Register for the next session of W3C's online training course: Introduction to SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics). The early bird rate of €124 is extended until 4 January 2011. After that, the rate is €165. Professor David Dailey of Slippery Rock University, Pennsylvania, will lead the course, as he has led previous sessions. The course is six weeks long, starting in January 2011. The first four weeks are the "core" of the training, where participants learn how to create SVG documents, add border effects, rescale and rotate images, etc.The final two weeks of the course, optional, will show how to add animation, use scripting, create interactive graphics, and more. The only pre-requisite for the course is to have some familiarity with HTML/XML and the ability to edit source code directly. Full details of the course (audience, content, timing, weekly commitment) are available in the Introduction to SVG: Course Description. Learn more about Scalable Vector Graphics.

The Voice Browser Working Group has published Working Drafts today of Voice Extensible Markup Language (VoiceXML) 3.0 and State Chart XML (SCXML): State Machine Notation for Control Abstraction. 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. SCXML is a general-purpose event-based state machine language that can be used in many ways, including with VoiceXML. Learn more about the Voice Browser Activity.

W3C today published a number of documents from the XHTML 2 Working Group as W3C Notes:

• XHTML 2.0, a general-purpose markup language designed to represent documents for a wide range of purposes across the World Wide Web.
• XML Events 2, designed to provide an interoperable way of associating behaviors with document-level markup.
• CURIE Syntax 1.0, a syntax for expressing Compact URIs
• HLink, a module that provides the ability to specify which attributes of elements represent links, and how those links should be traversed. HLink also extends XLink use to a wider class of languages than those restricted to the syntactic style allowed by XLink.
• XHTML Role Attribute Module, a module to support role classification of elements
• XHTML Access Module, a module designed to enhance document accessibility.
• XFrames, intended originally to replace HTML Frames.

Learn more about the XHTML 2 Working Group.

The XSL Working Group has published a Working Draft of Design Notes for Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) 2.0. This document describes initial design notes for version 2.0 of XSL Formatting Objects (XSL-FO). The requirements involve pagination and layout, composition, non-Western language support, and more. The new draft includes work on copy-fitting, parallel text, numbering, Ruby (as described by the Japanese Layout Task Force), and multiple columns with individual styles. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity.

In addition to publishing Second Editions of the 1.0 versions of XML Query and XPath, the XSL and XML Query Working Groups updated Working Drafts for the next major version of the specifications, in particular: XQuery 3.0, XQueryX 3.0, and XPath 3.0. The number "3.0" was chosen so that all of the corresponding specifications would have the same number, simplifying the previous mixture of "1.1" and "2.1" version numbers. The new 3.0 drafts incorporate the changes that were made for the second editions, and also add significant new features. XPath is a language for selecting parts of XML documents; XQuery and XQueryX are query languages for selecting, joining and manipulating XML documents. All three languages operate on any data source that can be represented as instances of the XQuery and XPath abstract Data Model (XDM).

The Working Group also published the following supporting documents, each of which lists notable changes in an appendix: XQuery and XPath Data Model 3.0, XPath and XQuery Functions and Operators 3.0, XQuery 3.0 Use Cases, and XSLT and XQuery Serialization 3.0.

Today the XML Query and XSL Working Groups published three revised Recommendations, XML Path Language (XPath) 2.0 (Second Edition), XQuery 1.0: An XML Query Language (Second Edition) and XML Syntax for XQuery 1.0 (XQueryX) (Second Edition). XPath is a language for selecting parts of XML documents; XQuery and XQueryX are query languages for selecting, joining and manipulating XML documents. All three languages operate on any data source that can be represented as instances of the XQuery and XPath abstract Data Model. Also published are second editions of their supporting documents, XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Data Model (XDM), Query 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Functions and Operators, XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Formal Semantics, and XSLT 2.0 and XQuery 1.0 Serialization.

The new editions incorporate errata and make a number of clarifications that resulted from experience of over 50 implementations and widespread use. In addition, a number of issues that arose during testing for the second edition were clarified, a process that took several months. The Working Groups are continuing to process issues that arrived after the end of the review period; any resulting changes will be incorporated either into a third edition or into the 3.0 versions of these documents. Learn more about XML technology.

W3C is pleased to announce the creation of the Federated Social Web Incubator Group, whose mission is to investigate the core functionality and the overall technical architecture for a federated social web, provide a set of community-driven specifications and a test-case suite for a federated social web that offers a compelling experience for users. The following W3C Members have sponsored the charter for this group: DERI, Google, OpenLink, Vodafone. 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 but in many cases serves as a starting point for a future Working Group.

The W3C Provenance Incubator Group has published their final report. The provenance of information is crucial to making determinations about whether information is trusted, how to integrate diverse information sources, and how to give credit to originators when reusing information. The report highlights the importance of provenance and presents requirements in a variety of contexts in the Web based on use cases collected from the community. Based on these requirements and a close examination of existing provenance work, the XG identified the need for standard mechanisms to represent and access provenance. The group formulated a roadmap for provenance on the Web that includes short term and long term priorities. The group also agreed to concrete starting points to ensure rapid progress towards a standardization effort, and proposed a charter for a Provenance Interchange Working Group. 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.