Presentations of W3C Team, Office Staff, and Working Group Participants (Recent and Upcoming)

September 2008

1 September

Andrew Arch gives a talk entitled "Web Accessibility and the Older Population" at the "HCI and the Older Population 2008" on Monday, 1 September 2008, in Liverpool, United Kingdom. (see abstract)

Abstract:

This paper introduces the “Web Accessibility Initiative: Ageing Education and Harmonisation” (WAI-AGE) project, a W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) project funded by the European Commission under its 6th Framework Programme (FP6) of the Information Society Technologies (IST). It briefly discusses some of the initial findings from the first stage of the project – a comprehensive review of the literature relating to this topic. It concludes with a discussion of some of the ways we intend to promote the needs of the older user to the Web development community.

2 September

François Daoust gives a talk entitled "From pages to applications: Mobile Web Best Practices" at the "Mobile Internet User eXperience (MIUX'08)" on Tuesday, 2 September 2008, in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. (see abstract)

Abstract:

Within the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the Mobile Web Initiative (MWI) was created in 2005 to help make browsing the Web from mobile devices a reality.

This paper presents an overview of the Mobile Web Best Practices developed within the MWI to improve the mobile-browsing user experience on as many mobile devices as possible.

4 September

Shadi Abou-Zahra gives a talk entitled "Senioren im Web: Barrierefreiheit für Ältere Menschen (Seniors on the Web: Accessibility for Older People)" at the "Webkongress 2008 (Web Congress 2008)" on Thursday, 4 September 2008, in Erlangen, Germany.

7 September

Matt Womer gives a talk entitled "Oh Widget, Where art Thou?" at the "Mobile Widget Camp Austin" on Sunday, 7 September 2008, in Austin,Texas, USA. (see abstract)

Abstract:

MobileWidgetCamp is a BarCamp-inspired event that mixes structured presentations with unconference-style community participation. It is an ad-hoc gathering of mobility professionals and enthusiasts.

8, 9 September

Richard Ishida gives a tutorial entitled "An Introduction to Writing Systems & Unicode" (see abstract) on Monday, 8 September 2008 and gives a tutorial entitled "Creating XHTML/HTML Pages with Right-to-Left Scripts " (see abstract) on Monday, 8 September 2008; Richard Ishida and Steve Zilles give a talk entitled "New Work on Japanese Layout Requirements " (see abstract) on Tuesday, 9 September 2008 at the "Internationalization & Unicode Conference" , San Jose, USA.

Abstract for “ An Introduction to Writing Systems &…”:

The tutorial provides you with a good understanding of the many unique characteristics of non-Latin writing systems, and illustrates the problems involved in implementing such scripts in products. It does not provide detailed coding advice, but does provide the essential background information you need to understand the fundamental issues related to Unicode deployment, across a wide range of scripts. It has also proved to be an excellent orientation for newcomers to the conference, providing the background needed to assist understanding of the other talks! The tutorial goes beyond encoding issues to discuss characteristics related to input of ideographs, combining characters, context-dependent shape variation, text direction, vowel signs, ligatures, punctuation, wrapping and editing, font issues, sorting and indexing, keyboards, and more. The concepts are introduced through the use of examples from Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Hebrew, Thai, Hindi/Tamil, Russian and Greek. While the tutorial is perfectly accessible to beginners, it has also attracted very good reviews from people at an intermediate and advanced level, due to the breadth of scripts discussed. No prior knowledge is needed.

Abstract for “ Creating XHTML/HTML Pages with…”:

This short tutorial explains how to go about creating XHTML and HTML pages containing text written in the Arabic or Hebrew scripts. The tutorial examines how best to achieve the correct effect for these bi-directional scripts using appropriate markup, CSS properties and Unicode code points or entities. It covers the basics, and goes beyond to provide recommended techniques for some of the tricky situations that even native speakers can struggle with. The tutorial assumes a basic familiarity with the bi-directional characteristics of Arabic and Hebrew, as well as a basic knowledge of HTML and CSS.

