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)
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)
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)
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)
2008-05-01: Browse W3C presentations and events also available as an RSS channel. (Permalink)
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)
2008-04-21: W3C holds its semiannual Advisory Committee Meeting on 21-22 April in Beijing, China. W3C Member organizations participate in two days of discussions and strategic planning about W3C Activities and future work. The meeting takes place alongside WWW2008; you are invited to the W3C Track at WWW2008. The
media are invited to a press conference with Tim Berners-Lee on 23 April at 3pm local time.
Learn how to become a W3C Member and attend the next Advisory Committee Meeting in October 2008 (part of Technical Plenary Week) in Cannes, France. (Photo credit: Ian Jacobs. Permalink)
2008-04-16: W3C is pleased to announce the relaunch of the SVG Working Group. Erik Dahlström (Opera Software ASA) and Andrew Emmons (W3C Invited Expert) continue to chair the group, which is chartered to work in public to continue the evolution of Scalable Vector Graphics as a format and a platform, and enhance the adoption and usability of SVG in combination with other technologies. A new SVG Interest Group is also chartered to foster the widespread discussion of Scalable Vector Graphics as a format and a platform, to gather requirements, and enhance the adoption and usability of SVG in combination with other technologies. Learn more about Scalable Vector Graphics. (Permalink)
2008-04-16: The Mobile Web Test Suites Working Group has released a stable version of its Web Compatibility Test for Mobile Browsers, and has sent an invitation to the community to share reports of browser support and other feedback on the test itself. Read more about the design of the test. Read more about the W3C Mobile Web Initiative. (Permalink)
2008-04-15: The Rule Interchange Format (RIF) Working Group published three drafts today:
These drafts help solidify the "pure logic rules" branch of RIF, which is distinct from the "production rules" branch (on which a Working Draft is expected within the next 6 months). Both branches share "RIF Core" (also expected within the next 6 months). The Framework document (FLD) specifies how the various logic dialects relate, while the Basic Logic Dialect (BLD) provides an interlingua for rule languages providing approximately "Horn" expressivity. The third document specifies how BLD can be logically combined with RDF and OWL. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity. (Permalink)
2008-04-15: W3C is pleased to announce that the Israel Chapter of the Internet Society (ISOC-IL) is the new host of the W3C Israel Office. Ori Idan will manage the Office from ISOC-IL. W3C wishes to thank Michel Bercovier and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for hosting the W3C Israel Office since 1999; Michel will remain involved as senior advisor. Learn more about the the W3C Offices, which promote adoption of W3C Recommendations in local regions among developers, application builders, and other regional stake-holders. (Permalink)
2008-04-15: The Web API Working Group has published the Last Call Working Draft of The XMLHttpRequest Object. The XMLHttpRequest Object specification defines an API that provides scripted client functionality for transferring data between a client and a server. Comments are welcome through 2 June. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity. (Permalink)
2008-04-15: The Ubiquitous Web Applications Working Group has published a Working Draft of Delivery Context Ontology. The Delivery Context Ontology provides a formal model of the characteristics of the environment in which devices interact with the Web or other services. The delivery context is an important source of information that can be used to adapt materials to make them useable on a wide range of different devices with different capabilities. The delivery context includes the characteristics of the device, the software used to access the service and the network providing the connection among others. This document describes the ontology (using OWL) and gives details of each property that it contains. Learn more about the Ubiquitous Web Applications Activity. (Permalink)
2008-04-15: The Internationalization Core Working Group has published a Working Draft of Web Services Internationalization (WS-I18N). This document describes enhancements to SOAP messaging to provide internationalized and localized operations using locale and international preferences. These mechanisms can be used to accommodate a wide variety of development models for international usage. Learn more about the Internationalization Activity. (Permalink)
2008-04-15: The Mobile Web Initiative Device Description Working Group has published a Group Note of Device Description Repository Core Vocabulary. This document identifies properties that are considered essential for adaptation of content in the Mobile Web. Its intended use is to define a baseline Vocabulary for Device Description Repository (DDR) implementations. The Vocabulary defined in this document is not intended to represent an exhaustive set of properties for content adaptation. DDR Implementations that require additional properties are free to make use of additional vocabularies. The process of creating a new Vocabulary can be modeled on the process described in this document. Learn more about the Mobile Web Initiative Activity. (Permalink)
2008-04-15: The Uncertainty Reasoning for the World Wide Web Incubator Group published their final report. The document includes a set of use case descriptions that illustrate situations for reasoning under uncertainty; some of the use cases include comprehensive information and details on how uncertainty would help to address issues that cannot be properly addressed with current deterministic approaches. The document also identifies methodologies that may be applied to address the use cases and that show promise as candidate solutions for uncertainty reasoning on the scale of the World Wide Web. This publication is part of the Incubator Activity, a forum where W3C Members can innovate and experiment. This work is not on the W3C standards track. (Permalink)
