W3C News

Five XML Security Drafts Published

2010-09-01T20:52:23Z

The XML Security Working Group has published five working drafts today. XML Signature 2.0, Canonical XML 2.0 and the XML Signature Streamable Profile of XPath 1.0 are part of an ongoing effort to rework XML Signature and Canonical XML in order to address issues around performance, streaming, robustness, and attack surface. The Working Group has also published updated Working Drafts for its XML Signature Best Practices and XML Security Relax NG Schemas Working Group Notes. Learn more about XML Security.

Voice Extensible Markup Language (VoiceXML) 3.0 Draft Published

2010-08-31T19:33:56Z

The Voice Browser Working Group has published a Working Draft of Voice Extensible Markup Language (VoiceXML) 3.0. Voice XML is used to create 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. Learn more about the Voice Browser Activity.

W3C Launches HTML Speech Incubator Group

2010-08-30T15:40:46Z

W3C is pleased to announce the creation of the HTML Speech Incubator Group, whose mission is to determine the feasibility of integrating speech technology in HTML5 in a way that leverages the capabilities of both speech and HTML (e.g., DOM) to provide a high-quality, browser-independent speech/multimodal experience while avoiding unnecessary standards fragmentation or overlap. The following W3C Members have sponsored the charter for this group: Voxeo, Microsoft, Openstream, Google, AT&T, Mozilla. 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.

W3C Launches Web Performance Working Group

2010-08-19T14:15:11Z

W3C has launched a new Web Performance Working Group, whose mission is to provide methods to measure aspects of application performance of user agent features and APIs. As Web browsers and their underlying engines include richer capabilities and become more powerful, Web developers are building more sophisticated applications where application performance is increasingly important. Developers need the ability to assess and understand the performance characteristics of their applications using well-defined interoperable methods. This new Working Group will look at user agent features and APIs to measure aspects of application performance. Group deliverables will apply to desktop and mobile browsers and other non-browser environments where appropriate and will be consistent with Web technologies designed in other working groups including HTML, CSS, WebApps, DAP and SVG. Learn more in the Working Group charter and how this work fits into the W3C's Rich Web Client Activity.

Contacts API Draft Published

2010-08-17T17:33:10Z

The Device APIs and Policy Working Group has published a Working Draft of Contacts API. This specification defines the concept of a user's unified address book - where address book data may be sourced from a plurality of sources - both online and locally. This specification then defines the interfaces on which 3rd party applications can access a user's unified address book; with explicit user permission and filtering. Learn more about the Ubiquitous Web Applications Activity.

W3C Leads Discussion at TypeCon 2010 on New Open Web Font Format (WOFF)

2010-08-17T11:22:02Z

W3C attends TypeCon 2010 this week for community discussion about Web Open File Format (WOFF), the new open format for enabling high-quality typography for the Web. WOFF expands the typographic palette available to Web designers, improving readability, accessibility, internationalization, branding, and search optimization. Though still in the early phases of standardization, WOFF represents a pivotal agreement among browser vendors, foundries and font service providers who have convened at W3C to address the long-standing goal of advancing Web typography. “As a key Web font standard developed by W3C, WOFF 1.0 represents a universal solution for enabling advanced typography on the Web,” said Vladimir Levantovsky, W3C WebFonts Working Group chair and senior technology strategist at Monotype Imaging, Inc. “With the backing of browser companies and font vendors, who are making their fonts available for licensing in WOFF, this new W3C Recommendation-track document will bring rich typographic choice for content creators, Web authors and brand managers." Learn more in the press release and WOFF FAQ, as well as more about fonts on the Web.

Privacy Workshop Participants Share Implementation Experience; User Behaviors

2010-08-15T20:49:51Z

In July, W3C brought together participants across the industry for a privacy workshop (organized jointly with the PrimeLife EU project in London). Discussion topics included privacy-related implementation experience with the W3C geolocation API, and privacy icon and ruleset proposals for Web sites and APIs, respectively. Read the Workshop Report and learn more about the W3C Privacy Activity.

Web Security Context: User Interface Guidelines is a W3C Recommendation

2010-08-12T14:44:25Z

The Web Security Context Working Group has published a W3C Recommendation of Web Security Context: User Interface Guidelines. This specification deals with the trust decisions that users must make online, and with ways to support them in making safe and informed decisions where possible. It describes user interactions and user interface guidelines with a goal toward making security usable, based on known best practice in this area. Learn more about the Security Activity.

W3C Invites Review of First Draft of The Messaging API

2010-08-10T18:11:50Z

The Device APIs and Policy Working Group has published a First Public Working Draft of The Messaging API. The Messaging API defines a high-level interface to Messaging functionality, including SMS, MMS and Email. It includes APIs to create, send and receive messages. Learn more about the Ubiquitous Web Applications Activity.

Call for Review: MathML 3.0; MathML for CSS Profile are Proposed Recommendations

2010-08-10T14:55:33Z

The Math Working Group published two Proposed Recommendations today: Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) Version 3.0 and A MathML for CSS Profile. This first defines the Mathematical Markup Language, or MathML, which enables people to express mathematics in Web documents. The second describes a profile of MathML 3.0 that is suitable for styling with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Comments are welcome through 10 September. Learn more about the Math Activity.

Second Last Call for Seven Web Services Drafts

2010-08-05T12:11:52Z

The Web Services Resource Access Working Group published seven Second Last Call Working Drafts for Web Services: Enumeration (WS-Enumeration), Event Descriptions (WS-EventDescriptions), Eventing (WS-Eventing), Fragment (WS-Fragment), Metadata Exchange (WS-MetadataExchange), SOAP Assertions (WS-SOAPAssertions), and Transfer (WS-Transfer). Comments welcome through 17 September 2010. Learn more about the Web Services Activity.

W3C Invites Implementations of XMLHttpRequest

2010-08-03T16:03:04Z

The Web Applications Working Group invites implementation of the Candidate Recommendation of XMLHttpRequest. The XMLHttpRequest specification defines an API that provides scripted client functionality for transferring data between a client and a server. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

Drafts of RDFa Core 1.1 and XHTML+RDFa 1.1 Published

2010-08-03T14:46:23Z

The RDFa Working Group has just published two Working Drafts: RDFa Core 1.1 and XHTML+RDFa 1.1. RDFa Core 1.1 is a specification for attributes to express structured data in any markup language. The embedded data already available in the markup language (e.g., XHTML) is reused by the RDFa markup, so that publishers don't need to repeat significant data in the document content. XHTML+RDFa 1.1 is an XHTML family markup language. That extends the XHTML 1.1 markup language with the attributes defined in RDFa Core 1.1. This document is intended for authors who want to create XHTML-Family documents that embed rich semantic markup. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity.

XHTML Modularization 1.1 - Second Edition is a W3C Recommendation

2010-07-29T20:44:03Z

The XHTML2 Working Group has published a W3C Recommendation of XHTML Modularization 1.1 - Second Edition. XHTML Modularization is a tool for people who design markup languages. XHTML Modularization helps people design and manage markup language schemas and DTDs; it explains how to write schemas that will plug together. Modules can be reused and recombined across different languages, which helps keep related languages in sync. This edition includes several minor updates to provide clarifications and address errors found in version 1.1. Learn more about the HTML Activity.

Draft of Emotion Markup Language (EmotionML) 1.0 Published

2010-07-29T20:36:45Z

The Multimodal Interaction Working Group has published a Working Draft 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 present draft specification of Emotion Markup Language 1.0 aims to strike a balance between practical applicability and basis in science. 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.