Abstract for “New Work on Japanese Layout Requirements ”:

The W3C has been gathering requirements for Japanese text layout from in-country experts, including the original authors of JIS X 4051 via its Japanese Layout Task Force. The task force also includes representatives from the CSS, XSL-FO and SVG Working Groups. The end result will be a detailed set of requirements that will build on and extend beyond JIS X 4051, and will be published as a W3C Note in English and Japanese. The work has revealed some interesting new insights on Japanese layout for the Western experts involved. This talk describes these and some of the key points of the proposed document, referring to rules for such things as page set up using kihon hanmen, the amount of blank space associated with punctuation and parentheses, text justification and line breaking, conversion between horizontal and vertical text, etc.

11 September

Bert Bos gives a talk entitled "Understanding the CSS box model" at the "Fronteers 2008" on Thursday, 11 September 2008, in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. (see abstract)

Abstract:

The talk explores the limits of level 2 of the box model (and thus potential requirements for level 3). Examples include leading, centering and vertical text.

16 September

Phil Archer and Matt Womer give a state of the art report entitled "Introduction to the Protocol for Web Description Resources" at the "POWDER: More of what you want, when you want it" on Tuesday, 16 September 2008, in Yahoo!'s Mission College Campus, Santa Clara, California, USA. (see abstract)

Abstract:

Members of the POWDER Working Group will gather at Yahoo's Mission College Campus to present its work, highlighting its benefits to end users, publishers and aggregators.

17 September

François Daoust gives a talk entitled "Mobile Web: Trust starts with a few Best Practices" at the "Smart Mobility 2008" on Wednesday, 17 September 2008, in Sophia-Antipolis, France.

23 September

Andrew Arch and Shadi Abou-Zahra give a talk entitled "How web accessibility guidelines apply to design for the ageing population" at the "Accessible Design in the Digital World" on Tuesday, 23 September 2008, in York, United Kingdom. (see abstract)

Abstract:

There has been extensive development of guidelines for accessibility of the Web for people with disabilities. While these guidelines address many requirements needed by the ageing population, the relevance of these guidelines to the needs of the ageing population is not well understood by many organizations representing and/or serving the needs of the ageing community nor by technology developers. There is a need to better understand the relationship and overlap of the requirements, and to develop educational resources to help developers provide Web sites that work better for people who experience changes in abilities due to ageing.

One of the key aspects of ageing is a development of functional limitations such as declines in vision, dexterity, and hearing. Additionally, we find various declines in cognitive ability, and these may be as likely, or more likely, to affect the use of ICT and the Web than physical and sensory limitations in older adults. In addition to the diversity in functional ability of older adults, we need be aware of the diversity of attitude and aptitude, when we are discussing the use of ICT and the Web.

This paper introduces the “Web Accessibility Initiative: Ageing Education and Harmonisation” (WAI-AGE) project, a W3C Web Accessibility Initiative project that is funded by the European Commission under its 6th Framework Programme of the Information Society Technologies. A significant part of this work includes researching existing literature with regard to information technology access, and comparing the findings with solutions provided by the Web Accessibility Initiative.

This reflective paper will report on the findings from the literature review and the synergies with the existing WAI guidelines.

23 September

Dominique Hazaël-Massieux gives a talk entitled "Standardisation vs. Openness vs. Proprietary Systems - Examining in which Direction the Mobile Web Industry is heading and why this really Matters" at the "Mobile Web Europe 2008" on Tuesday, 23 September 2008, in London, United Kingdom.

24 September

Kevin Novak gives a talk entitled "Introducing the W3C eGovernment Interest Group" at "The Next Generation of Our Public Record:Many Voices, One Voice" on Wednesday, 24 September 2008, in Washington, DC, USA.

24 September

Klaus Birkenbihl and Ivan Herman give a talk on behalf of the Germany and Austria Office entitled "Auf dem Weg ins Semantische Web (On the Way to the Semantic Web)" at the "W3C-Tag" on Wednesday, 24 September 2008, in Berlin, Germany. (see abstract)

Abstract:

High level introduction on the benefits of complementing the Web of documents by a Web of data.

24 September

Lars Bröcker gives a talk entitled "Einführung in RDF (Introduction to RDF)" and gives a talk entitled "Einführung in RDF (Introduction to RDF)"; Thomas Tikwinski gives a talk entitled "Einführung in SPARQL (Introduction to SPARQL)" and gives a talk entitled "Einführung in SPARQL (Introduction to SPARQL)" at the " W3C-Tag 2008 - Corporate Semantic Web in der Praxis (W3C day 2008 - Corporate Semantic Web in pratice)" , on Wednesday, 24 September 2008, in Berlin, Germany.

