj Tumuluri present at SpeechTEK.
• 22 August, Ghent, Belgium: Detailed introduction into RDF and the Semantic WebIvan Herman gives a tutorial at 4th Search & Find Workshop.

The Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of Content Transformation Guidelines 1.0. Content Transformation is the manipulation in various ways, by proxies, of requests made to and content delivered by an origin server with a view to making it more suitable for mobile presentation. The overall objective of this document is to provide a means, as far as is practical, for users to be provided with at least a "functional user experience" when accessing the Web with a mobile device. Comments are welcome through 16 September. Learn more about the Mobile Web Initiative.

The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of CSS Marquee Module Level 3. CSS describes the rendering of documents on various media. When documents (e.g., HTML) are laid out on visual media (e.g., screen or print) and the contents of some element are too large for a given area, CSS allows the designer to specify whether and how the overflow is displayed. One way, available on certain devices, is the "marquee" effect: the content is animated and moves automatically back and forth. This module defines the properties to control that effect. Comments are welcome through 01 September. Learn more about the Style Activity.

The CSS Working Group has published a Candidate Recommendation for CSS Mobile Profile 2.0., which defines a common baseline of CSS support that even constrained mobile devices can provide. This effort is part of W3C's ongoing efforts to make the Web easier to use from a mobile devices (see related news). For the CSS Mobile Profile 2.0, W3C has worked closely together with OMA to remove the differences between W3C's and OMA's previous CSS-mobile profiles. An "alpha" quality test suite is available for the mobile profile. The Working Group will track implementations during the Candidate Recommendation phase. Implementers are invited to send feedback before February 2009. Learn more about the Style Activity.

W3C invites people to participate in a Workshop on Semantic Web in Energy Industries; Part I: Oil & Gas to be hosted by Chevron in Houston, Texas, USA on 9-10 December 2008. Participants will explore how Semantic Web technologies can play a role in the management and analysis of the huge amounts of data gathered from highly diverse sources in this sector of the energy industry. Position papers are due 19 September. W3C invites you to read more about the Workshop goals and learn about the W3C Semantic Web Activity.

The Mobile Web Test Suites Working Group has released a new and stable version of its Web Compatibility Test for Mobile Browsers, featuring more technologies and several improvements over the previous version. Read more about the design of the test and learn more about the W3C Mobile Web Initiative.

W3C today announced new standards that will make it easier for people to browse the Web on mobile devices. Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0, published as a W3C Recommendation by the Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group, condenses the experience of many mobile Web stakeholders into practical advice on creating mobile-friendly content. These guidelines will help to improve the experience of people browsing the Web on a wide array of mobile handsets. W3C published a second standard today: XHTML Basic 1.1 Recommendation, the preferred format specification of the Best Practices. With this, there is now a full convergence in mobile markup languages, including those developed by the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA). The Working Group also published today the first draft of a next generation of guidelines, Mobile Web Application Best Practices, aimed at mobile Web applications. Read the press release and testimonials, try the W3C mobileOK checker (beta), and learn more about W3C's Mobile Web Initiative (MWI).

The Efficient XML Interchange Working Group published two Working Drafts today: Efficient XML Interchange (EXI) Format 1.0 and Efficient XML Interchange Evaluation. The former specifies the Efficient XML Interchange (EXI) format. 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. The EXI format uses a hybrid approach drawn from the information and formal language theories, plus practical techniques verified by measurements, for entropy encoding XML information. 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 latter document, a first public draft, is an evaluation of the Efficient XML Interchange (EXI) Format 1.0 with reference to the Properties identified by the (now closed) XML Binary Characterization (XBC) Working Group, relative to XML, gzipped XML and ASN.1 PER. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity.

The SOAP-JMS Binding Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of SOAP over Java Message Service 1.0. The work described in this and related documents is aimed at a set of standards for the transport of SOAP messages over Java Message Service (JMS). The main purpose is to ensure interoperability between the implementations of different Web services vendors. It should also enable customers to implement their own Web services for part of their infrastructure, and to have this interoperate with vendor provided Web services. This document specifies bindings for both SOAP 1.1 and SOAP 1.2, using the SOAP 1.2 Protocol Binding Framework. Learn more about the Web Services Activity.

The Web Security Context Working Group has published the Last Call Working Draft of Web Security Context: User Interface Guidelines. This specification deals with the trust decisions that users must make online, and with ways to support them in making safe and informed decisions where possible. In order to achieve that goal, this specification includes recommendations on the presentation of identity information by Web user agents. It also includes recommendations on handling errors in security protocols. The error handling recommendations both minimize the trust decisions left to users, and represent known best practice in inducing users toward safe behavior where they have to make these decisions. Comments are welcome through 15 September. Learn more about the Security Activity.

The Math Working Group has published the Working Draft of XML Entity definitions for Characters. Many XML entity names are in common use for mathematical symbols, and this specification aims to provide standard mappings to Unicode for each of these names. Learn more about the Math Activity.

The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group has published the Last Call Working Draft of CSS Color Module Level 3. CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is a language for describing the rendering of HTML and XML documents on screen, on paper, in speech, etc. It uses color related properties and respective values to color the text, backgrounds, borders, and other parts of elements in a document. This specification describes color values and properties for foreground color and group opacity. These include properties and values from CSS level 2 and new values. Comments are welcome through 01 September. Learn more about the Style Activity.

The XML Query Working Group has published the First Public Working Drafts of XQuery 1.1 and XQuery 1.1 Use Cases. The former describes a query language called XQuery, which is designed to be broadly applicable across many types of XML data sources. This version of XQuery extends the version of the XQuery 1.0 Recommendation published on 23 January 2007; see the list of changes. The latter document describes usage scenarios that will impact the design of XQuery 1.1. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity.

The Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER) Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of Protocol for Web Description Resources: Formal Semantics. This document underpins the Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER). It describes how the relatively simple operational format of a POWDER document can be transformed through two stages, first into a more tightly constrained XML format (POWDER-BASE), and then into an RDF/OWL encoding (POWDER-S) that may be processed by Semantic Web tools. The formal semantics of POWDER are best understood after the reader is acquainted with the Description Resources and Grouping of Resources documents. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity.

The Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group and the WAI Education and Outreach Working Group have published an updated Working Draft of Relationship between Mobile Web Best Practices (MWBP) and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). See the announcement email. The groups encourage people to start by reading Web Content Accessibility and Mobile Web: Making a Web Site Accessible Both for People with Disabilities and for Mobile Devices, which shows how design goals for accessibility and mobile access overlap. A third document, Experiences Shared by People with Disabilities and by People Using Mobile Devices, provides examples of barriers that people (without disabilities) face when interacting with Web content via mobile devices, and similar barriers for people with disabilities using desktop computers. Learn more about the Mobile Web Initiative and the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).

The Multimodal Interaction Working Group has published the Group Note of Authoring Applications for the Multimodal Architecture. This document provides a concrete illustration of a multimodal application based on W3C's Multimodal Architecture and Interfaces (MMI Architecture) including the startup phase, how components find each other and message transport. Learn more about the Multimodal Interaction Activity.

Browse W3C presentations and events also available as an RSS channel.

• 1 July, Bokwang , Korea: 차세대 웹 기술 동향Kangchan Lee presents at Korea Computer Congress 2008.
• 7 July, Linz, Austria: Senioren, Mobile Surfer und andere TrendsShadi Abou-Zahra presents at IKT Forum 2008.
• 10 July, Linz, Austria: Web Accessibility for Older UsersAndrew Arch presents at ICCHP 2008.
• 11 July, Linz, Austria: Bringing Accessibility to Today's WebMichael Cooper gives a keynote at ICCHP 2008 11th International Conference on Computers Helping People with Special Needs.
• 11 July, Linz, Austria: Web Accessibility 2.0 - Mainstreaming Accessibility at a Global LevelShadi Abou-Zahra participates in a panel at ICCHP 2008.
• 11 July, Linz, Austria: Bringing Accessibility to Today's WebMichael Cooper gives a keynote at ICCHP 2008.

The Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER) Working Group has published two Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER) Working Drafts: Grouping of Resources and Description Resources. The first document describes how to publish descriptions of multiple resources such as all those available from a Web site. These descriptions are always attributed to a named individual, organization or entity that may or may not be the creator of the described resources. The second publication provides a means for individuals or organizations to create machine-readable descriptions. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity.

Today W3C publishes a report on the June 2008 Workshop on the Role of Mobile Technologies in Fostering Social Development. Participants discussed how numerous available services on mobile phones could help people in underserved regions. Discussion underlined the need for a concerted effort among all the stakeholders (including practitioners, academics, regulators, and mobile industry) to build a shared view of the future of the mobile platform as a tool to bridge the digital divide. The Workshop was jointly organized by W3C and NIC.br, with the generous support of UNDP and Fundacion CTIC (Gold Sponsors), Opera Software and MobileActive.org (Silver sponsors). This work takes place under the European Union's 7th Research Framework Programme (FP7), part of Digital World Forum project. Learn more about the W3C Mobile Web for Social Development Interest Group and the W3C Mobile Web Initiative.

