Public Newsletter

W3C Organizes Workshop on Speaker Biometrics and VoiceXML 3.0

2008-10-13: 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. (Permalink)

Seven OWL 2 Drafts Published

2008-10-09: 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. (Permalink)

Widgets 1.0: Updates

2008-10-09: 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. (Permalink)

Call for Review: Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL 3.0) is a Proposed Recommendation

2008-10-06: 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. (Permalink)