24 September

Ivan Herman gives a tutorial entitled "Introduction to the Semantic Web" at the "2nd European Semantic Technology Conference" on Wednesday, 24 September 2008, in Vienna, Austria.

25 September

Olle Olsson gives a talk entitled "Webben, Open Source och standarder (The Web, Open Source, and Standards)" at the "DFS-seminarium (DFS Seminar)" on Thursday, 25 September 2008, in Linköping, Sweden.

26 September

José Manuel Alonso gives a keynote entitled "Improving Access to Government through Better Use of the Web" at the "2nd International Conference on Methodologies, Technologies and Tools enabling e-Government" on Friday, 26 September 2008, in Corfu, Greece.

26 September

Philippe Le Hégaret gives a talk on behalf of the Korea Office entitled "Video on the Web" at the "Video on the Web 2008 (IPTV가 웹을 만났을 때 !) (Video in the Web 2008 (When IPTV meets the Web !))" on Friday, 26 September 2008, in Seoul, Korea.

30 September

Klaus Birkenbihl and Ivan Herman give a talk on behalf of the Brazil Office entitled "On the Way to the Semantic Web" at the "W3C Brazil meeting" on Tuesday, 30 September 2008, in São Paulo, Brazil. (see abstract)

Abstract:

High level introduction on the benefits of complementing the Web of documents by a Web of data.

October 2008

1 October

Thomas Roessler gives a talk entitled "Standards Based Security at W3C" at the "Open Standards Forum 2008 - Security Challenges for the Information Society" on Wednesday, 1 October 2008, in London, United Kingdom.

2 October

Steven Pemberton participates at a panel entitled "‘Sterke verhalen’ over standaardisatie (Tall Stories about Standardization)" at the "HubHolland" on Thursday, 2 October 2008, in Utrecht, The Netherlands.

2 October

José Manuel Alonso participates at a panel entitled "Working Across Borders" at the "OASIS Open Standards Forum" on Thursday, 2 October 2008, in London, United Kingdom. (see abstract)

Abstract:

This talk introduces briefly the eGovernment Activity at W3C, how it's evolving, and the expectations of the public sector from standards development bodies like W3C and OASIS, and the prospects for mutually supportive collaborative action, focusing on the cross-border cooperation and data exchange dimensions.

2 October

Klaus Birkenbihl and Ivan Herman give a talk on behalf of the Brazil Office entitled "On the Way to the Semantic Web" at the "Rio Info 2008" on Thursday, 2 October 2008, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (see abstract)

Abstract:

High level introduction on the benefits of complementing the Web of documents by a Web of data.

6 October

Philipp Hoschka participates at a panel entitled "Les applications et services de l’Internet mobile (Mobile Internet Applications and Services)" at the "Internet of Things Internet of the Future" on Monday, 6 October 2008, in Nice, France.

7 October

Ossi Nykänen gives a tutorial entitled "W3C Semantic Web technologies for the OKS " at "The 2nd International OPAALS Conference on Digital Ecosystems: OPAALS 2008 at Tampere, Finland, 7 - 8 October 2008" on Tuesday, 7 October 2008, in Tampere, Finland. (see abstract)

Abstract:

Definition of the Open Knowledge Space (OKS) benefits from understanding the state of the art Semantic Web technologies. Build on top of the Architecture of the World Wide Web, Semantic Web technologies provide the enabling interoperability standards for, e.g., semantic searches. In this tutorial, we briefly introduce the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Semantic Web activity, the related core technologies, and consider their applicability in the OKS.

7 October

Olle Olsson gives a talk entitled "Webben, Open Source och standarder (The Web, Open Source, and Standards)" at the "DFS-seminarium (DFS Seminar)" on Tuesday, 7 October 2008, in Göteborg, Sweden.

8 October

Evangelos Markatos and Klaus Birkenbihl give a talk entitled "An Open Platform for Standardisation: WWW" at the "9th International HL7 Interoperability Conference 2008" between Wednesday, 8 October, and Saturday, 11 October 2008, in Hersonissos, Crete, Greece.