The Web Applications Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of Widgets 1.0: Requirements. This document lists the design goals and requirements that a specification would need to address in order to standardize various aspects of widgets. Widgets are small client-side Web applications for displaying and updating remote data, that are packaged in a way to allow download and installation on a client machine, mobile phone, or mobile Internet device. Comments are welcome through 01 August. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

W3C is pleased to announce the creation of the Common Web Language (CWL) Evaluation and Installation Incubator Group, sponsored by W3C Members Institute of Semantic Computing (ISeC), (Japan) National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Keio University, and JustSystems Corporation. The group's mission is to examine Common Web Language in real Web environments using the pilot model of the CWL platform. CWL is a graphic language of semantic network with hyper node and is used to describe contents and meta-data of web pages in three different type of form such as UNL, CDL and RDF. The CWL platform allows people to input CWL using natural languages and display information written in CWL in natural languages. Using this CWL platform, the CWL will be evaluated from multilingualism, semantic computing and semantic web points of view. Read more about the Incubator Activity, an initiative to foster development of emerging Web-related technologies. Incubator Activity work is not on the W3C standards track.

The Voice Browser Working Group has released the Last Call Working Draft of Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) Version 1.1. SSML provides a rich, XML-based markup language for assisting the generation of synthetic speech in Web and other applications. SSML 1.1 improves on W3C's SSML 1.0 Recommendation by adding support for more conventions and practices of the world's languages including Asian, Eastern European, and Middle Eastern languages. Comments are welcome through 20 July. See the list of changes in this draft and learn more about W3C's Voice Browser Activity.

The XML Schema Working Group has published Last Call Working Drafts of W3C XML Schema Definition Language (XSD) 1.1 Part 1: Structures and Part 2: Datatypes. The former specifies the XML Schema Definition Language, which offers facilities for describing the structure and constraining the contents of XML documents, including those which exploit the XML Namespace facility. The latter defines facilities for defining datatypes to be used in XML Schemas as well as other XML specifications. Comments are welcome through 12 September. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity.

The Semantic Web Deployment Working Group and XHTML2 Working Group have published a Candidate Recommendation of RDFa in XHTML: Syntax and Processing. Web documents contain significant amounts of structured data, which is largely unavailable to tools and applications. When publishers can express this data more completely, and when tools can read it, a new world of user functionality becomes available, letting users transfer structured data between applications and web sites, and allowing browsing applications to improve the user experience. RDFa is a specification for attributes to be used with languages such as HTML and XHTML to express structured data. See the groups' RDFa implementation report. The Working Groups also updated the companion document RDFa Primer. Learn more about the Semantic Web and the HTML Activity.

The XHTML2 Working Group published two Proposed Recommendations today: XHTML Modularization 1.1 and XHTML Basic 1.1. The former provides a means for subsetting and extending XHTML, a feature needed for extending XHTML's reach onto emerging platforms. This specification is intended for use by language designers as they construct new XHTML Family Markup Languages. This second version of this specification includes several minor updates to provide clarifications and address errors found in the first version. It also provides an implementation using XML Schemas. This version of XHTML Basic, which uses the Modularization approach, has been brought into alignment with the widely deployed XHTML Mobile Profile from the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA). XHTML Basic 1.1 will thus make it easier to author Web pages that work on millions of mobile handsets. Comments on these specifications are welcome through 15 July. Learn more about the HTML Activity.

The Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft 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. Content which passes the tests has taken some steps to provide a functional user experience for users of basic mobile devices whose capabilities at least match those of the Default Delivery Context. Comments are welcome through 30 June. Learn more about the Mobile Web Initiative Activity.

The HTML Working Group has published three documents: HTML 5, HTML 5 differences from HTML 4, and the first public draft of HTML 5 Publication Notes . HTML 5 introduces features for Web application authors, new elements based on research into prevailing authoring practices, and clear conformance criteria for user agents in an effort to improve interoperability. See the diff-marked version showing changes made since the 22 January 2008 draft. Learn more about the HTML Activity.

The XML Security Specifications Maintenance Working Group has published the W3C Recommendation of XML Signature Syntax and Processing (Second Edition). This document specifies XML syntax and processing rules for creating and representing digital signatures; the list of changes from the First Edition is available. The Working Group also published a Group Note Test Cases for C14N 1.1 and XMLDSig Interoperability, which specifies test cases for Canonical XML 1.1 and XML Signature Syntax and Processing, Second Edition. Learn more about the Security Activity.

The Semantic Web Deployment Working Group has published a Working Draft of SKOS Simple Knowledge Organization System Reference. This document defines the Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS), a common data model for sharing and linking knowledge organization systems via the Semantic Web. SKOS aims to provide a bridge between different communities of practice within the library and information sciences involved in the design and application of knowledge organization systems. In addition, SKOS aims to provide a bridge between these communities and the Semantic Web, by transferring existing models of knowledge organization to the Semantic Web technology context, and by providing a low-cost migration path for porting existing knowledge organization systems to RDF. See changes from the previous draft. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity.

W3C launched a new Web Applications (WebApps) Working Group, co-Chaired by Art Barstow (Nokia) and Charles McCathieNevile (Opera Software). This group merges the former Web APIs and Web Application Formats Working Groups. Per the charter for the Web Applications Working Group, the group's mission is to provide specifications that enable improved client-side application development on the Web, including specifications both for application programming interfaces (APIs) for client-side development and for markup vocabularies for describing and controlling client-side application behavior. W3C also rechartered the Compound Document Formats (CDF) Working Group, to continue to develop specifications which combine selected existing document formats from the W3C and elsewhere, and which specify the runtime behavior of such combined documents. Both groups will conduct their work in public. The first order of business of the rechartered CDF Working Group is to propose Chair candidates to the Director; please contact Doug Schepers with proposals. Learn more about the Rich Web Clients Activity.

The Semantic Web Health Care and Life Sciences Interest Group has published two Group Notes: A Prototype Knowledge Base for the Life Sciences and Experiences with the conversion of SenseLab databases to RDF/OWL. The former describes a prototype of a biomedical knowledge base that integrates 15 distinct data sources using currently available Semantic Web technologies including RDF and OWL. The Note outlines which resources were integrated, how the knowledge base was constructed using free and open source triple store technology, how it can be queried using SPARQL, and what resources and inferences are involved in answering complex queries. While the utility of the knowledge base is illustrated by identifying a set of genes involved in Alzheimer's Disease, the approach described here can be applied to any use case that integrates data from multiple domains. The second document describe the experience of converting SenseLab databases into OWL, an important step towards realizing the benefits of Semantic Web in integrative neuroscience research. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity.

W3C launches today a new forum for governments, citizens, researchers, and other stakeholders to investigate how best to use Web technology for good governance and citizen participation. "Open Standards, and in particular Semantic Web Standards, can help lower the cost of government, make it easier for independent agencies to work together, and increase flexibility in the face of change," said Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director. W3C invites participation in the new eGovernment Interest Group, which is open to the public. The group will identify best practices and guidelines in this area, document where current technology does not adequately address stakeholder needs, and suggest improvements via the standards process. Read the W3C eGovernment FAQ and press release, and learn more about the W3C eGovernment Activity.

The HTML Working Group has published the Offline Web Applications Group Note. HTML 5 contains several features that address the challenge of building Web applications that work while offline. This document highlights these features (SQL, offline application caching APIs as well as online/offline events, status, and the localStorage API) from HTML 5 and provides brief tutorials on how these features might be used to create Web applications that work offline. Learn more about the HTML Activity.

Browse W3C presentations and events also available as an RSS channel.

