W3C Invites Implementations of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 (Candidate Recommendation)

2008-04-30: The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Working Group has released Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 as a Candidate Recommendation, and published updated Working Drafts of Understanding WCAG 2.0 and Techniques for WCAG 2.0, along with How to Meet WCAG 2.0 and Comparison of WCAG 1.0 Checkpoints to WCAG 2.0. WCAG defines how to make Web sites, Web applications, and other Web content accessible to people with disabilities. Working closely with Web developers, the WCAG Working Group expects to receive initial implementations by 30 June 2008 and to show evidence of meeting the exit criteria by 31 August 2008. Read the press release, invitation to implement, Overview of WCAG 2.0 Documents, and about the Web Accessibility Initiative. (Permalink)

"Web Accessibility for Older Users: A Literature Review"; Comments Welcome on First Public Draft

2008-05-14: The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) Education and Outreach Working Group Working Group (EOWG) has published Web Accessibility for Older Users: A Literature Review as a First Public Working Draft. The document includes reviews and analysis of guidelines and articles covering the requirements of people with Web accessibility needs related to ageing. This literature review will inform WAI efforts to promote accessibility solutions for older Web users and potentially to develop profiles or extensions to WAI guidelines. The literature review is a deliverable of the WAI-AGE Project (Ageing Education and Harmonisation). See the call for review and participation for an introduction to the project and an invitation to contribute to the literature review and other WAI-AGE work; and about the Web Accessibility Initiative. (Permalink)

Last Call: CURIE Syntax 1.0

2008-05-08: The XHTML2 Working Group has published the Last Call Working Draft of CURIE Syntax 1.0, which outlines a syntax for expressing URIs in a generic, abbreviated syntax ("Compact URI"). The specification targets language designers who need a mechanism to permit the use of extensible value collections. Any language designer considering the use of QNames in attribute values should consider instead using CURIEs, since CURIEs are designed for this purpose, while QNames are not. Comments are welcome through 10 June. Learn more about the HTML Activity. (Permalink)

Canonical XML Version 1.1 Is a W3C Recommendation

2008-05-02: The XML Core Working Group has published the W3C Recommendation of Canonical XML Version 1.1. Canonical XML Version 1.1 is a revision to Canonical XML Version 1.0 to address issues related to inheritance of attributes in the XML namespace when canonicalizing document subsets, including the requirement not to inherit xml:id, and to treat xml:base URI path processing properly. Canonical XML Version 1.1 is applicable to XML 1.0 and defined in terms of the XPath 1.0 data model. It is not defined for XML 1.1. As a Recommendation, this is a stable document and may be used as reference material or cited from another document. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity. (Permalink)

W3C Talks in May

2008-05-01: Browse W3C presentations and events also available as an RSS channel. (Permalink)

• 14 May, Stockholm, Sweden: Internationalisering och lokalisering -- språk på webben.Olle Olsson presents at Språk och Internet.
• 18 May, San Jose, CA, USA: State of the Semantic Web.Ivan Herman presents at 2008 Semantic Technology Conference.
• 19 May, Canberra, Australia: Improving Government through better use of the Web.José Manuel Alonso gives a keynote at Web Directions South: Government.
• 20 May, Barcelona, Spain: Fast Forward: Get Ready for Web 3.0.Steve Bratt gives a keynote at bdigital Global Congress.
• 21 May, Sydney, Australia: Towards eGovernment 2.0.José Manuel Alonso gives a keynote at eGovernment Forum at CeBIT.
• 22 May, San Jose, CA, USA: Bringing SemTech Back to the Business.Ivan Herman participates in a panel at 2008 Semantic Technology Conference.
• 27 May, London, United Kingdom: One Big Happy Family: Practical Collaboration on Meaningful Markup .Dan Brickley presents at Microformats vEvent.
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XProc: An XML Pipeline Language Draft Published

2008-05-01: The XML Processing Model Working Group has published a Working Draft of XProc: An XML Pipeline Language. This specification describes the syntax and semantics of XProc: An XML Pipeline Language, a language for describing operations to be performed on XML documents. Pipelines are made up of simple steps which perform atomic operations on XML documents and constructs similar to conditionals, iteration, and exception handlers, which control which steps are executed. The status section of the document lists the most important changes since the previous draft. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity. (Permalink)

Product Modelling Incubator Group to Identify Basic Ontology for Product Modelling

2008-05-01: W3C is pleased to announce the creation of the Product Modelling Incubator Group, sponsored by W3C Members TNO, POSC-Caesar Association, and Fraunhofer. Per the charter, the SWOP and S-TEN projects, with the POSC Caesar Association, believe that it is possible to define a small core of basic classes and properties for product modelling. This "product core" could be the basis of the ontologies defined by the two projects, and for many other application ontologies. This core could help the development of Web ontologies derived from existing international standards, such as IFC, STEP and ISO 15926. The XG has been proposed to work on this core set. 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. (Permalink)