The Multimodal Interaction Working Group has published a W3C Recommendation of Emotion Markup Language (EmotionML) 1.0. As the Web is becoming ubiquitous, interactive, and multimodal, technology needs to deal increasingly with human factors, including emotions. The specification of Emotion Markup Language 1.0 aims to strike a balance between practical applicability and scientific well-foundedness. The language is conceived as a “plug-in” language suitable for use in three different areas: (1) manual annotation of data; (2) automatic recognition of emotion-related states from user behavior; and (3) generation of emotion-related system behavior. Learn more about the Multimodal Interaction Activity.

The Semantic Web Interest Group has published a new version of the Interest Group Note for the vCard Ontology. The document describes a mapping of the vCard specification (RFC6350) to RDF/OWL. The goal is to promote the use of vCard for the description of people and organizations utilizing semantic web techniques and allowing compatibility with traditional vCard implementations. Learn more about the Data Activity.

The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of CSS Font Loading Module Level 3. This CSS module describes events and interfaces used for dynamically loading font resources. CSS is a language for describing the rendering of structured documents (such as HTML and XML) on screen, on paper, in speech, etc. Comments are welcome through 30 June 2014. Learn more about the Style Activity.

The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group and the SVG Working Group have published two documents today:

• A First Public Working Draft of Geometry Interfaces Module Level 1. This specification describes several geometry interfaces for the representation of points, quads, rectangles and transformation matrices. The SVG interfaces are aliasing the interfaces in favor for common interfaces used by SVG, Canvas 2D Context and CSS Transforms.
• A Last Call Working Draft of CSS Masking Module Level 1. CSS Masking provides two means for partially or fully hiding portions of visual elements: masking and clipping. Masking describes how to use another graphical element or image as a luminance or alpha mask. Clipping describes the visible region of visual elements. The region can be described by using certain SVG graphics elements or basic shapes. Anything outside of this region is not rendered. Comments are welcome through 19 June 2014.

Learn more about the Style Activity and the Graphics Activity.

The HTML Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of HTML Canvas 2D Context. This specification defines the 2D Context for the HTML canvas element. The 2D Context provides objects, methods, and properties to draw and manipulate graphics on a canvas drawing surface. This draft introduces a number of changes that improve accessibility of canvas graphics; it adds support for binding regions of the canvas to fallback content and the ability to visually indicate when a region is in focus. Comments are welcome through 20 June 2014. Learn more about the HTML Activity.

The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group has published two Working Drafts today:

• CSS Grid Layout Module Level 1. This CSS module defines a two-dimensional grid-based layout system, optimized for user interface design. In the grid layout model, the children of a grid container can be positioned into arbitrary slots in a flexible or fixed predefined layout grid.
• CSS Generated Content for Paged Media Module. Books and other paged media often use special techniques to display information. Content may be moved to or generated for special areas of the page, such as running heads or footnotes. Generated content within pages, such as tab leaders or cross-references, helps readers navigate within and between pages.

CSS is a language for describing the rendering of structured documents (such as HTML and XML) on screen, on paper, in speech, etc. Learn more about the Style Activity.

Today W3C published the final report of the fourth Web and TV Workshop that was held 12-13 March 2013 in Munich, Germany. Around 130 participants from 22 countries represented 84 organizations discussed hybrid TV, multi-screen and other web media topics such as testing, audio, accessibility, metadata and performance.

The report summarizes the discussion of possible future steps as follows:

• Synchronization of video and (meta) data, video & audio
• Testing devices based on web technologies
• Rendering and control of linear video using <video>
• Miscellaneous gaps around delivery & rendering of IP video
• Discovery and communication between two UAs or a UA and another device/service
• Performance measurement (benchmarks) for web technologies/animation
• Accessibility features
• Pluggable CDM for EME

Outcomes of the workshop and subsequent follow-up discussions include the creation of the TV Control API Community Group and work towards transitioning the Second Screen Presentation Community Group to a Working Group to establish a new W3C standard. There is also new activity around testing, accessibility and performance requirements for the TV industry.

W3C is very grateful to IRT for hosting and helping with this event, and NBCUniversal for additional sponsorship. This work is also supported by the EU FP7 project MediaScape.

Those interested in following this work are invited to join the Web and TV Interest Group or follow discussions on its public mailing list.