• 2 June, Västerås, Sweden: Framtidssäkra eFörvaltningenOlle Olsson participates in a panel at Offentliga Rummet 2008.
• 4 June, Sao Paulo, Brazil: Towards eGovernment 2.0 through better use of the WebJosé Manuel Alonso presents at W3C Brazil Office Public Launch.
• 4 June, Sao Paolo, Brazil: W3C - Web Open StandardsDaniel Dardailler presents at W3C Brazil Office Launch event .
• 10 June, Buenos Aires, Argentina: Web Accessibility: People with Disabilities and Elderly CitizensShadi Abou-Zahra presents at Web Sin Barreras.
• 11 June, Nashville, TN, USA: Color for the Global WebMolly E Holzschlag presents at Voices That Matter.
• 12 June, Nashville, TN, USA: Designing for Today's BrowsersMolly E Holzschlag presents at Voices That Matter.
• 17 June, New York, NY, USA: Web of DataTim Berners-Lee presents at LinkedData Planet Conference: exploring the new web of linked data.
• 19 June, Tokyo, Japan: Update on W3C/WAI Guidelines including WCAG 2.0Judy Brewer presents at Open Seminar of Information Accessibility.
• 19 June, Nancy, France: États des lieux du Web sémantiqueIvan Herman gives a keynote at 19èmes Journées Francophones d'Ingénierie des Connaissances (IC2008).
• 19 June, Baltimore, Maryland, USA: How New Web Accessibility Standards Impact User Experience DesignShawn Henry presents at Usability Professionals' Association International Conference 2008.
• 26 June, Frankfurt, Germany: Mobile Internet - the Way ForwardSteve Bratt participates in a panel at 2nd NGMN Industry Conference 2008.

The W3C Advisory Committee has filled six open seats on the W3C Advisory Board. Created in 1998, the Advisory Board provides guidance to the Team on issues of strategy, management, legal matters, process, and conflict resolution. Beginning 1 July, the nine Advisory Board participants are Jean-François Abramatic (ILOG), Ann Bassetti (The Boeing Company), Jim Bell (HP), Don Deutsch (Oracle), Eduardo Gutentag (Sun Microsystems), Steve Holbrook (IBM), Ken Laskey (MITRE), Ora Lassila (Nokia), and Arun Ranganathan (Mozilla Foundation). Steve Zilles continues as interim Advisory Board Chair. Read more about the Advisory Board.

As part of the growing set of W3C initiatives related to social development, W3C invites participation in the new Mobile Web for Development (MW4D) interest Group, chartered to explore the potential of mobile technology to help bridge the digital divide. "We need to solve important challenges, such as lack of standards in end-user devices, network constraints, service cost, issues of literacy, and an understanding of the real information needs of rural communities," said Ken Banks, kiwanja.net, who Chairs the group. "To do so requires an multidisciplinary approach, a step we take through the creation of this new group." Read more in the press release. This launch is part of W3C's Mobile Web Initiative (MWI), which aims to identify and resolve challenges and issues of accessing the Web when on the move. This work takes place under the auspices of the European Union's 7th Research Framework Programme (FP7), part of the Digital World Forum project.

The XHTML 2 Working Group has published the Last Call Working Draft of XHTML Access Module. This document is intended to help make XHTML-family markup languages more effective at supporting the needs of the accessibility community. It does so by providing a generic mechanism for defining the relationship between document components and well-known accessibility taxonomies. Comments are welcome through 16 June. Learn more about the HTML Activity.

The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group has published the Candidate Recommendation of CSS Namespaces Module. This CSS Namespaces module defines the syntax for using namespaces in CSS. It defines the @namespace rule for declaring the default namespace and binding namespaces to namespace prefixes, and it also defines a syntax that other specifications can adopt for using those prefixes in namespace-qualified names. Learn more about the Style Activity.

The Web API Working Group has published a Working Draft of Progress Events 1.0.This document describes event types that can be used for monitoring the progress of an operation. It is primarily intended for contexts such as data transfer operations specified by XMLHTTPRequest, or Media Access Events. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

W3C is pleased to announce the creation of the XML Security Working Group, whose mission is to evaluate and act on recommendations from the September 2007 Workshop on XML Signature and XML Encryption regarding next steps for XML Security specifications. The group's deliverables include new work on XML Signature Syntax and Processing and XML Encryption Syntax and Processing, as well as maintenance of related specifications. Frederick Hirsch (Nokia) will Chair the group, with Thomas Roessler (W3C) as Team Contact. Learn more about the W3C Security Activity.

The W3C XML Query Working Group and the W3C XSL Working Group jointly published today a Candidate Recommendation of XQuery and XPath Full Text 1.0. This document defines the syntax and formal semantics of XQuery and XPath Full Text 1.0 which is a language that extends XQuery 1.0 [XQuery 1.0: An XML Query Language] and XPath 2.0 [XML Path Language (XPath) 2.0] with full-text search capabilities. Implementors are encouraged to run the groups' test suite and report their results. The Groups also published Working Drafts of XQuery and XPath Full Text 1.0 Requirements and Use Cases. Learn more about the XML Activity.

The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group has published the Last Call Working Draft of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Snapshot 2007. This document collects together into one definition all the specifications that together form the current state of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). The primary audience is CSS implementors, not CSS authors, as this definition includes modules by specification stability, not Web browser adoption rate. Comments are welcome through 09 June. Learn more about the Style Activity.

The Voice Browser Working Group has published an updated Working Draft of State Chart XML (SCXML): State Machine Notation for Control Abstraction. SCXML is an execution environment based on UML Harel State Tables and CCXML. The main differences from the previous draft are (1) the modularization of the language, (2) the introduction of profiles and (3) a revision of the algorithm for document interpretation; the document as a whole has changed significantly and the group welcomes review. Learn more about the Voice Browser Activity.

The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) Education and Outreach Working Group Working Group (EOWG) has published Web Accessibility for Older Users: A Literature Review as a First Public Working Draft. The document includes reviews and analysis of guidelines and articles covering the requirements of people with Web accessibility needs related to ageing. This literature review will inform WAI efforts to promote accessibility solutions for older Web users and potentially to develop profiles or extensions to WAI guidelines. The literature review is a deliverable of the WAI-AGE Project (Ageing Education and Harmonisation). See the call for review and participation for an introduction to the project and an invitation to contribute to the literature review and other WAI-AGE work; and about the Web Accessibility Initiative.

The XHTML2 Working Group has published the Last Call Working Draft of CURIE Syntax 1.0, which outlines a syntax for expressing URIs in a generic, abbreviated syntax ("Compact URI"). The specification targets language designers who need a mechanism to permit the use of extensible value collections. Any language designer considering the use of QNames in attribute values should consider instead using CURIEs, since CURIEs are designed for this purpose, while QNames are not. Comments are welcome through 10 June. Learn more about the HTML Activity.

The XML Core Working Group has published the W3C Recommendation of Canonical XML Version 1.1. Canonical XML Version 1.1 is a revision to Canonical XML Version 1.0 to address issues related to inheritance of attributes in the XML namespace when canonicalizing document subsets, including the requirement not to inherit xml:id, and to treat xml:base URI path processing properly. Canonical XML Version 1.1 is applicable to XML 1.0 and defined in terms of the XPath 1.0 data model. It is not defined for XML 1.1. As a Recommendation, this is a stable document and may be used as reference material or cited from another document. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity.

Browse W3C presentations and events also available as an RSS channel.

• 5 May, Eindhoven, The Netherlands: XBRL and the Semantic WebIvan Herman participates in a panel at 17th International XBRL Conference.
• 5 May, Eindhoven, The Netherlands: What is the Semantic Web?Ivan Herman presents at 17th International XBRL Conference.
• 6 May, Gelsenkirchen, Germany: Verordnete (Barriere-)FreiheitShadi Abou-Zahra participates in a panel at Einfach-für-Alle Tagung.
• 6 May, Dublin, Ireland: XForms 1.1Steven Pemberton gives a tutorial at XTech 2008.
• 8 May, Dublin, Ireland: Why you should have a WebsiteSteven Pemberton presents at XTech 2008.
• 8 May, Dublin, Ireland: CSS Advanced Layout is not only for big gridsBert Bos presents at XTech 2008.
• 14 May, Stockholm, Sweden: Internationalisering och lokalisering -- språk på webbenOlle Olsson presents at Språk och Internet.
• 18 May, San Jose, CA, USA: State of the Semantic WebIvan Herman presents at 2008 Semantic Technology Conference.
• 19 May, Canberra, Australia: Improving Government through better use of the WebJosé Manuel Alonso gives a keynote at Web Directions South: Government.
• 20 May, Barcelona, Spain: Fast Forward: Get Ready for Web 3.0Steve Bratt gives a keynote at bdigital Global Congress.
• 21 May, Sydney, Australia: Towards eGovernment 2.0José Manuel Alonso gives a keynote at eGovernment Forum at CeBIT.
• 22 May, San Jose, CA, USA: Bringing SemTech Back to the BusinessIvan Herman participates in a panel at 2008 Semantic Technology Conference.
• 27 May, London, United Kingdom: One Big Happy Family: Practical Collaboration on Meaningful Markup Dan Brickley presents at Microformats vEvent.

W3C is pleased to announce the creation of the Product Modelling Incubator Group, sponsored by W3C Members TNO, POSC-Caesar Association, and Fraunhofer. Per the charter, the SWOP and S-TEN projects, with the POSC Caesar Association, believe that it is possible to define a small core of basic classes and properties for product modelling. This "product core" could be the basis of the ontologies defined by the two projects, and for many other application ontologies. This core could help the development of Web ontologies derived from existing international standards, such as IFC, STEP and ISO 15926. The XG has been proposed to work on this core set. Read more about the Incubator Activity, an initiative to foster development of emerging Web-related technologies. Incubator Activity work is not on the W3C standards track.