2008-04-15: The Common Web Language Incubator Group published their final report. The goal of the Common Web Language (CWL) is to allow the exchange of information through the Web and also for enabling computers to process information semantically. CWL allows people to describe contents and meta-data of Web pages written in natural language; the language seeks to lower language barriers and to facilitate the automatic extraction of information from Web pages. This publication is part of the Incubator Activity, a forum where W3C Members can innovate and experiment. This work is not on the W3C standards track. (Permalink)
2008-04-14: The Multimodal Interaction Working Group has published an updated Working Draft of Multimodal Architecture and Interfaces (MMI Architecture), which defines a loosely coupled architecture for multimodal user interfaces. The main change in this draft is a more thorough specification of the events sent between the Runtime Framework and the Modality Components, including both schemas for the individual messages and ladder diagrams showing message sequences. The architecture envisioned by the Working Group will provide a general and flexible framework providing interoperability among modality-specific components from different vendors - for example, speech recognition from one vendor and handwriting recognition from another. Learn more about W3C's Multimodal Interaction Activity. (Permalink)
2008-04-14: The Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of Content Transformation Guidelines 1.0. This document provides guidance to managers of content transformation proxies and to content providers for how to coordinate when delivering Web content. Content transformation techniques diverge widely on the web, with many non-standard HTTP implications, and no well-understood means either of identifying the presence of such transforming proxies, nor of controlling their actions. This document establishes a framework to allow that to happen. Learn more about the Mobile Web Initiative Activity. (Permalink)
2008-04-14: The Web Application Formats Working Group has published four Working Drafts related to Widgets 1.0: The Widget Landscape (Q1 2008), Packaging and Configuration, Digital Signature, and Requirements; these are the First Public drafts for Digital Signatures and Landscape. Widgets are small client-side Web applications for displaying and updating remote data, that are packaged in a way to allow a single download and installation on a client machine, mobile phone, or mobile Internet device. "Landscape" reviews commonalities and fragmentation across widget user agents and explores how fragmentation currently affects, amongst other things, authoring, security, distribution and deployment, internationalization and the device-independence of widgets. "Packaging" defines a Zip-based packaging format and an XML-based configuration document format for widgets. "Digital Signature" defines a profile of the XML-Signature Syntax and Processing specification to allow a widget resource to be digitally signed. "Requirements" lists the design goals and requirements that specification would need to address in order to standardize various aspects of widgets. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity. (Permalink)
2008-04-11: The OWL Working Group published six drafts today related to the OWL 2 Web Ontology Language:
OWL 2 (previously known as OWL 1.1) defines extensions to OWL, which is one of the core standards of the Semantic Web. Semantic Web terms (such as "author" or "title") can be organized into vocabularies (such as "data about publications"). OWL is used to represent the meaning of terms (see, for example, the work of the Health Care and Life Sciences Interest Group) in these vocabularies (or, "ontologies'), and relationships between those terms. Three of the drafts published today (syntax, semantics, and mapping-to-rdf) are the same as their January 2008 counterparts except for the name change. Of the three new drafts: "XML Serialization" specifies a new XML (not RDF/XML) syntax for OWL; "Profiles" specifies subsets (logical fragments) of OWL that target particular application contexts; and the "Primer" provides a unified technical introduction to OWL 2. The Working Group seeks feedback on these drafts and has highlighted particular issues throughout the documents. Learn more about the Semantic Web. (Permalink)
2008-04-11: Participants from four W3C Groups — CSS, Internationalization Core, SVG and XSL Working Groups — as part of the Japanese Layout Task Force published Requirements of Japanese Text Layout. This document describes requirements for general Japanese layout realized with technologies like CSS, SVG and XSL-FO. The document is mainly based on a standard for Japanese layout, JIS X 4051. However, it also addresses areas which are not covered by JIS X 4051. Japanese version is also available. Learn more about basics of Japanese text layout and W3C's Internationalization Activity. (Permalink)
2008-04-10: The XHTML2 Working Group has published the second Last Call Working Draft of XHTML Role Attribute Module. The XHTML Role Attribute defined in this specification allows the author to annotate XML Languages with machine-extractable semantic information about the purpose of an element. Use cases include accessibility, device adaptation, server-side processing, and complex data description. This attribute can be integrated into any markup language based upon XHTML Modularization. Comments are welcome through 10 May. Learn more about the HTML Activity. (Permalink)
2008-04-10: The Web API Working Group has published the Working Draft of Language Bindings for DOM Specifications. This specification defines an Interface Definition Language (IDL) to be used by other specifications that define a Document Object Model (DOM). The document also addresses how interfaces described with this IDL correspond to constructs within ECMAScript and Java execution environments. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity. (Permalink)
2008-04-09: The Math Working Group has published a Working Draft of Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) Version 3.0. This is the third draft of MathML, an XML application for describing mathematical notation and capturing both its structure and content. The goal of MathML is to enable mathematics to be served, received, and processed on the World Wide Web, just as HTML has enabled this functionality for text. Learn more about the Math Activity. (Permalink)
