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15 June 2009

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W3C Invites Implementation of OWL 2

2009-06-15: The OWL Working Group invites implementation of its OWL 2 Web Ontology Language. OWL 2 is a compatible extension to OWL 1, providing additional features for people using ontologies. An ontology is a structured set of terms that a particular community uses for organizing data, such as "title", "author", and "ISBN" for data about books. The OWL 2 document set contains 9 technical specifications and 4 instructional documents. The Recommendation-track specifications are now Candidate Recommendations, indicating that the Working Group and the W3C Director believe this is a good time for systems to begin adopting OWL 2 features on an experimental basis. The group maintains a list of implementations and encourages new information about implementations and other feedback to be sent to it comments address. The 4 instructional documents, which provide an introduction to OWL 2, are now at Last Call: overview, primer, new features and rationale, and quick reference. Finally, a new datatype used within both OWL and RIF, called rdf:PlainLiteral (formerly called rdf:text) is also a Candidate Recommendation. Learn more about the Semantic Web. (Permalink)

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W3C Celebrates Semantic Web Progress at SemTech 2009

Semantic Web2009-06-15: W3C technical staff and more than 30 W3C Member organizations will present at the Semantic Technology Conference (SemTech) this week in San Jose, California. Sessions led by W3C staff and Member organizations highlight the accelerating rate of adoption and deployment of Semantic Web technologies in the past year. "We have gathered a growing number of Semantic Web use cases and case studies in the past 12 months," said Ivan Herman, Semantic Web Activity Lead for W3C and one of the presenters. "What thrills me is the diversity of application areas for the Semantic Web, including more software, services and tools, as well as successful deployment in business and industry." Read the full press release and learn more about the Semantic Web Activity. (Permalink)

Call for Review: SKOS Reference Proposed Recommendation

2009-06-15: The Semantic Web Deployment Working Group has published the Proposed Recommendation of SKOS Simple Knowledge Organization System Reference. SKOS provides a common data model for sharing and linking knowledge organization systems via the Web. SKOS is a vocabulary for expressing the basic structure and content of concept schemes such as thesauri, classification schemes, subject heading schemes, taxonomies, folksonomies, and other similar types of controlled vocabulary. As an application of the Resource Description Framework (RDF), SKOS allows concepts to be composed and published on the World Wide Web, linked with data on the Web and integrated into other concept schemes. Along with this publication of the SKOS Reference Proposed Recommendation the Working Group has published an updated SKOS Primer Working Draft. Comments are welcome through 15 July. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity. (Permalink)

Call for Prior Art Related to US Patent 5,764,992

2009-06-12: This is a public call for prior art. On 5 March 2009, pursuant to its rights under W3C's Patent Policy, Apple, Inc. disclosed US patent 5,764,992 and claimed that it applies to the Widgets 1.0: Updates specification. Apple excluded all claims from the W3C Royalty-Free License commitment of the W3C Patent Policy given by Participants of the Web Applications Working Group. In accordance with the exception procedures of the Patent Policy, W3C launched a Patent Advisory Group (PAG) to determine possible solutions. The PAG has advised W3C to issue this call for prior art. The PAG seeks information about software update systems available before June 1995 that offer a viable solution that may apply to the use of updates in Widgets. People who wish to provide feedback should refer to the call for prior art for more information. (Permalink)

W3C Invites Implementations of XQuery Update Facility 1.0

2009-06-10: The XML Query Working Group has published a minor update to 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 draft reflects changes made in response to comments received so far during the Candidate Recommendation period. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity. (Permalink)

UK Government Moves to Put Data on the Web

2009-06-10: Today the Office of the Prime Minister in the UK announced that Tim Berners-Lee will "help drive opening of access to Government data on the web over the coming months." The announcement is an important step in helping to fulfill the vision for a Web of Linked Open Data built on W3C's open Semantic Web standards, espoused by Berners-Lee in his TED 2009 talk. "Government data — the people's data — is an important component to the larger Linked Open Data movement," said Berners-Lee. "I look forward to working with multiple government agencies and local enthusiasts to help early adopters bring their data to the bigger picture." In April, Berners-Lee engaged similarly with the US government offering to help them join the "rapidly growing Linked Open Data cloud, to which US recovery data will be a welcome addition." W3C's own eGovernment Interest Group has also been actively building an international network of support to work with governments on issues of transparency, accountability, and efficiency through open data. Learn more about W3C's eGovernment and Semantic Web Activities. (Permalink)