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: An XML Pipeline Language, a language for describing operations to be performed on XML documents. Pipelines are made up of simple steps which perform atomic operations on XML documents and constructs similar to conditionals, iteration, and exception handlers, which control which steps are executed. The status section of the document lists the most important changes since the previous draft. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity.

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Working Group has released Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 as a Candidate Recommendation, and published updated Working Drafts of Understanding WCAG 2.0 and Techniques for WCAG 2.0, along with How to Meet WCAG 2.0 and Comparison of WCAG 1.0 Checkpoints to WCAG 2.0. WCAG defines how to make Web sites, Web applications, and other Web content accessible to people with disabilities. Working closely with Web developers, the WCAG Working Group expects to receive initial implementations by 30 June 2008 and to show evidence of meeting the exit criteria by 31 August 2008. Read the press release, invitation to implement, Overview of WCAG 2.0 Documents, and about the Web Accessibility Initiative.

W3C holds its semiannual Advisory Committee Meeting on 21-22 April in Beijing, China. W3C Member organizations participate in two days of discussions and strategic planning about W3C Activities and future work. The meeting takes place alongside WWW2008; you are invited to the W3C Track at WWW2008. The media are invited to a press conference with Tim Berners-Lee on 23 April at 3pm local time. Learn how to become a W3C Member and attend the next Advisory Committee Meeting in October 2008 (part of Technical Plenary Week) in Cannes, France.

The Mobile Web Test Suites Working Group has released a stable version of its Web Compatibility Test for Mobile Browsers, and has sent an invitation to the community to share reports of browser support and other feedback on the test itself. Read more about the design of the test. Read more about the W3C Mobile Web Initiative.

W3C is pleased to announce the relaunch of the SVG Working Group. Erik Dahlström (Opera Software ASA) and Andrew Emmons (W3C Invited Expert) continue to chair the group, which is chartered to work in public to continue the evolution of Scalable Vector Graphics as a format and a platform, and enhance the adoption and usability of SVG in combination with other technologies. A new SVG Interest Group is also chartered to foster the widespread discussion of Scalable Vector Graphics as a format and a platform, to gather requirements, and enhance the adoption and usability of SVG in combination with other technologies. Learn more about Scalable Vector Graphics.

The Common Web Language Incubator Group published their final report. The goal of the Common Web Language (CWL) is to allow the exchange of information through the Web and also for enabling computers to process information semantically. CWL allows people to describe contents and meta-data of Web pages written in natural language; the language seeks to lower language barriers and to facilitate the automatic extraction of information from Web pages. This publication is part of the Incubator Activity, a forum where W3C Members can innovate and experiment. This work is not on the W3C standards track.

The Uncertainty Reasoning for the World Wide Web Incubator Group published their final report. The document includes a set of use case descriptions that illustrate situations for reasoning under uncertainty; some of the use cases include comprehensive information and details on how uncertainty would help to address issues that cannot be properly addressed with current deterministic approaches. The document also identifies methodologies that may be applied to address the use cases and that show promise as candidate solutions for uncertainty reasoning on the scale of the World Wide Web. This publication is part of the Incubator Activity, a forum where W3C Members can innovate and experiment. This work is not on the W3C standards track.

The Mobile Web Initiative Device Description Working Group has published a Group Note of Device Description Repository Core Vocabulary. This document identifies properties that are considered essential for adaptation of content in the Mobile Web. Its intended use is to define a baseline Vocabulary for Device Description Repository (DDR) implementations. The Vocabulary defined in this document is not intended to represent an exhaustive set of properties for content adaptation. DDR Implementations that require additional properties are free to make use of additional vocabularies. The process of creating a new Vocabulary can be modeled on the process described in this document. Learn more about the Mobile Web Initiative Activity.

The Internationalization Core Working Group has published a Working Draft of Web Services Internationalization (WS-I18N). This document describes enhancements to SOAP messaging to provide internationalized and localized operations using locale and international preferences. These mechanisms can be used to accommodate a wide variety of development models for international usage. Learn more about the Internationalization Activity.

The Ubiquitous Web Applications Working Group has published a Working Draft of Delivery Context Ontology. The Delivery Context Ontology provides a formal model of the characteristics of the environment in which devices interact with the Web or other services. The delivery context is an important source of information that can be used to adapt materials to make them useable on a wide range of different devices with different capabilities. The delivery context includes the characteristics of the device, the software used to access the service and the network providing the connection among others. This document describes the ontology (using OWL) and gives details of each property that it contains. Learn more about the Ubiquitous Web Applications Activity.

The Web API Working Group has published the Last Call Working Draft of The XMLHttpRequest Object. The XMLHttpRequest Object specification defines an API that provides scripted client functionality for transferring data between a client and a server. Comments are welcome through 2 June. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

W3C is pleased to announce that the Israel Chapter of the Internet Society (ISOC-IL) is the new host of the W3C Israel Office. Ori Idan will manage the Office from ISOC-IL. W3C wishes to thank Michel Bercovier and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for hosting the W3C Israel Office since 1999; Michel will remain involved as senior advisor. Learn more about the the W3C Offices, which promote adoption of W3C Recommendations in local regions among developers, application builders, and other regional stake-holders.

The Rule Interchange Format (RIF) Working Group published three drafts today:

• RIF Basic Logic Dialect (RIF-BLD)
• RIF Framework for Logic Dialects (RIF-FLD)
• RIF RDF and OWL Compatibility (RIF-RDF-OWL)

These drafts help solidify the "pure logic rules" branch of RIF, which is distinct from the "production rules" branch (on which a Working Draft is expected within the next 6 months). Both branches share "RIF Core" (also expected within the next 6 months). The Framework document (FLD) specifies how the various logic dialects relate, while the Basic Logic Dialect (BLD) provides an interlingua for rule languages providing approximately "Horn" expressivity. The third document specifies how BLD can be logically combined with RDF and OWL. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity.

The Web Application Formats Working Group has published four Working Drafts related to Widgets 1.0: The Widget Landscape (Q1 2008), Packaging and Configuration, Digital Signature, and Requirements; these are the First Public drafts for Digital Signatures and Landscape. Widgets are small client-side Web applications for displaying and updating remote data, that are packaged in a way to allow a single download and installation on a client machine, mobile phone, or mobile Internet device. "Landscape" reviews commonalities and fragmentation across widget user agents and explores how fragmentation currently affects, amongst other things, authoring, security, distribution and deployment, internationalization and the device-independence of widgets. "Packaging" defines a Zip-based packaging format and an XML-based configuration document format for widgets. "Digital Signature" defines a profile of the XML-Signature Syntax and Processing specification to allow a widget resource to be digitally signed. "Requirements" lists the design goals and requirements that specification would need to address in order to standardize various aspects of widgets. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

The Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of Content Transformation Guidelines 1.0. This document provides guidance to managers of content transformation proxies and to content providers for how to coordinate when delivering Web content. Content transformation techniques diverge widely on the web, with many non-standard HTTP implications, and no well-understood means either of identifying the presence of such transforming proxies, nor of controlling their actions. This document establishes a framework to allow that to happen. Learn more about the Mobile Web Initiative Activity.

The Multimodal Interaction Working Group has published an updated Working Draft of Multimodal Architecture and Interfaces (MMI Architecture), which defines a loosely coupled architecture for multimodal user interfaces. The main change in this draft is a more thorough specification of the events sent between the Runtime Framework and the Modality Components, including both schemas for the individual messages and ladder diagrams showing message sequences. The architecture envisioned by the Working Group will provide a general and flexible framework providing interoperability among modality-specific components from different vendors - for example, speech recognition from one vendor and handwriting recognition from another. Learn more about W3C's Multimodal Interaction Activity.

Participants from four W3C Groups — CSS, Internationalization Core, SVG and XSL Working Groups — as part of the Japanese Layout Task Force published Requirements of Japanese Text Layout. This document describes requirements for general Japanese layout realized with technologies like CSS, SVG and XSL-FO. The document is mainly based on a standard for Japanese layout, JIS X 4051. However, it also addresses areas which are not covered by JIS X 4051. Japanese version is also available. Learn more about basics of Japanese text layout and W3C's Internationalization Activity.