2008-04-09: W3C is pleased to announce the creation of the Rich Web Application Backplane Incubator Group, sponsored by W3C Members CWI, HP, IBM, and Xerox. The mission of the XG is to explore and refine the architecture of a "Rich Web Application Backplane" -- a set of common building blocks for Web applications. The XG charter states: "[B]enefits to end-user interaction of adopting such common infrastructure will include richer user interaction enabled through simplified approaches to mixing multiple interaction technologies in a single application. The ability to easily share data across multiple components, and to freely intermix AJAX and declarative components, should support a wider range of high function composable UIs." Like all XG's, this group's work is not standards-track. Read more about the Incubator Activity, an initiative to foster development of emerging Web-related technologies. (Permalink)
2008-04-08: The Mobile Web Initiative Device Description Working Group has published the First Public and Last Call Working Draft of Device Description Repository Simple API. Web content delivered to mobile devices usually benefits from being tailored to take into account a range of factors such as screen size, markup language support and image format support. Such information is stored in "Device Description Repositories" (DDRs). This document describes a simple API for access to DDRs, in order to ease and promote the development of Web content that adapts to its Delivery Context. Comments are welcome through 01 May. Learn more about the Mobile Web Initiative. (Permalink)
2008-04-08: The mission of the W3C Health Care and Life Sciences (HCLS) Interest Group is to show how to use Semantic Web technology to answer cross-disciplinary questions in life science that have, until now, been prohibitively difficult to research. Today the HCLS Interest Group published two Working Drafts. The first describes the construction and use of the knowledge base that was used as part of a demonstration of life sciences data integration at the the 2007 World Wide Web Conference in Banff, Canada. The second document explains the process of integrating data with an existing Semantic Web knowledge base. The success of the group continues to draw industry interest. W3C Members are currently reviewing a draft charter that would enable the renewed HCLS Interest Group to develop and support use cases that have clear scientific, business and/or technical value, using Semantic Web technologies in three areas: life science, translational medicine, and health care. We invite all W3C Members to review the draft charter (which is public during the review), and encourage those who are interested in using the Semantic Web to solve knowledge representation and integration on a large scale to join the Interest Group. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity. (Permalink)
2008-04-07: Browse W3C presentations and events also available as an RSS channel. (Permalink)
Multiple presenters will be at W3C Track, The 17th International World Wide Web Conference (WWW2008) in Beijing, China.
2008-04-03: The W3C SWS Testbed Incubator Group published their final report: SWS Challenge Testbed Incubator Methodology Report. This document describes the SWS Testbed XG's Final Report on the best practices for a methodology for evaluating the efficacy of various techniques for mediation, discovery, and composition of Web Services, such techniques including software engineering approaches as well as semantic annotations. These best practices are based upon two years of experience with five workshops and one year of discussion and meetings on this subject by the XG Participants. The publication is part of the Incubator Activity, a forum where W3C Members can innovate and experiment. (Permalink)
2008-04-03: The XML Core Working Group has published the Last Call Working Draft of XML Linking Language (XLink) Version 1.1. This specification defines the XML Linking Language (XLink) Version 1.1, which allows elements to be inserted into XML documents in order to create and describe links between resources. It uses XML syntax to create structures that can describe links similar to the simple unidirectional hyperlinks of today's HTML, as well as more sophisticated links. Comments are welcome through 16 May. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity. (Permalink)
2008-04-03: The Web Security Context Working Group has published a Working Draft of Web Security Context: Experience, Indicators, and Trust. 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. In order to achieve that goal, this specification includes recommendations on the presentation of identity information by Web user agents; on handling errors in security protocols in a way that minimizes the trust decisions left to users, and induces them toward safe behavior where they have to make these decisions; and on data entry interactions that will make it easier for users to enter sensitive data into legitimate sites than to enter them into illegitimate sites. Learn more about the Security Activity. (Permalink)
2008-04-03: The XHTML2 Working Group has published a Working Draft of CURIE Syntax 1.0. The aim of this document is to outline a syntax for expressing URIs in a generic, abbreviated syntax. While it has been produced in conjunction with the XHTML 2 Working Group, it is not specifically targeted at use by XHTML Family Markup Languages. Note that the target audience for this document is Language designers, not the users of those Languages. Learn more about the HTML Activity. (Permalink)
2008-04-01: The Semantic Web Education and Outreach (SWEO) Interest Group has published an Interest Group Note Cool URIs for the Semantic Web. The Resource Description Framework (RDF) allows users to describe both Web documents and concepts from the real world people, organizations, topics, things in a computer-processable way. Publishing such descriptions on the Web creates the Semantic Web. URIs (Uniform Resource Identifiers) are very important to the Semantic Web, providing both the core of the framework itself and the link between RDF and the Web. This document presents guidelines for the effective use of URIs in the context of the Semantic Web. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity. (Permalink)
