W3C announced today a Workshop on Future Standards for Model-Based User Interfaces, 13-14 May 2010 in Rome Italy. Participants will examine the challenges facing Web developers due to variations in device capabilities, modes of interaction and software standards, the need to support assistive technologies for accessibility, and the demand for richer user interfaces. Discussion will focus on reviewing research on model-based design of context- sensitive user interfaces in relation to these challenges, and the opportunities for new open standards in the area of Model-Based User Interfaces. W3C Membership is not required to participate; anyone who satisfies the participation requirements may attend as long as space permits. Statements of interest are due 2 April. Please see the Call for Participation for more information.

During the implementation phase of the Rule Interchange Format (RIF), the Working Group discovered a problem with the design of the Production Rules Dialect. This problem is addressed with a new Last Call Working Draft that changes the way actions are handled to more closely match existing production rule engines. Please send comments and RIF implementation reports to public-rif-comments@w3.org. Last Call comments should be sent before 5 March. Learn more about the Semantic Web.

The Math Working Group has published a Proposed Recommendation of XML Entity Definitions for Characters. This document presents a completed listing harmonizing the known uses in math and science of character entity names that appear throughout the XML world and Unicode. This document is the result of years of employing entity names on the Web. There were always a few named entities used for special characters in HTML, but a flood of new names came with the symbols of mathematics. Comments are welcome through 11 March. Learn more about the Math Activity.

The Web Services Resource Access Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of Web Services Event Descriptions (WS-EventDescriptions). In the Web Services context, there are many use cases in which it is necessary for an endpoint to advertise the structure and contents of the events that it might generate. For example, a subscriber might wish to know the shape of the events that are generated in order to properly formulate a filter to limit the number of notifications that are transmitted, or to ensure it can successfully process the type of events that are transmitted. This specification describes a mechanism by which an endpoint can advertise the structure and contents of the events it might generate. Learn more about the Web Services Activity.