The OWL Working Group published six drafts today related to the OWL 2 Web Ontology Language:

• Structural Specification and Functional-Style Syntax
• Model-Theoretic Semantics
• Mapping to RDF Graphs
• XML Serialization
• Profiles
• Primer

OWL 2 (previously known as OWL 1.1) defines extensions to OWL, which is one of the core standards of the Semantic Web. Semantic Web terms (such as "author" or "title") can be organized into vocabularies (such as "data about publications"). OWL is used to represent the meaning of terms (see, for example, the work of the Health Care and Life Sciences Interest Group) in these vocabularies (or, "ontologies'), and relationships between those terms. Three of the drafts published today (syntax, semantics, and mapping-to-rdf) are the same as their January 2008 counterparts except for the name change. Of the three new drafts: "XML Serialization" specifies a new XML (not RDF/XML) syntax for OWL; "Profiles" specifies subsets (logical fragments) of OWL that target particular application contexts; and the "Primer" provides a unified technical introduction to OWL 2. The Working Group seeks feedback on these drafts and has highlighted particular issues throughout the documents. Learn more about the Semantic Web.

The Web API Working Group has published the Working Draft of Language Bindings for DOM Specifications. This specification defines an Interface Definition Language (IDL) to be used by other specifications that define a Document Object Model (DOM). The document also addresses how interfaces described with this IDL correspond to constructs within ECMAScript and Java execution environments. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

The XHTML2 Working Group has published the second Last Call Working Draft of XHTML Role Attribute Module. The XHTML Role Attribute defined in this specification allows the author to annotate XML Languages with machine-extractable semantic information about the purpose of an element. Use cases include accessibility, device adaptation, server-side processing, and complex data description. This attribute can be integrated into any markup language based upon XHTML Modularization. Comments are welcome through 10 May. Learn more about the HTML Activity.

W3C is pleased to announce the creation of the Rich Web Application Backplane Incubator Group, sponsored by W3C Members CWI, HP, IBM, and Xerox. The mission of the XG is to explore and refine the architecture of a "Rich Web Application Backplane" -- a set of common building blocks for Web applications. The XG charter states: "[B]enefits to end-user interaction of adopting such common infrastructure will include richer user interaction enabled through simplified approaches to mixing multiple interaction technologies in a single application. The ability to easily share data across multiple components, and to freely intermix AJAX and declarative components, should support a wider range of high function composable UIs." Like all XG's, this group's work is not standards-track. Read more about the Incubator Activity, an initiative to foster development of emerging Web-related technologies.

The Math Working Group has published a Working Draft of Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) Version 3.0. This is the third draft of MathML, 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. Learn more about the Math Activity.

The mission of the W3C Health Care and Life Sciences (HCLS) Interest Group is to show how to use Semantic Web technology to answer cross-disciplinary questions in life science that have, until now, been prohibitively difficult to research. Today the HCLS Interest Group published two Working Drafts. The first describes the construction and use of the knowledge base that was used as part of a demonstration of life sciences data integration at the the 2007 World Wide Web Conference in Banff, Canada. The second document explains the process of integrating data with an existing Semantic Web knowledge base. The success of the group continues to draw industry interest. W3C Members are currently reviewing a draft charter that would enable the renewed HCLS Interest Group to develop and support use cases that have clear scientific, business and/or technical value, using Semantic Web technologies in three areas: life science, translational medicine, and health care. We invite all W3C Members to review the draft charter (which is public during the review), and encourage those who are interested in using the Semantic Web to solve knowledge representation and integration on a large scale to join the Interest Group. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity.

The Mobile Web Initiative Device Description Working Group has published the First Public and Last Call Working Draft of Device Description Repository Simple API. Web content delivered to mobile devices usually benefits from being tailored to take into account a range of factors such as screen size, markup language support and image format support. Such information is stored in "Device Description Repositories" (DDRs). This document describes a simple API for access to DDRs, in order to ease and promote the development of Web content that adapts to its Delivery Context. Comments are welcome through 01 May. Learn more about the Mobile Web Initiative.

Browse W3C presentations and events also available as an RSS channel.

• 17 April, Stockholm, Sweden: HTML 5 - kommande HTML-standardOlle Olsson presents at SICS Open House 2008.
• 17 April, Stockholm, Sweden: Vad nytt under webben?Olle Olsson is at SICS Open House 2008.
• 18 April, Stockholm, Sweden: FramtidsspaningOlle Olsson presents at ITARC2008.
• 21 April, Beijing, China: RDFa: Extensible Structured Data in HTMLBen Adida, Elias Torres, Ivan Herman give a tutorial at The 17th International World Wide Web Conference (WWW2008).
• 23 April, Beijing, China: Adopting International Standards Locally: The Importance of Harmonization Judy Brewer presents at W3C Track, The 17th International World Wide Web Conference (WWW2008).
• 26 April, Budapest, Hungary: [title TBD]Bert Bos presents at Magyarországi Web Konferencia 2008.

Multiple presenters will be at W3C Track, The 17th International World Wide Web Conference (WWW2008) in Beijing, China.

The XHTML2 Working Group has published a Working Draft of CURIE Syntax 1.0. The aim of this document is to outline a syntax for expressing URIs in a generic, abbreviated syntax. While it has been produced in conjunction with the XHTML 2 Working Group, it is not specifically targeted at use by XHTML Family Markup Languages. Note that the target audience for this document is Language designers, not the users of those Languages. Learn more about the HTML Activity.

The Web Security Context Working Group has published a Working Draft of Web Security Context: Experience, Indicators, and Trust. This specification deals with the trust decisions that users must make online, and with ways to support them in making safe and informed decisions where possible. In order to achieve that goal, this specification includes recommendations on the presentation of identity information by Web user agents; on handling errors in security protocols in a way that minimizes the trust decisions left to users, and induces them toward safe behavior where they have to make these decisions; and on data entry interactions that will make it easier for users to enter sensitive data into legitimate sites than to enter them into illegitimate sites. Learn more about the Security Activity.

The XML Core Working Group has published the Last Call Working Draft of XML Linking Language (XLink) Version 1.1. This specification defines the XML Linking Language (XLink) Version 1.1, which allows elements to be inserted into XML documents in order to create and describe links between resources. It uses XML syntax to create structures that can describe links similar to the simple unidirectional hyperlinks of today's HTML, as well as more sophisticated links. Comments are welcome through 16 May. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity.

The W3C SWS Testbed Incubator Group published their final report: SWS Challenge Testbed Incubator Methodology Report. This document describes the SWS Testbed XG's Final Report on the best practices for a methodology for evaluating the efficacy of various techniques for mediation, discovery, and composition of Web Services, such techniques including software engineering approaches as well as semantic annotations. These best practices are based upon two years of experience with five workshops and one year of discussion and meetings on this subject by the XG Participants. The publication is part of the Incubator Activity, a forum where W3C Members can innovate and experiment.

The Semantic Web Education and Outreach (SWEO) Interest Group has published an Interest Group Note Cool URIs for the Semantic Web. The Resource Description Framework (RDF) allows users to describe both Web documents and concepts from the real world people, organizations, topics, things in a computer-processable way. Publishing such descriptions on the Web creates the Semantic Web. URIs (Uniform Resource Identifiers) are very important to the Semantic Web, providing both the core of the framework itself and the link between RDF and the Web. This document presents guidelines for the effective use of URIs in the context of the Semantic Web. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity.

The XML Schema Patterns for Databinding Working Group has published two documents: the Last Call Working Draft of Basic XML Schema Patterns for Databinding Version 1.0 and an ordinary Working Draft of Advanced XML Schema Patterns for Databinding Version 1.0. The first specification provides a set of basic XML Schema 1.0 patterns known to be interoperable between state of the art databinding implementations.The patterns may be used to describe XML 1.0 representations of commonly used data structures. Last Call comments are welcome through 30 April. The second specification provides a set of commonly used XML Schema 1.0 patterns known to cause issues with some state of the art databinding implementations. Learn more about the Web Services Activity.

The XML Query Working Group has published two First Public Working Drafts: XQuery Scripting Extension 1.0 and XQuery Scripting Extension 1.0 Use Cases. The former defines an extension to XQuery 1.0 and XQuery Update Facility. Expressions can be evaluated in a specific order, with later expressions seeing the effects of the expressions that came before them. This specification introduces the concept of a block with local variable declarations, as well as several new kinds of expressions, including assignment, while, continue, break, and exit expressions. The latter specification includes the usage scenarios that motivate the changes in the former. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity.

Privacy assures autonomy of the individual, a necessary precondition for a democratic society. W3C is pleased to announce the launch of the PrimeLife research project. W3C Staff members Thomas Roessler and Rigo Wenning will participate in this three-year, 10 Million Euro multi-partner research effort. The goal of the project is to develop scalable tools to help people protect their privacy and manage their identities in new and emerging services and applications (such as virtual communities and collaborative applications). Read more about the W3C Policy Languages Interest Group.