2008-03-28: The XML Query Working Group has published two First Public Working Drafts: XQuery Scripting Extension 1.0 and XQuery Scripting Extension 1.0 Use Cases. The former defines an extension to XQuery 1.0 and XQuery Update Facility. Expressions can be evaluated in a specific order, with later expressions seeing the effects of the expressions that came before them. This specification introduces the concept of a block with local variable declarations, as well as several new kinds of expressions, including assignment, while, continue, break, and exit expressions. The latter specification includes the usage scenarios that motivate the changes in the former. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity. (Permalink)
2008-03-28: The XML Schema Patterns for Databinding Working Group has published two documents: the Last Call Working Draft of Basic XML Schema Patterns for Databinding Version 1.0 and an ordinary Working Draft of Advanced XML Schema Patterns for Databinding Version 1.0. The first specification provides a set of basic XML Schema 1.0 patterns known to be interoperable between state of the art databinding implementations.The patterns may be used to describe XML 1.0 representations of commonly used data structures. Last Call comments are welcome through 30 April. The second specification provides a set of commonly used XML Schema 1.0 patterns known to cause issues with some state of the art databinding implementations. Learn more about the Web Services Activity. (Permalink)
2008-03-27: The Efficient XML Interchange Working Group has published a Working Draft of Efficient XML Interchange (EXI) Format 1.0. This document is the specification of the Efficient XML Interchange (EXI) format. EXI is a very compact representation for the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Information Set that is intended to simultaneously optimize performance and the utilization of computational resources. The EXI format uses a hybrid approach drawn from the information and formal language theories, plus practical techniques verified by measurements, for entropy encoding XML information. Using a relatively simple algorithm, which is amenable to fast and compact implementation, and a small set of data types, it reliably produces efficient encodings of XML event streams. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity. (Permalink)
2008-03-27: The XML Query Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of XML Query (XQuery) 1.1 Use Cases. This document specifies usage scenarios for XML Query (XQuery) 1.1, to illustrate important applications for the query language. Each use case is focused on a specific application area, and contains a Document Type Definition (DTD) and example input data. Each use case specifies a set of queries that might be applied to the input data, and the expected results for each query. See changes from the previous draft and learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity. (Permalink)
2008-03-27: Privacy assures autonomy of the individual, a necessary precondition for a democratic society. W3C is pleased to announce the launch of the PrimeLife research project. W3C Staff members Thomas Roessler and Rigo Wenning will participate in this three-year, 10 Million Euro multi-partner research effort. The goal of the project is to develop scalable tools to help people protect their privacy and manage their identities in new and emerging services and applications (such as virtual communities and collaborative applications). Read more about the W3C Policy Languages Interest Group. (Permalink)
2008-03-26: The XML Security Specifications Maintenance Working Group has published the Proposed Edited Recommendation of XML Signature Syntax and Processing (Second Edition). This document specifies XML digital signature processing rules and syntax. XML Signatures provide integrity, message authentication, and/or signer authentication services for data of any type, whether located within the XML that includes the signature or elsewhere. Read the list of changes and the implementation report. Comments are welcome through 30 April. Learn more about the Security Activity. (Permalink)
2008-03-26: The XSL Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) Requirements Version 2.0. This document enumerates the collected requirements for a 2.0 version of XSL Formatting Objects (XSL-FO), not for XSLT. XSL-FO is widely deployed in industry and academia where multiple output forms (typically print and online) are needed from single source XML. It is used in many diverse applications and countries on a large number of implementations to create technical documentation, reports and contracts, terms and conditions, invoices and other forms processing, such as driver's licenses and postal forms. The XSL Working Group invites people to help prioritize the feature set of XSL 2.0 by completing a survey until the end of September 2008. Learn more about the W3C XML Activity. (Permalink)
2008-03-26: The Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER) Working Group has published a Working Draft of Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER): Grouping of Resources. The purpose of the Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER) is to provide a means to describe a group of resources through the publication of machine-readable metadata, as motivated by the POWDER Use Cases. The current document sets out how Description Resources (DRs) can be created and published, whether individually or as bulk data, how to link to DRs from other online resources, and, crucially, how DRs may be authenticated and trusted. The aim is to provide a platform through which opinions, claims and assertions about online resources can be expressed by people and exchanged by machines. See the change log and learn more about the Semantic Web Activity. (Permalink)
2008-03-26: W3C is pleased to announce the launch of the Internationalization Tag Set (ITS) Interest Group, chaired by Yves Savourel (ENLASO Corporation). The ITS IG is a forum to foster a community of users of the Internationalization Tag Set (ITS), by promoting its adoption, and gathering information on its further development. The ITS defines data categories that may be used with schemas to support the internationalization and localization of schemas and documents. Participation in the new ITS IG is open to W3C Members and the public. Read about the W3C Internationalization Activity. (Permalink)