Note: Requirements for Japanese Text Layout

2009-06-04: Participants in the Japanese Layout Task Force (from four W3C Groups (CSS, Internationalization Core, SVG and XSL Working Groups) published a Group Note 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. A Japanese version is also available. Learn more about W3C's Internationalization Activity. (Permalink)

Call for Review: POWDER Suite is a Proposed Recommendation

2009-06-04: The Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER) Working Group has published three Proposed Recommendations: Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER): Grouping of Resources, Description Resources, and Formal Semantics. The Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER) suite facilitates the publication of descriptions of multiple resources such as all those available from a Web site (see POWDER use cases). The first of these three documents 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. The second details the creation and lifecycle of Description Resources (DRs), which encapsulate POWDER metadata. The third describes the formal semantics of the formalism. Comments are welcome through 05 July. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity. (Permalink)

W3C Invites Implementations of SOAP over Java Message Service 1.0

2009-06-04: The SOAP-JMS Binding Working Group invites implementation of the Candidate Recommendation 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 JMS [Java Message Service]. 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. The main audience will be implementers of Web services stacks; in particular people who wish to extend a Web services stack with an implementation of SOAP/JMS. This document specifies how SOAP should bind to a messaging system that supports the Java Message Service (JMS). Learn more about the Web Services Activity. (Permalink)

Registration Open: Live Training Sessions On Mobile Web Design

2009-06-04: Today, the W3C Mobile Web Initiative opens registration for its first ever live training day. Training will take place Thursday, 2 July 2009, in Cambridge, UK. Students will attend a full day of lectures and hands on sessions on the W3C Mobile Web Best Practices standard, and more generally on mobile Web design. This training event is part of the MobiWeb 2.0 project supported by the European Union's 7th Research Framework Programme (FP7). Read the full announcement and learn more about the W3C Mobile Web Initiative. (Permalink)

Drafts of MathML 3.0 and MathML for CSS Profile Published

2009-06-04: The Math Working Group has published Working Drafts of Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) Version 3.0 and A MathML for CSS profile. 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. This document describes a profile of MathML 3.0 that admits formatting with Cascading Style Sheets. Learn more about the Math Activity. (Permalink)

Use Cases and Requirements for Ontology and API for Media Object 1.0 Draft Published

2009-06-04: The Media Annotations Working Group has published a Working Draft of Use Cases and Requirements for Ontology and API for Media Object 1.0. This document specifies use cases and requirements as an input for the development of the "Ontology for Media Object 1.0" and the "API for Media Object 1.0". The ontology will be a simple ontology to support cross-community data integration of information related to media objects on the Web. The API will provide read access and potentially write access to media objects, relying on the definitions from the ontology. Learn more about the Video in the Web Activity. (Permalink)

Last Call: WebCGM 2.1

2009-06-04: The WebCGM Working Group has published a 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 02 July. Learn more about the Graphics Activity. (Permalink)

Last Call: Timed Text (TT) Authoring Format 1.0 – Distribution Format Exchange Profile (DFXP)

2009-06-03: The Timed Text Working Group has published a third Last Call Draft of Timed Text (TT) Authoring Format 1.0 – Distribution Format Exchange Profile (DFXP). Timed text is textual information that is intrinsically or extrinsically associated with timing information. The timed text authoring format is a content type that represents timed text media for the purpose of interchange among authoring systems. See changes in this draft. Comments are welcome through 30 June 2009. Learn more about the Video in the Web Activity. (Permalink)

Voice Extensible Markup Language (VoiceXML) 3.0 Published

2009-06-02: The Voice Browser Working Group has published an updated Working Draft of Voice Extensible Markup Language (VoiceXML) 3.0. VoiceXML 3.0 is 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 3.0 is to bring the advantages of Web-based development and content delivery to interactive voice response applications. See the diff-marked version showing changes made since the 19 December 2008 draft. Learn more about the Voice Browser Activity. (Permalink)

W3C Advisory Committee Elects Advisory Board

2009-06-02: The W3C Advisory Committee has filled four 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 (IBM), Ann Bassetti (The Boeing Company), Jim Bell (HP), Don Deutsch (Oracle), Eduardo Gutentag (Sun Microsystems), Ora Lassila (Nokia), Charles McCathieNevile (Opera Software), Takeshi Natsuno (Keio University), and Arun Ranganathan (Mozilla). Steve Zilles continues as interim Advisory Board Chair. Read more about the Advisory Board. (Permalink)

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