The XML Query Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of XML Query (XQuery) 1.1 Use Cases. This document specifies usage scenarios for XML Query (XQuery) 1.1, to illustrate important applications for the query language. Each use case is focused on a specific application area, and contains a Document Type Definition (DTD) and example input data. Each use case specifies a set of queries that might be applied to the input data, and the expected results for each query. See changes from the previous draft and learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity.

The Efficient XML Interchange Working Group has published a Working Draft of Efficient XML Interchange (EXI) Format 1.0. This document is the specification of the Efficient XML Interchange (EXI) format. 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. The EXI format uses a hybrid approach drawn from the information and formal language theories, plus practical techniques verified by measurements, for entropy encoding XML information. 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. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity.

W3C is pleased to announce the launch of the Internationalization Tag Set (ITS) Interest Group, chaired by Yves Savourel (ENLASO Corporation). The ITS IG is a forum to foster a community of users of the Internationalization Tag Set (ITS), by promoting its adoption, and gathering information on its further development. The ITS defines data categories that may be used with schemas to support the internationalization and localization of schemas and documents. Participation in the new ITS IG is open to W3C Members and the public. Read about the W3C Internationalization Activity.

The Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER) Working Group has published a Working Draft of Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER): Grouping of Resources. The purpose of the Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER) is to provide a means to describe a group of resources through the publication of machine-readable metadata, as motivated by the POWDER Use Cases. The current document sets out how Description Resources (DRs) can be created and published, whether individually or as bulk data, how to link to DRs from other online resources, and, crucially, how DRs may be authenticated and trusted. The aim is to provide a platform through which opinions, claims and assertions about online resources can be expressed by people and exchanged by machines. See the change log and learn more about the Semantic Web Activity.

The XSL Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) Requirements Version 2.0. This document enumerates the collected requirements for a 2.0 version of XSL Formatting Objects (XSL-FO), not for XSLT. XSL-FO is widely deployed in industry and academia where multiple output forms (typically print and online) are needed from single source XML. It is used in many diverse applications and countries on a large number of implementations to create technical documentation, reports and contracts, terms and conditions, invoices and other forms processing, such as driver's licenses and postal forms. The XSL Working Group invites people to help prioritize the feature set of XSL 2.0 by completing a survey until the end of September 2008. Learn more about the W3C XML Activity.

The XML Security Specifications Maintenance Working Group has published the Proposed Edited Recommendation of XML Signature Syntax and Processing (Second Edition). This document specifies XML digital signature processing rules and syntax. XML Signatures provide integrity, message authentication, and/or signer authentication services for data of any type, whether located within the XML that includes the signature or elsewhere. Read the list of changes and the implementation report. Comments are welcome through 30 April. Learn more about the Security Activity.

The Semantic Web Education and Outreach (SWEO) Interest Group has published the Last Call Working Draft of Cool URIs for the Semantic Web. The Resource Description Framework (RDF) allows users to describe both Web documents and concepts from the real world — people, organizations, topics, things — in a computer-processable way. Publishing such descriptions on the Web creates the Semantic Web. URIs (Uniform Resource Identifiers) are very important to the Semantic Web, providing both the core of the framework itself and the link between RDF and the Web. This document presents guidelines for the effective use of URIs in the context of the Semantic Web. Comments are welcome through 28 March. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity.

The XML Core Working Group has published the Proposed Edited Recommendation of XML Base (Second Edition). This document describes a facility, similar to that of HTML BASE, for defining base URIs for parts of XML documents. All changes to the document are recorded in the XML Base Errata document. Comments are welcome through 30 June. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity.

W3C invites WWW2008 conference attendees to discuss pressing Web issues at the W3C Track in Beijing, China, on 23-24 April. Chaired by Marie-Claire Forgue, W3C track will present nearly 25 topics, some of them are related to the Internet use in China; read the press release. In addition to the W3C Track, Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director and inventor of the Web, will give a keynote titled "The Future of Web Applications" on Thursday, 24 April. A press conference with Tim Berners-Lee is scheduled on Wednesday 23 April at the Beijing International Convention Center; more details will be available on the W3C track page.

SVG Open 2008, the 6th International Conference on Scalable Vector Graphics, will be held at the Maritim Hotel conference center in Nuremberg, Germany on 26-28 August 2008, with additional workshops on 29 August. Co-sponsored by W3C, the SVG Open conference series is the premier forum for SVG designers, developers, and implementors to share ideas, experiences, products, and strategies. The W3C SVG Working Group and W3C staff members Chris Lilley and Doug Schepers will participate. Proposals for presentation abstracts and course outlines are welcome through 31 March. Early-bird registration is now open, with a 25% discount for W3C Members. Learn more about the W3C Graphics Activity

The Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER) Working Group published an updated Working Draft of Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER): Description Resources. The purpose of the Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER) is to provide a means to describe a group of resources through the publication of machine-readable metadata, as motivated by the POWDER Use Cases. The current document sets out how Description Resources (DRs) can be created and published, whether individually or as bulk data, how to link to DRs from other online resources, and, crucially, how DRs may be authenticated and trusted. The aim is to provide a platform through which opinions, claims and assertions about online resources can be expressed by people and exchanged by machines. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity.

The Semantic Web Deployment Working Group and the XHTML2 Working Group have 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. Changes in this draft align it with the the interpretation of the @src attribute as specified in the 21 February 2008 RDFa Syntax Last Call Working Draft. Visit the XHTML2 and Semantic Web home pages.

The Voice Browser Working Group has published an updated Working Draft of Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) Version 1.1, part of the W3C framework for enabling access to the Web using spoken interaction. SSML provides a rich, XML-based markup language for assisting the generation of synthetic speech in Web and other applications. It provides a standard way to control aspects of speech such as pronunciation, volume, pitch, rate, etc. across different synthesis-capable platforms. See the list of changes in this draft and learn more about W3C's Voice Browser Activity.

W3C has named Mauro Nunez W3C Business Manager. This is a broadening of his initial position as North American Business Manager, and incorporates the already broader role that Mauro has assumed at the Consortium since he was hired in October 2006. Mauro's primary objective will be to foster a business and operating environment that is cost-effective, productive and positive, across all W3C operating locations. Please join us in congratulating Mauro on his new role at W3C.

The XML Query Working Group has published the Candidate Recommendation of XQuery Update Facility 1.0. This document defines an update facility that extends the XML Query language, XQuery. The XQuery Update Facility provides expressions that can be used to make persistent changes (including node insertion, deletion, modification, and creation) to instances of the XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Data Model. The Working Group also published today two additional documents that will become Working Group notes: XQuery Update Facility 1.0 Requirements and XQuery Update Facility 1.0 Use Cases. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity.

The User Agent Accessibility Guidelines Working Group has published a first public Working Draft of the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG) 2.0. UAAG 2.0 addresses accessibility of browsers and media players and their interoperability with assistive technologies. It will cover more advanced Web technologies than UAAG 1.0. Read the invitation to review the UAAG 2.0 Working Draft and about the Web Accessibility Initiative.

W3C invites people to participate in a Workshop on the Role of Mobile Technologies in Fostering Social Development in São Paulo, Brazil, on 2-3 June 2008. W3C intends for this public Workshop to be a multidisciplinary forum where mobile and Web technology experts, NGO specialists, and egovernment representatives gather to learn more about the specific needs, expectations, and challenges of deploying services for underprivileged populations. Position papers are due 20 April. Read the press release and learn more about the W3C Mobile Web Initiative (MWI) and the Digital World Forum project.

The Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines Working Group published updated Working Drafts of Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 and Implementation Techniques for ATAG 2.0. ATAG helps developers design tools that are accessible so that people with disabilities can use the tools, and so that the tools help produce accessible Web content. Read the invitation to review the updated ATAG 2.0 Working Drafts and learn more about the Web Accessibility Initiative.

The Web Security Context Working Group has published the Group Note Web Security Experience, Indicators and Trust: Scope and Use Cases. The Working Group is chartered to recommend user interfaces that help users make trust decisions on the Web. This Note explains the group's technical aims (complementing the group charter), what technologies may be used to achieve the group's mission, and how proposals will be evaluated. This Note also includes an initial collection of use cases that the group expects will drive its technical work. Learn more about the Security Activity.

W3C invites the public to join a seminar on "Video on the Web" on 14 March 2008 from 13:00-15:30 at Keio University, Tokyo, Japan; the meeting page is available in Japanese. Philippe Le Hégaret, co-chair of the W3C Video on the Web Workshop (December 2007 in Brussels) will present a report on that Workshop. The seminar also includes a panel session with Web Video industry specialists in Japan to discuss current practices and future direction on "Video on the Web" in Japan. All sessions will be held in Japanese (except Philippe's talk), and one-by-one interpretation between English and Japanese will be provided for Philippe's talk and the panel session. There are a limited number of seats available. Please use the registration page, also in Japanese.