8 October

Olle Olsson gives a talk entitled " Webb 2.0 och bortom (Web 2.0 and what comes after)" at the "ISOC.SE seminarium (ISOC.SE seminar)" on Wednesday, 8 October 2008, in Kista, Sweden.

9 October

Steve Bratt gives an invited talk entitled "Tomorrow's Web" at the "Dickinson College Seminar" on Thursday, 9 October 2008, in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, USA.

13, 14 October

Shawn Henry gives a talk entitled "Accessibility in a Web 2.0 World" (see abstract) on Monday, 13 October 2008 and gives a talk entitled "Getting Real with Accesibility" (see abstract) on Tuesday, 14 October 2008 at the "Web Builder 2.0" , Las Vegas, NV, USA.

Abstract for “Accessibility in a Web 2.0 World”:

Web 2.0, Ajax, rich Web applications, blogs, wikis --- the Web continues to develop. What are the accessibility issues in this next-generation Web? Scripting, once a no-no for accessibility, is a key aspect. Join us to get the latest on how the W3C's new Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0), Authoring Tools Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG), and Accessible Rich Internet Applications Suite (WAI-ARIA) address these Web developments. Learn how to take advantage of current and developing strategies to make dynamic Web content and applications accessible.

Abstract for “Getting Real with Accesibility”:

Accessibility isn't about checklists, it's about making your site more usable to more people in more situations. This session puts standards and guidelines in perspective, and shows you a new approach for developing effective accessibility solutions efficiently. Get hands-on screening techniques that anyone can use, and guidance on including people with disabilities in your project to learn how they really interact with your site.

16 October

Olle Olsson gives a talk entitled "Klarspråk och förståelighet på webben - webben som utmaning och möjlighet (Clear language and understandability on the web - the web as a challenge and opportunity)" at the "Klarspråkskonferensen 2008 (Conference on Clear Language 2008)" on Thursday, 16 October 2008, in Bålsta, Sweden.

17 October

Renato Iannella gives a keynote entitled "The Policy-Aware Web meets Virtual Goods" at the "6th International Workshop for Technical, Economic and Legal Aspects of Business Models for Virtual Goods" on Friday, 17 October 2008, in Poznan, Poland. (see abstract)

Abstract:

The Policy-Aware Web is the promise for supporting policy management at the Web infrastructure level. A policy is any set of rules or statements that capture and express the requirements of individuals and organsaitions from a corporate, legal, best practices, and/or social perspective. Currently, policy languages exisit that cover and broadly address the privacy, access control, and obligation management areas. However, what is missing is an overall framework and architecture for these policy languages to interoperate and provide an accountable, enforceable, flexible and trusted experience for the web community. This talk will review the technology challanges that face the Policy-Aware Web, the current policy specifications and the supporting standards and the road forward towards an enhanced web architecture. The goal is to provide a balance between creators, distributors, and consumers of digital goods by providing an open and transparent framework to transact and exchange digital items over the policy-savvy web.

26 October

Michael Hausenblas , Ivan Herman , and Ben Adida give a tutorial entitled "RDFa—Bridging the Web of Documents and the Web of Data" at the "7th International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC2008)" on Sunday, 26 October 2008, in Karlsruhe, Germany. (see abstract)

Abstract:

RDFa is the bridge between the Web of Documents, targeting at human users, and the Web of Data, focusing on machines. Not only due to the recent uptake of RDFa (Digg, Yahoo!, etc.), learning how and where to use RDFa is essential. This tutorial will introduce the usage of RDFa in real-world use cases and will enable the attendees to work with RDFa both on the client as on the server side. We will create, publish and consume RDFa-marked-up data in the course of the tutorial and discuss advanced aspects, such as dynamic content handling. There are no pre-requisites for participation in the tutorial other than a familiarity with the basics of the (Semantic) Web such as URIs, RDF, XHTML, and SPARQL.

30 October

Felix Sasaki gives a talk entitled "Aspekte der Nachhaltigkeit von Webressourcen: Services, Datenheterogenität und Identifizierbarkeit (Aspekts of the sustainability of resources on the Web: Services, data heterogeneity and identification)" organized by the University of Applied Sciences, Potsdam, on Thursday, 30 October 2008, in Potsdam, Germany.