2008-03-21: The Semantic Web Education and Outreach (SWEO) Interest Group has published the Last Call Working Draft of Cool URIs for the Semantic Web. The Resource Description Framework (RDF) allows users to describe both Web documents and concepts from the real world — people, organizations, topics, things — in a computer-processable way. Publishing such descriptions on the Web creates the Semantic Web. URIs (Uniform Resource Identifiers) are very important to the Semantic Web, providing both the core of the framework itself and the link between RDF and the Web. This document presents guidelines for the effective use of URIs in the context of the Semantic Web. Comments are welcome through 28 March. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity. (Permalink)
2008-03-20: The XML Core Working Group has published the Proposed Edited Recommendation of XML Base (Second Edition). This document describes a facility, similar to that of HTML BASE, for defining base URIs for parts of XML documents. All changes to the document are recorded in the XML Base Errata document. Comments are welcome through 30 June. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity. (Permalink)
2008-03-18: W3C invites WWW2008 conference attendees to discuss pressing Web issues at the W3C Track in Beijing, China, on 23-24 April. Chaired by Marie-Claire Forgue, W3C track will present nearly 25 topics, some of them are related to the Internet use in China; read the press release. In addition to the W3C Track, Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director and inventor of the Web, will give a keynote titled "The Future of Web Applications" on Thursday, 24 April. A press conference with Tim Berners-Lee is scheduled on Wednesday 23 April at the Beijing International Convention Center; more details will be available on the W3C track page. (Permalink)
2008-03-17: The Voice Browser Working Group has published an updated Working Draft of Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) Version 1.1, part of the W3C framework for enabling access to the Web using spoken interaction. SSML provides a rich, XML-based markup language for assisting the generation of synthetic speech in Web and other applications. It provides a standard way to control aspects of speech such as pronunciation, volume, pitch, rate, etc. across different synthesis-capable platforms. See the list of changes in this draft and learn more about W3C's Voice Browser Activity. (Permalink)
2008-03-17: The Semantic Web Deployment Working Group and the XHTML2 Working Group have jointly published an updated Working Draft of the RDFa Primer 1.0. The primer is an introduction to RDFa, a method for embedding structured data in XHTML. Changes in this draft align it with the the interpretation of the @src attribute as specified in the 21 February 2008 RDFa Syntax Last Call Working Draft. Visit the XHTML2 and Semantic Web home pages. (Permalink)
2008-03-17: The Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER) Working Group published an updated Working Draft of Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER): Description Resources. The purpose of the Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER) is to provide a means to describe a group of resources through the publication of machine-readable metadata, as motivated by the POWDER Use Cases. The current document sets out how Description Resources (DRs) can be created and published, whether individually or as bulk data, how to link to DRs from other online resources, and, crucially, how DRs may be authenticated and trusted. The aim is to provide a platform through which opinions, claims and assertions about online resources can be expressed by people and exchanged by machines. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity. (Permalink)
2008-03-17:
SVG Open 2008, the 6th International Conference on Scalable Vector Graphics, will be held at the Maritim Hotel conference center in Nuremberg, Germany on 26-28 August 2008, with additional workshops on 29 August. Co-sponsored by W3C, the SVG Open conference series is the premier forum for SVG designers, developers, and implementors to share ideas, experiences, products, and strategies. The W3C SVG Working Group and W3C staff members Chris Lilley and Doug Schepers will participate. Proposals for presentation abstracts and course outlines are welcome through 31 March. Early-bird registration is now open, with a 25% discount for W3C Members. Learn more about the W3C Graphics Activity (Permalink)
2008-03-16: W3C has named Mauro Nunez W3C Business Manager. This is a broadening of his initial position as North American Business Manager, and incorporates the already broader role that Mauro has assumed at the Consortium since he was hired in October 2006. Mauro's primary objective will be to foster a business and operating environment that is cost-effective, productive and positive, across all W3C operating locations. Please join us in congratulating Mauro on his new role at W3C. (Permalink)
2008-03-14: The XML Query Working Group has published the Candidate Recommendation of XQuery Update Facility 1.0. This document defines an update facility that extends the XML Query language, XQuery. The XQuery Update Facility provides expressions that can be used to make persistent changes (including node insertion, deletion, modification, and creation) to instances of the XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Data Model. The Working Group also published today two additional documents that will become Working Group notes: XQuery Update Facility 1.0 Requirements and XQuery Update Facility 1.0 Use Cases. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity. (Permalink)
2008-03-13: The User Agent Accessibility Guidelines Working Group has published a first public Working Draft of the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG) 2.0. UAAG 2.0 addresses accessibility of browsers and media players and their interoperability with assistive technologies. It will cover more advanced Web technologies than UAAG 1.0. Read the invitation to review the UAAG 2.0 Working Draft and about the Web Accessibility Initiative. (Permalink)
2008-03-11: W3C invites people to participate in a Workshop on the Role of Mobile Technologies in Fostering Social Development in São Paulo, Brazil, on 2-3 June 2008. W3C intends for this public Workshop to be a multidisciplinary forum where mobile and Web technology experts, NGO specialists, and egovernment representatives gather to learn more about the specific needs, expectations, and challenges of deploying services for underprivileged populations. Position papers are due 20 April. Read the press release and learn more about the W3C Mobile Web Initiative (MWI)
and the Digital World Forum project.