W3C is pleased to announce the creation of the RDB2RDF Incubator Group, sponsored by W3C Members Oracle, HP, PartnersHealthcare, and OpenLink Software. The mission of this Incubator Group is twofold: (1) to examine and classify existing approaches to mapping relational data into RDF and assess whether standardization is possible and/or necessary in this area, and (2) to examine and classify existing approaches to mapping OWL classes to Relational data, or, more accurately, SQL queries, moving towards the goal of defining a standard in this area. See the charter for more information. Read more about the Incubator Activity, an initiative to foster development of emerging Web-related technologies.

Browse W3C presentations and events also available as an RSS channel.

• 5 March, Seoul, Korea: Towards the Web of ThingsDave Raggett presents at Mobile Wednesday Workshop.
• 5 March, Seoul, Korea: Mobile Web 2.0 Forum Standardization ActivitiesSeungyun Lee presents at Mobile Wednesday Workshop.
• 7 March, Tokyo, Japan: State of the Semantic WebKarl Dubost, Ivan Herman present at INTAP Semantic Web Conference 2008.
• 8 March, Austin, TX, USA: Catching up with Accessibility: The Basics QuicklyShawn Henry presents at SXSW Interactive 2008 Conference.
• 10 March, San Diego, CA, USA: New W3C Standards For Speech and Multimodal ApplicationsDeborah Dahl presents at Voice Search Conference.
• 10 March, Berlin, Germany: An Introduction to POWDER (tentative)Phil Archer, Thomas Tikwinski give a tutorial at Web 2.0 Telecoms.
• 15 March, Los Angeles, USA: How Web Accessibility Guidelines Apply to Design for the Ageing PopulationShadi Abou-Zahra, Andrew Arch present at CSUN 2008.
• 17 March, Geneva, Switzerland: Video on the Web at W3CPhilippe Le Hégaret presents at Media Distribution over Open Internet.

The Service Modeling Language Working Group has published Last Call Working Drafts of Service Modeling Language, Version 1.1 and Service Modeling Language Interchange Format, Version 1.1. The former defines a language for modeling complex services and systems, including their structure, constraints, policies, and best practices. The latter defines an interchange format for SML. The format identifies the model being interchanged, distinguishes between model definition documents and model instance documents, and defines the binding of rule documents with other documents in the interchange set. Comments are welcome through 26 March. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity.

The Web API Working Group has published the Last Call Working Draft of Element Traversal Specification. This specification defines the ElementTraversal interface, which allows script navigation of the elements of a DOM tree, excluding all other nodes in the DOM, such as text nodes. It is intended to provide a more convenient alternative to existing DOM navigation interfaces, with a low implementation footprint. Comments are welcome through 3 April. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

Position papers are due 20 April for the W3C Workshop on the Role of Mobile Technologies in Fostering Social Development on 2-3 June 2008 in São Paulo, Brazil. W3C thanks Workshop hosts NIC.br (Network Information Center), CGI.br Internet Steering Committee, and Institute CONIP. The goal of the Workshop is to understand specific challenges of using mobile phones and Web technologies to deliver services to underprivileged populations of Developing Countries. The Workshop scope includes: analysis of using mobile phones in development projects; strengths and weaknesses of SMS technology v. mobile Web v. voice technology; the challenges of integrating information and Communication Technologies in rural communities, and more. Read about W3C Workshops.

The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of CSSOM View Module. The APIs introduced by this specification provide authors with a way to inspect and manipulate the view information of a document. This includes getting the position of element layout boxes, obtaining the width of the viewport through script, and also scrolling an element. Learn more about the Style Activity.

The Web API Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of XMLHttpRequest Level 2. XMLHttpRequest Level 2 enhances XMLHttpRequest with new features, such as cross-site requests, progress events, and the handling of byte streams for both sending and receiving. Learn more about the W3C Rich Web Client Activity.

Today representatives from W3C Offices, regional branches that promote W3C and interact with participants in local languages, celebrate ten years of the Offices program. Offices currently represent 17 regions around the globe, helping to organize meetings, recruit Members, translate materials, and find creative ways to encourage international participation in W3C work. Offices staff gather for a face-to-face meeting in Sophia-Antipolis France to review ten years of experience and to forge improvements to the program. At this occasion, W3C thanks the Offices staff past and present for all of their work!

The Semantic Web Deployment Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of SKOS Simple Knowledge Organization System Primer. SKOS provides a model for expressing the basic structure and content of concept schemes such as thesauri, classification schemes, subject heading lists, taxonomies, folksonomies, and other types of controlled vocabulary. SKOS has been designed to provide a low-cost migration path for porting existing organization systems to the Semantic Web. The primer is intended to help implementors who have a basic understanding of the Semantic Web to use the capabilities defined in SKOS Reference to represent and publish their concept schemes as SKOS data. The Primer aims to provide introductory examples and guidance in the use of SKOS vocabulary features. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity.

The Semantic Web Deployment Working Group and the XHTML 2 Working Group have published the Last Call Working Draft of RDFa in XHTML: Syntax and Processing. RDFa is a specification for attributes to be used with languages such as HTML and XHTML to express structured data. When publishers can express structured data, and when tools can read it, a new world of user functionality becomes available, letting users transfer structured data between applications and web sites, and allowing browsing applications to improve the user experience. For example, a photo's creator, camera setting information, resolution, location and topic can be published as easily as the original photo itself, enabling structured search and sharing. With RDFa, the rendered, hypertext data of XHTML is reused, so that publishers don't need to repeat significant data in the document content. The RDFa specification explains use of the RDFa attributes with XHTML. Comments are welcome through 21 March. Learn more about XHTML and the Semantic Web Activity.

The report of the W3C Video on the Web Workshop is now available. Thirty-seven organizations discussed video and audio codecs, spatial and temporal addressing, metadata, digital rights management, accessibility, and other topics related to ensuring the success of video as a "first class citizen" of the Web. W3C thanks Cisco for hosting the Workshop, which took place 12-13 December 2007 simultaneously in San Jose, California and Brussels, Belgium. Read the forty-two position papers and Workshop minutes. W3C welcomes feedback on the Report and the topic of video on the Web at public-video-comments@w3.org (archive).

The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group has published the Last Call Working Draft of CSS Namespaces Module. The CSS Namespaces module defines the syntax for using namespaces in CSS. It defines the @namespace rule for declaring the default namespace and binding namespaces to namespace prefixes, and it also defines a syntax that other specifications can adopt for using those prefixes in namespace-qualified names. Comments are welcome through 7 March. Learn more about the Style Activity.

The Web Application Formats Working Group has published the Working Draft of Access Control for Cross-site Requests. Web application technologies commonly apply same-origin restrictions to network requests. These restrictions prevent a Web application running from one origin from obtaining data retrieved from another origin, and also limit the amount of unsafe HTTP requests that can be automatically launched toward destinations that differ from the running application's origin. This document defines a mechanism to enable client-side cross-site requests. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

The Internationalization Tag Set (ITS) Working Group has published a Group Note 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.

Ten years ago, on 10 February 1998, W3C published Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 as a W3C Recommendation. W3C is marking the ten-year anniversary of XML by celebrating "XML10" and extending thanks to the dedicated communities -- including people who have participated in W3C's XML groups and mailing lists, the SGML community, and xml-dev -- whose efforts have created a successful family of technologies based on the solid XML 1.0 foundation. The success of XML is a strong indicator of how dedicated individuals, working within the W3C Process, can engage with a larger community to produce industry-changing results. "Today we celebrate the success of open standards in preserving Web data from proprietary ownership," said Jon Bosak, who led the W3C Working Group that produced XML 1.0. Read the press release and testimonials. Send W3C a greeting and learn more about XML at W3C.

W3C invites Web content authors to run the beta release of the W3C mobileOK checker and make their content work on a broad range of mobile devices. This new version provides more accurate results and a more reliable experience. Visitors of the Mobile World Congress (in Barcelona, starting Monday, 11 February) are welcome to stop by the W3C Mobile Web Initiative booth (in Hall 7) to learn more about this tool for making Web sites mobile-friendly.

The XML Core Working Group has published the Proposed Edited Recommendation of Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 (Fifth Edition). This revision of XML 1.0 incorporates all known errata for XML 1.0 Fourth Edition; see the diff-marked specification for changes. This version of the XML 1.0 specification contains one major change, to the definition of names, bringing one major benefit of XML 1.1 into XML 1.0; please read the background for this change as part of any review. Comments are welcome through 16 May. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity.

