Today the XML Query Working Group and the XSLT Working Group have published seven First Public Working Drafts, four of which are jointly developed and three are from the XQuery Working Group.

The joint documents are:

• XML Path Language (XPath) 3.1. XPath is a powerful expression language that allows the processing of values conforming to the data model defined in the XQuery and XPath Data Model. The main features of XPath 3.1 are maps and arrays.
• XPath and XQuery Functions and Operators 3.1. This specification defines a library of functions available for use in XPath, XQuery, XSLT and other languages.
• XQuery and XPath Data Model 3.1. This specification defines the data model on which all operations of XPath 3.1, XQuery 3.1, and XSLT 3.1 operate.
• XSLT and XQuery Serialization 3.1. This document defines serialization of an instance of the XQuery and XPath data model into a sequence of octets, such as into XML, text, HTML, JSON.

The three XML Query Working Group documents are:

• XQuery 3.1 Requirements and Use Cases, which describes the reasons for producing XQuery 3.1, and gives examples.
• XQuery 3.1: An XML Query Language. XQuery is a versatile query and application development language, capable of processing the information content of diverse data sources including structured and semi-structured documents, relational databases and tree-bases databases. The XQuery language is designed to support powerful optimizations and pre-compilation leading to very efficient searches over large amounts of data, including over so-called XML-native databases that read and write XML but have an efficient internal storage. The 3.1 version adds support for features such as arrays and maps primarily to facilitate processing of JSON and other structures.
• XQueryX 3.1, which defines an XML syntax for XQuery 3.1.

Learn more about the XML Activity.

The Efficient XML Interchange Working Group has published a Working Draft of Efficient XML Interchange (EXI) Primer, which provides technical background for the Efficient XML Interchange (EXI) format. It is oriented towards quickly understanding how the EXI format can be used in practice and how options can be set to achieve specific needs. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity.

Today W3C published its report from the March Workshop on Web and Payments. More than 100 people from the banking industry, payment service providers, virtual currencies providers, financial institutions, mobile industry, browser vendors, payment regulators, and payment standardization bodies met to discuss Web payment use cases, business requirements, and standardization priorities.

During their two-day agenda they addressed questions such as how can both legacy business models and new business models involving payment be better enabled on the Web? What are the main obstacles to seamless payments on the Web? on Mobile devices? What can we do to facilitate global transactions while still respecting local laws, regulation and both existing and new business models?

Participants recorded key outputs from the meeting, including a recommendation that W3C establish a “steering group” (a W3C Interest Group) to formulate a strategy and roadmap of Web Payments, including existing work at W3C and potential new work. W3C invites expressions of interest in the development of this steering group. For more information, contact Stéphane Boyera.

The Independent User Interface (Indie UI) Working Group today published the First Public Working Draft of Requirements for IndieUI: Events 1.0 and IndieUI: User Context 1.0. The document introduces use cases related to the IndieUI specifications and the technical requirements for meeting the use cases. IndieUI: Events defines a way for different user interactions to be translated into simple events and communicated to web applications. With IndieUI, web application developers will have a uniform way to design applications that work for multiple devices and contexts. It is introduced in the IndieUI Overview. One focus of IndieUI is enabling better user interaction in the mobile environment. This Requirements document provides an opportunity for early review of user needs to be addressed by the IndieUI specifications. Learn more about the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).