(Photo credit:
kiwanja.net. Permalink)
2008-03-10: The Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines Working Group published updated Working Drafts of Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 and Implementation Techniques for ATAG 2.0. ATAG helps developers design tools that are accessible so that people with disabilities can use the tools, and so that the tools help produce accessible Web content. Read the invitation to review the updated ATAG 2.0 Working Drafts and learn more about the Web Accessibility Initiative. (Permalink)
2008-03-07: The Web Security Context Working Group has published the Group Note Web Security Experience, Indicators and Trust: Scope and Use Cases. The Working Group is chartered to recommend user interfaces that help users make trust decisions on the Web. This Note explains the group's technical aims (complementing the group charter), what technologies may be used to achieve the group's mission, and how proposals will be evaluated. This Note also includes an initial collection of use cases that the group expects will drive its technical work. Learn more about the Security Activity. (Permalink)
2008-03-06: W3C invites the public to join a seminar on "Video on the Web" on 14 March 2008 from 13:00-15:30 at Keio University, Tokyo, Japan; the meeting page is available in Japanese. Philippe Le Hégaret, co-chair of the W3C Video on the Web Workshop (December 2007 in Brussels) will present a report on that Workshop. The seminar also includes a panel session with Web Video industry specialists in Japan to discuss current practices and future direction on "Video on the Web" in Japan. All sessions will be held in Japanese (except Philippe's talk), and one-by-one interpretation between English and Japanese will be provided for Philippe's talk and the panel session. There are a limited number of seats available. Please use the registration page, also in Japanese. (Permalink)
2008-03-05: W3C is pleased to announce the creation of the RDB2RDF Incubator Group, sponsored by W3C Members Oracle, HP, PartnersHealthcare, and OpenLink Software. The mission of this Incubator Group is twofold: (1) to examine and classify existing approaches to mapping relational data into RDF and assess whether standardization is possible and/or necessary in this area, and (2) to examine and classify existing approaches to mapping OWL classes to Relational data, or, more accurately, SQL queries, moving towards the goal of defining a standard in this area. See the charter for more information. Read more about the Incubator Activity, an initiative to foster development of emerging Web-related technologies. (Permalink)
2008-03-03: The Web API Working Group has published the Last Call Working Draft of Element Traversal Specification. This specification defines the ElementTraversal interface, which allows script navigation of the elements of a DOM tree, excluding all other nodes in the DOM, such as text nodes. It is intended to provide a more convenient alternative to existing DOM navigation interfaces, with a low implementation footprint. Comments are welcome through 3 April. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity. (Permalink)
2008-03-03: The Service Modeling Language Working Group has published Last Call Working Drafts of Service Modeling Language, Version 1.1 and Service Modeling Language Interchange Format, Version 1.1. The former defines a language for modeling complex services and systems, including their structure, constraints, policies, and best practices. The latter defines an interchange format for SML. The format identifies the model being interchanged, distinguishes between model definition documents and model instance documents, and defines the binding of rule documents with other documents in the interchange set. Comments are welcome through 26 March. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity. (Permalink)
2008-03-03: Browse W3C presentations and events also available as an RSS channel. (Permalink)
2008-02-25: Today representatives from W3C Offices, regional branches that promote W3C and interact with participants in local languages, celebrate ten years of the Offices program. Offices currently represent 17 regions around the globe, helping to organize meetings, recruit Members, translate materials, and find creative ways to encourage international participation in W3C work. Offices staff gather for a face-to-face meeting in Sophia-Antipolis France to review ten years of experience and to forge improvements to the program. At this occasion, W3C thanks the Offices staff past and present for all of their work! (Permalink)
2008-02-25: The Web API Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of XMLHttpRequest Level 2. XMLHttpRequest Level 2 enhances XMLHttpRequest with new features, such as cross-site requests, progress events, and the handling of byte streams for both sending and receiving. Learn more about the W3C Rich Web Client Activity. (Permalink)
2008-02-25: The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of CSSOM View Module. The APIs introduced by this specification provide authors with a way to inspect and manipulate the view information of a document. This includes getting the position of element layout boxes, obtaining the width of the viewport through script, and also scrolling an element. Learn more about the Style Activity. (Permalink)
2008-02-25: Position papers are due 20 April for the W3C Workshop on the Role of Mobile Technologies in Fostering Social Development on 2-3 June 2008 in São Paulo, Brazil. W3C thanks Workshop hosts NIC.br (Network Information Center), CGI.br Internet Steering Committee, and Institute CONIP. The goal of the Workshop is to understand specific challenges of using mobile phones and Web technologies to deliver services to underprivileged populations of Developing Countries. The Workshop scope includes: analysis of using mobile phones in development projects; strengths and weaknesses of SMS technology v. mobile Web v. voice technology; the challenges of integrating information and Communication Technologies in rural communities, and more. Read about W3C Workshops. (Permalink)
2008-02-21: The Semantic Web Deployment Working Group and the XHTML 2 Working Group have published the Last Call Working Draft of RDFa in XHTML: Syntax and Processing. RDFa is a specification for attributes to be used with languages such as HTML and XHTML to express structured data. When publishers can express structured data, and when tools can read it, a new world of user functionality becomes available, letting users transfer structured data between applications and web sites, and allowing browsing applications to improve the user experience. For example, a photo's creator, camera setting information, resolution, location and topic can be published as easily as the original photo itself, enabling structured search and sharing. With RDFa, the rendered, hypertext data of XHTML is reused, so that publishers don't need to repeat significant data in the document content. The RDFa specification explains use of the RDFa attributes with XHTML. Comments are welcome through 21 March. Learn more about XHTML and the Semantic Web Activity. (Permalink)