The Protocols and Formats Working Group published First Public Working Drafts of:

• Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) Version 1.0 combines the two previously-published ARIA draft specifications: WAI-ARIA Roles, and WAI-ARIA States and Properties.
• WAI-ARIA Primer provides background on accessibility issues related to JavaScript, and introduces the technical approach used in WAI-ARIA.
• WAI-ARIA Best Practices describes how Web content developers can develop accessible rich Web applications using WAI-ARIA.

WAI-ARIA defines a way to make Web content and Web applications more accessible to people with disabilities. It especially helps with dynamic content and advanced user interface controls developed with Ajax, HTML, JavaScript, and related technologies. An updated WAI-ARIA Roadmap was also published.

Additionally, the Education and Outreach Working Group published a new WAI-ARIA FAQ and updated WAI-ARIA Overview. Read the Call for Review: New WAI-ARIA Documents announcement and about the Web Accessibility Initiative.

Browse W3C presentations and events also available as an RSS channel.

• 4 February, New Delhi, India: Web Accessibility: International Standards for Local UsersShadi Abou-Zahra gives a keynote at Techshare India 2008.
• 5 February, Tokyo, Japan: HTML 5Michael(tm) Smith presents at Jagat.
• 11 February, Wellington, New Zealand: Achieving Web for All: Improving the Accessibility, Usability, and Quality of Your WebsiteShawn Henry gives a tutorial at Webstock 2008.

W3C has published a Workshop Report: eGovernment and the Web Workshop: "Toward More Transparent Government". Participants discussed ways to facilitate the deployment of Web standards across government sites and how to shape the ongoing research agenda in the development of Web technology and public policy in order to realize the potential of the Web for access to and use of government information. Held 18-19 June (press release), in Washington D.C., USA, the Workshop was jointly organized by W3C and WSRI. Learn more about eGovernment at W3C.

The XML Core Working Group has published the Proposed Recommendation of Canonical XML 1.1. The specification establishes a method for determining whether two documents are identical, or whether an application has not changed a document, except for transformations permitted by XML 1.0 and Namespaces in XML. Canonical XML 1.1 is a revision to Canonical XML 1.0 designed to address issues related to inheritance of attributes in the XML namespace when canonicalizing document subsets, including the requirement not to inherit xml:id, and to treat xml:base URI path processing properly. Comments are welcome through 07 March. Learn more about W3C's XML Activity.

The Semantic Web Deployment Working Group has published the Working Draft of Best Practice Recipes for Publishing RDF Vocabularies. This document describes best practice recipes for publishing vocabularies or ontologies on the Web (in RDF Schema or OWL). Each recipe introduces general principles and an example configuration for use with an Apache HTTP server (which may be adapted to other environments). The recipes are all designed to be consistent with the architecture of the Web as currently specified. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity.

The Semantic Web Deployment Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of SKOS Simple Knowledge Organization System Reference. This document defines the Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS), a common data model for sharing and linking knowledge organization systems via the Semantic Web. SKOS provides a standard, low-cost means to describe the semantic relationships between existing knowledge systems and to port those systems to the Semantic Web. SKOS also provides a lightweight, intuitive language for developing and sharing new knowledge organization systems. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity.

W3C today published an early draft of HTML 5, a major revision of the markup language for the Web. The HTML Working Group is creating HTML 5 to be the open, royalty-free specification for rich Web content and Web applications. "HTML is of course a very important standard," said Tim Berners-Lee, author of the first version of HTML and W3C Director. "I am glad to see that the community of developers, including browser vendors, is working together to create the best possible path for the Web." New features include APIs for drawing two-dimensional graphics and ways to embed and control audio and video content. HTML 5 helps to improve interoperability and reduce software costs by giving precise rules not only about how to handle all correct HTML documents but also how to recover from errors. Discover other new features, read the press release, and learn more about the future of HTML.

The W3C Advisory Committee has elected Ashok Malhotra (Oracle), T.V. Raman (Google), and Henry Thompson (University of Edinburgh) to the W3C Technical Architecture Group (TAG). Continuing TAG participants are Noah Mendelsohn (IBM), David Orchard (BEA), Jonathan Rees (Science Commons), Norm Walsh (Sun), and Stuart Williams (HP), who co-Chairs the TAG with Tim Berners-Lee. The mission of the TAG is to build consensus around principles of Web architecture and to interpret and clarify these principles when necessary, to resolve issues involving general Web architecture brought to the TAG, and to help coordinate cross-technology architecture developments inside and outside W3C.

W3C's Document Object Model (DOM) Activity is now closed. The Document Object Model Working Group closed in the early 2004 after the completion of the DOM Level 3 Recommendations. Since then, several W3C Working Groups have taken the lead in maintaining and continuing to develop standard APIs for the Web; these include the HTML, SVG, CSS, and WebAPI Working Groups. W3C will continue to develop APIs in various Working Groups. Learn more about achievements of those participating as part of the DOM Activity on the DOM Activity Statement.

The Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group and the WAI Education and Outreach Working Group have published the First Public Working Draft of Relationship Between Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0 and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. See the announcement email.

The groups encourage people to start by reading Web Content Accessibility and Mobile Web: Making a Web Site Accessible Both for People with Disabilities and for Mobile Devices, which shows how design goals for accessibility and mobile access overlap. A third document, Experiences Shared by People with Disabilities and by People Using Mobile Devices, provides examples of barriers that people (without disabilities) face when interacting with Web content via mobile devices, and similar barriers for people with disabilities using desktop computers. Learn more about the Mobile Web Initiative and the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).

Today, the World Wide Web Consortium made it easier to share and reuse data across application, enterprise, and community boundaries with the publication of three new Semantic Web standards for SPARQL (pronounced "sparkle"). SPARQL is the query language for the Semantic Web (see Semantic Web use cases). SPARQL queries hide the details of data management, which lowers costs and increases robustness of data integration on the Web. "Trying to use the Semantic Web without SPARQL is like trying to use a relational database without SQL," explained Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director. There are already 14 implementations of the standard, which is comprised of three W3C Recommendations: SPARQL Query Language for RDF, SPARQL Protocol for RDF, and SPARQL Query Results XML Format. Read the press release, testimonials and learn more about the Semantic Web Activity.

The SYMM Working Group has published the Candidate Recommendation of Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL 3.0), an XML-based language that allows authors to create interactive multimedia presentations. Using SMIL 3.0, an author can describe the temporal behavior of a multimedia presentation, associate hyperlinks with media objects and describe the layout of the presentation on a screen. The Working Group is building a test suite help ensure interoperable implementation. Learn more about W3C work on Synchronized Multimedia

The Service Modeling Language (SML) Working Group has published the third Working Drafts of Service Modeling Language, Version 1.1 and Service Modeling Language Interchange Format Version 1.1. The former defines the SML 1.1, intended to model complex services and systems, including their structure, constraints, policies, and best practices. The latter defines the SML 1.1 interchange format, designed to ensure accurate and convenient interchange of the documents that make up an SML model. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity.

The SYMM Working Group has published the Last Call Working Draft of SMIL Timesheets 1.0; this is also the First Public Working Draft. This document defines an XML timing language that makes SMIL 3.0 element and attribute timing control available to a wide range of other XML languages. This language allows SMIL timing to be integrated into a wide variety of a-temporal languages, even when several such languages are combined in a compound document. Because of its similarity with external style and positioning descriptions in the Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) language, this functionality has been termed SMIL Timesheets. Comments are welcome through 15 February. Learn more about W3C work on Synchronized Multimedia.

The OWL Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of three Web Ontology Language (OWL) 1.1 specifications: Structural Specification and Functional-Style Syntax, Model-Theoretic Semantics, and Mapping to RDF Graphs. OWL is used to define Semantic Web vocabularies. Together, these new specifications extend the W3C OWL Web Ontology Language 1.0 with a small but useful set of features that have been requested by users, for which effective reasoning algorithms are now available, and that OWL tool developers are willing to support. The three specifications cover, respectively, the syntax, semantics, and mapping to RDF of OWL 1.1 ontologies. Learn more about the W3C Semantic Web Activity.

The XHTML2 Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of XHTML Access Module. This document is intended to help make XHTML-family markup languages more effective at supporting the needs of the accessibility community. It does so by providing a generic mechanism for defining the relationship between document components and well-known accessibility taxonomies. Learn more about the HTML Activity.

Browse W3C presentations and events also available as an RSS channel.

• 23 January, San Francisco, CA, USA: Unifying a Fragmenting Market Through Standardisation to Encourage Mobile Web Industry DevelopmentMatt Womer presents at Mobile Web USA.
• 23 January: eGovernment and the WebJosé Manuel Alonso is at Virtual W3C Seminar.
• 30 January, Stockholm, Sweden: The Semantic WebOlle Olsson presents at JFokus 2008.
• 31 January, Gijón, Spain: TIC y GobernabilidadJosé Manuel Alonso participates in a panel at Cooperación al desarrollo 2.0.