30, 31 October

Shawn Henry gives a talk entitled "Сделаем интернет доступным всем и каждому (Making the Web Accessible to All)" (see abstract) on Thursday, 30 October 2008 and gives a talk entitled "Стандарты Web Accessibility: Фундамент для международного сотрудничества и локального внедрения (Web Accessibility Standards: A Foundation for International Cooperation and Local Implementation )" (see abstract) on Friday, 31 October 2008 at the "User eXperience 2008" , Moscow, Russia.

Abstract for “ Сделаем интернет…”:

It is vital that the Web is accessible given its increasingly key role in government, education, employment, commerce, health care, recreation, and more. Accessibility means that people with disabilities can use the Web. Accessibility also makes websites more usable to older people with changing abilities due to aging, people with low bandwidth connections and older technologies, and people using mobile devices and new technologies. Currently many websites have accessibility barriers that make it difficult or impossible for some people to use the Web. In this session, Shawn will demo common barriers, along with quick and easy solutions for avoiding those barriers in your websites. You will learn how to make your website more usable to more people in more situations.

Abstract for “ Стандарты Web Accessibility:…”:

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) is an international forum where industry, disability organizations, accessibility researchers, and government come together to develop consensus-based Web accessibility solutions. WAI's accessibility guidelines are widely regarded as the international standard for Web accessibility. This presentation explores: - existing accessibility guidelines for Web sites, browsers, and authoring tools; - advanced versions of the guidelines currently in development; - strategies for harmonizing international accessibility guidelines for Web sites, browsers, and authoring tools; - material to help develop local support for Web accessibility, including: developing policies, promoting awareness, providing training, and evaluating accessibility of Web sites; - opportunities to be involved in WAI’s international Web accessibility efforts.

November 2008

5 November

Olle Olsson gives a talk entitled "E-gov and the citizen - transformation by new technology" at the "jboye08" on Wednesday, 5 November 2008, in Aarhus, Denmark.

14 November

Daniel Glazman gives a talk entitled "La mode se démode, le Style jamais" at the "Paris Web 2008 " on Friday, 14 November 2008, in Paris, France. (see abstract)

Abstract:

Après dix années de « Browser Peace », la nouvelle « Browser War » en cours entre Firefox 3, Internet Explorer 8, Opera 9 et Webkit offre enfin de grandes avancées sur les CSS et une harmonisation des implémentations. Nous allons faire le point sur les nouveautés des CSS 3 ainsi que sur les dernières propositions faites au CSS Working Group.

18 November

Ingmar Kliche gives a talk entitled "The W3C Multimodal Architecture" at the "ETSI Workshop on Multimodal Interaction on Mobile Devices " on Tuesday, 18 November 2008, in Sophia Antipolis, France.

28 November

José Manuel Alonso gives a keynote on behalf of the Germany and Austria Office entitled "Towards eGovernment 2.0 through better use of the Web" at the "E-Government-Standards Kongress" on Friday, 28 November 2008, in Berlin, Germany.

December 2008

4 December

Olle Olsson gives a talk entitled "Standarder och Open Source (Standards and Open Source)" at the "DFS-seminarium (DFS Seminar)" on Thursday, 4 December 2008, in Malmö, Sweden.

5 December

Shawn Henry gives a talk entitled "Overlapping User Experiences: Mobile Web Usability and Accessibility for People with Disabilities" at the "UPA Europe 2008, Usability and design: cultivating diversity" on Friday, 5 December 2008, in Turn, Italy. (see abstract)

Abstract:

There is significant overlap between designing websites to be usable on mobile devices and designing websites to be accessible to people with disabilities (using desktops). Understanding this overlap helps more efficiently meet both goals. This session highlights those overlaps and introduces new resources to help you address both effectively.

6 December

Shawn Henry gives an invited talk entitled "How New Web Accessibility Standards Impact User Experience Design " at the "UPA Europe 2008, Usability and design: cultivating diversity" on Saturday, 6 December 2008, in Turin, Italy. (see abstract)

Abstract:

This presentation provides the latest on new international standards expected in 2008, including W3C's WCAG 2.0 and WAI-ARIA for accessibility of Ajax applications, as well as European accessibility activities. It compares different standards, and demos how the new requirements impact user experience design, such as new accessibility requirements for forms.