2008-02-21: The Semantic Web Deployment Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of SKOS Simple Knowledge Organization System Primer. SKOS provides a model for expressing the basic structure and content of concept schemes such as thesauri, classification schemes, subject heading lists, taxonomies, folksonomies, and other types of controlled vocabulary. SKOS has been designed to provide a low-cost migration path for porting existing organization systems to the Semantic Web. The primer is intended to help implementors who have a basic understanding of the Semantic Web to use the capabilities defined in SKOS Reference to represent and publish their concept schemes as SKOS data. The Primer aims to provide introductory examples and guidance in the use of SKOS vocabulary features. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity. (Permalink)
2008-02-19: The report of the W3C Video on the Web Workshop is now available. Thirty-seven organizations discussed video and audio codecs, spatial and temporal addressing, metadata, digital rights management, accessibility, and other topics related to ensuring the success of video as a "first class citizen" of the Web. W3C thanks Cisco for hosting the Workshop, which took place 12-13 December 2007 simultaneously in San Jose, California and Brussels, Belgium. Read the forty-two position papers and Workshop minutes. W3C welcomes feedback on the Report and the topic of video on the Web at public-video-comments@w3.org (archive). (Photo credit: Bob Freund. Permalink)
2008-02-15: The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group has published the Last Call Working Draft of CSS Namespaces Module. The CSS Namespaces module defines the syntax for using namespaces in CSS. It defines the @namespace rule for declaring the default namespace and binding namespaces to namespace prefixes, and it also defines a syntax that other specifications can adopt for using those prefixes in namespace-qualified names. Comments are welcome through 7 March. Learn more about the Style Activity. (Permalink)
2008-02-14: The Web Application Formats Working Group has published the Working Draft of Access Control for Cross-site Requests. Web application technologies commonly apply same-origin restrictions to network requests. These restrictions prevent a Web application running from one origin from obtaining data retrieved from another origin, and also limit the amount of unsafe HTTP requests that can be automatically launched toward destinations that differ from the running application's origin. This document defines a mechanism to enable client-side cross-site requests. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity. (Permalink)
2008-02-13: The Internationalization Tag Set (ITS) Working Group has published a Group Note of Best Practices for XML Internationalization. This document provides a set of guidelines for developing XML documents and schemas that are internationalized properly. Following the best practices describes here allow both the developer of XML applications, as well as the author of XML content to create material in different languages. Learn more about the Internationalization Activity. (Permalink)
2008-02-12: Ten years ago, on 10 February 1998, W3C published Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 as a W3C Recommendation. W3C is marking the ten-year anniversary of XML by celebrating "XML10" and extending thanks to the dedicated communities -- including people who have participated in W3C's XML groups and mailing lists, the SGML community, and xml-dev -- whose efforts have created a successful family of technologies based on the solid XML 1.0 foundation. The success of XML is a strong indicator of how dedicated individuals, working within the W3C Process, can engage with a larger community to produce industry-changing results. "Today we celebrate the success of open standards in preserving Web data from proprietary ownership," said Jon Bosak, who led the W3C Working Group that produced XML 1.0. Read the press release and testimonials. Send W3C a greeting and learn more about XML at W3C. (Permalink)
2008-02-08: W3C invites Web content authors to run the beta release of the W3C mobileOK checker and make their content work on a broad range of mobile devices. This new version provides more accurate results and a more reliable experience. Visitors of the Mobile World Congress (in Barcelona, starting Monday, 11 February) are welcome to stop by the W3C Mobile Web Initiative booth (in Hall 7) to learn more about this tool for making Web sites mobile-friendly. (Permalink)
2008-02-06: The XML Core Working Group has published the Proposed Edited Recommendation of Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 (Fifth Edition). This revision of XML 1.0 incorporates all known errata for XML 1.0 Fourth Edition; see the diff-marked specification for changes. This version of the XML 1.0 specification contains one major change, to the definition of names, bringing one major benefit of XML 1.1 into XML 1.0; please read the background for this change as part of any review. Comments are welcome through 16 May. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity. (Permalink)
2008-02-04: The Protocols and Formats Working Group published First Public Working Drafts of:
WAI-ARIA defines a way to make Web content and Web applications more accessible to people with disabilities. It especially helps with dynamic content and advanced user interface controls developed with Ajax, HTML, JavaScript, and related technologies. An updated WAI-ARIA Roadmap was also published.
Additionally, the Education and Outreach Working Group published a new WAI-ARIA FAQ and updated WAI-ARIA Overview. Read the Call for Review: New WAI-ARIA Documents announcement and about the Web Accessibility Initiative. (Permalink)
2008-02-01: Browse W3C presentations and events also available as an RSS channel. (Permalink)
2008-01-29: The Semantic Web Deployment Working Group has published the Working Draft of Best Practice Recipes for Publishing RDF Vocabularies. This document describes best practice recipes for publishing vocabularies or ontologies on the Web (in RDF Schema or OWL). Each recipe introduces general principles and an example configuration for use with an Apache HTTP server (which may be adapted to other environments). The recipes are all designed to be consistent with the architecture of the Web as currently specified. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity. (Permalink)
2008-01-29: The XML Core Working Group has published the Proposed Recommendation of Canonical XML 1.1. The specification establishes a method for determining whether two documents are identical, or whether an application has not changed a document, except for transformations permitted by XML 1.0 and Namespaces in XML. Canonical XML 1.1 is a revision to Canonical XML 1.0 designed 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. Comments are welcome through 07 March. Learn more about W3C's XML Activity. (Permalink)
2008-01-25: The Semantic Web Deployment Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of SKOS Simple Knowledge Organization System Reference. This document defines the Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS), a common data model for sharing and linking knowledge organization systems via the Semantic Web. SKOS provides a standard, low-cost means to describe the semantic relationships between existing knowledge systems and to port those systems to the Semantic Web. SKOS also provides a lightweight, intuitive language for developing and sharing new knowledge organization systems. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity. (Permalink)
2008-01-22: The Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group and the WAI Education and Outreach Working Group have published the First Public Working Draft of Relationship Between Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0 and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. See the announcement email.
The groups encourage people to start by reading Web Content Accessibility and Mobile Web: Making a Web Site Accessible Both for People with Disabilities and for Mobile Devices, which shows how design goals for accessibility and mobile access overlap. A third document, Experiences Shared by People with Disabilities and by People Using Mobile Devices, provides examples of barriers that people (without disabilities) face when interacting with Web content via mobile devices, and similar barriers for people with disabilities using desktop computers. Learn more about the Mobile Web Initiative and the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). (Permalink)
2008-01-22: W3C's Document Object Model (DOM) Activity is now closed. The Document Object Model Working Group closed in the early 2004 after the completion of the DOM Level 3 Recommendations. Since then, several W3C Working Groups have taken the lead in maintaining and continuing to develop standard APIs for the Web; these include the HTML, SVG, CSS, and WebAPI Working Groups. W3C will continue to develop APIs in various Working Groups. Learn more about achievements of those participating as part of the DOM Activity on the DOM Activity Statement. (Permalink)
2008-01-22: The W3C Advisory Committee has elected Ashok Malhotra (Oracle), T.V. Raman (Google), and Henry Thompson (University of Edinburgh) to the W3C Technical Architecture Group (TAG). Continuing TAG participants are Noah Mendelsohn (IBM), David Orchard (BEA), Jonathan Rees (Science Commons), Norm Walsh (Sun), and Stuart Williams (HP), who co-Chairs the TAG with Tim Berners-Lee. The mission of the TAG is to build consensus around principles of Web architecture and to interpret and clarify these principles when necessary, to resolve issues involving general Web architecture brought to the TAG, and to help coordinate cross-technology architecture developments inside and outside W3C. (Permalink)
2008-01-22: W3C today published an early draft of HTML 5, a major revision of the markup language for the Web. The HTML Working Group is creating HTML 5 to be the open, royalty-free specification for rich Web content and Web applications. "HTML is of course a very important standard," said Tim Berners-Lee, author of the first version of HTML and W3C Director. "I am glad to see that the community of developers, including browser vendors, is working together to create the best possible path for the Web." New features include APIs for drawing two-dimensional graphics and ways to embed and control audio and video content. HTML 5 helps to improve interoperability and reduce software costs by giving precise rules not only about how to handle all correct HTML documents but also how to recover from errors. Discover other new features, read the press release, and learn more about the future of HTML. (Permalink)
2008-01-15: The SYMM Working Group has published the Candidate Recommendation of Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL 3.0), an XML-based language that allows authors to create interactive multimedia presentations. Using SMIL 3.0, an author can describe the temporal behavior of a multimedia presentation, associate hyperlinks with media objects and describe the layout of the presentation on a screen. The Working Group is building a test suite help ensure interoperable implementation. Learn more about W3C work on Synchronized Multimedia (Permalink)
2008-01-15: Today, the World Wide Web Consortium made it easier to share and reuse data across application, enterprise, and community boundaries with the publication of three new Semantic Web standards for SPARQL (pronounced "sparkle"). SPARQL is the query language for the Semantic Web (see Semantic Web use cases). SPARQL queries hide the details of data management, which lowers costs and increases robustness of data integration on the Web. "Trying to use the Semantic Web without SPARQL is like trying to use a relational database without SQL," explained Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director. There are already 14 implementations of the standard, which is comprised of three W3C Recommendations: SPARQL Query Language for RDF, SPARQL Protocol for RDF, and SPARQL Query Results XML Format. Read the press release, testimonials and learn more about the Semantic Web Activity. (Permalink)
2008-01-14: The Service Modeling Language (SML) Working Group has published the third Working Drafts of Service Modeling Language, Version 1.1 and Service Modeling Language Interchange Format Version 1.1. The former defines the SML 1.1, intended to model complex services and systems, including their structure, constraints, policies, and best practices. The latter defines the SML 1.1 interchange format, designed to ensure accurate and convenient interchange of the documents that make up an SML model. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity. (Permalink)
2008-01-10: The SYMM Working Group has published the Last Call Working Draft of SMIL Timesheets 1.0; this is also the First Public Working Draft. This document defines an XML timing language that makes SMIL 3.0 element and attribute timing control available to a wide range of other XML languages. This language allows SMIL timing to be integrated into a wide variety of a-temporal languages, even when several such languages are combined in a compound document. Because of its similarity with external style and positioning descriptions in the Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) language, this functionality has been termed SMIL Timesheets. Comments are welcome through 15 February. Learn more about W3C work on Synchronized Multimedia. (Permalink)
2008-01-08: The OWL Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of three Web Ontology Language (OWL) 1.1 specifications: Structural Specification and Functional-Style Syntax, Model-Theoretic Semantics, and Mapping to RDF Graphs. OWL is used to define Semantic Web vocabularies. Together, these new specifications extend the W3C OWL Web Ontology Language 1.0 with a small but useful set of features that have been requested by users, for which effective reasoning algorithms are now available, and that OWL tool developers are willing to support. The three specifications cover, respectively, the syntax, semantics, and mapping to RDF of OWL 1.1 ontologies. Learn more about the W3C Semantic Web Activity. (Permalink)
2008-01-07: The XHTML2 Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of XHTML Access Module. This document is intended to help make XHTML-family markup languages more effective at supporting the needs of the accessibility community. It does so by providing a generic mechanism for defining the relationship between document components and well-known accessibility taxonomies. Learn more about the HTML Activity. (Permalink)
2008-01-03: Browse W3C presentations and events also available as an RSS channel. (Permalink)
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