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

April 2008

4 April

Shawn Henry gives an invited talk entitled "Integrating Accessibility in the Development Process" and "Accessible Ajax" at the "Web Accessibility: Bridging the Digital Divide" on Friday, 4 April 2008, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

4 April

François Daoust gives a talk entitled "mobileOK Basic for Developers" at the "Over The Air" on Friday, 4 April 2008, in London, United Kingdom. (see abstract)

Abstract:

Using a badly-designed web page that still is displayed correctly on most desktop browsers:

• Show that it doesn't work on most mobile browsers
• Introduce the mobileOK checker as a way to know what needs to be improved and why
• Fix the web page
• Show that the resulting page now works in both worlds

The message:

• Mobile Best Practices are not constraints
• No need to know Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0 doc by heart to start using it, the mobileOK checker is here to help
• Think Mobile even if that's not your initial target

7 April

Seungyun Lee gives a talk entitled "Prospects of Mobile Web 2.0 in Korea" at the "Mobile Monday Seoul" on Monday, 7 April 2008, in Seoul, Korea, Korea.

17 April

Olle Olsson runs a booth entitled "Vad nytt under webben? (What's new in the web?)" and gives a talk entitled "HTML 5 - kommande HTML-standard (HTML 5 - future HTML standard)" at the "SICS Open House 2008" , on Thursday, 17 April 2008, in Stockholm, Sweden.

18 April

Olle Olsson gives a talk entitled "Framtidsspaning (Looking into the Future)" at the "ITARC2008" on Friday, 18 April 2008, in Stockholm, Sweden.

18 April

Daniel Dardailler gives a lecture entitled "Internet and Web Nice Sophia University public lecture" at the "Master of Information System/Ergonomy. WAI link as well" on Friday, 18 April 2008, in Nice, France. (see abstract)

Abstract:

In french! http://www.nice-premium.com/article/l-universite-nice-sophia-antipolis-fait-du-web-une-conference.3100.html

21 April

Judy Brewer participates at a panel entitled "Web Accessibility Guidelines, in panel on accessible content and services: addressing information deprivation (via teleconference)" at "The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: Challenges and Opportunities for ICT Standards" on Monday, 21 April 2008, in Geneva, Switzerland.

21, 23, 24, 25 April

• Ben Adida, Elias Torres, and Ivan Herman give a tutorial entitled "RDFa: Extensible Structured Data in HTML" ; Ivan Herman gives a tutorial entitled "Introduction to the Semantic Web (through an example…)" ; Richard Ishida and Felix Sasaki give a tutorial entitled "Producing XML that works internationally" on Monday, 21 April 2008;
• Marie-Claire Forgue runs a booth entitled "W3C booth" on Wednesday, 23 April 2008;
• Tim Berners-Lee gives a keynote entitled "The Future of Web Applications" (see abstract) on Thursday, 24 April 2008;
• Thomas Roessler gives a talk entitled "Widgets: Web Vulnerabilities For All" on Friday, 25 April 2008;

at "The 17th International World Wide Web Conference (WWW2008)" , Beijing, China.

Abstract for “The Future of Web Applications”:

Web applications currently provide greater flexibility and more effective human interface than static Web pages. As client-side storage is added, Web applications and desktop applications become closer, although significant differences remain. The open standards (HTML, SVG, CSS, etc.) vie with proprietary systems (Air, Silverlight, etc.) for the presentation side. RDF, XML, JSON , SPARQL and SQL compete as data access techniques. There is a blossoming of code and widget libraries. On social networking sites, application portability and data portability are concerns of the day, for developers and users. We must ask ourselves in the long term, how we would like the Web application platform to evolve, and what facilities would be useful in the future.

22 April

Seungyun Lee gives a keynote entitled "Mobile Web goes 2.0" at the "MobEA IV workshop - collocated with WWW2008 conference" on Tuesday, 22 April 2008, in Beijing, China.

22 April

Shadi Abou-Zahra gives a keynote entitled "Looking To The Future: Web Accessibility, Ageing, and Emerging Web Trends" at the "W4A 2008" on Tuesday, 22 April 2008, in Beijing, China. (see abstract)

Abstract:

The Web is becoming increasing ubiquitous and transparent. It is part of our every day life at home and at work. It is also becoming part of our every day life when we are on the move. Web-enabled mobile technologies and portable devices are being deployed at a fascinating rate, so that soon mobile browsers will outnumber traditional desktop browsers. This trend is creating new markets and opportunities for creative ideas and applications. Amongst these markets are e-government initiatives that aim to deliver maximum services for the citizens and authorities at the same time. These systems need to be inclusive and accommodate the accessibility needs of people with disabilities and elderly Web users. At the same time, the understanding for Web accessibility is shifting. In May 2008 the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities will enter into force, making access to information technology a basic human right. This will have significant impact in a world of dynamic Web applications, user-generated content, and social networking systems. This presentation will look at some emerging Web trends and discuss the impact on people with disabilities and on a rapidly ageing workforce. It will also highlight some of the potential solutions and challenges for Web authoring tools, user agents, and content creators.

23 April

Najib Tounsi gives an invited talk entitled "L’Importance des Standards Ouverts pour l'Interopérabilité (On the importance of open standards for Interoperability)" at the "Atelier International «Développement de l’administration électronique : Rôle et importance de l’interopérabilité des SI de l’Administration» (International Workshop, "Development of e-government: The role and importance of interoperability")" on Wednesday, 23 April 2008, in Rabat, Morocco. (see abstract)

Abstract:

Le Web et les technologies de l'information sont utilisés par les différents organes du gov/adm pour interagir entre eux et avec le citoyen. Il est donc essentiel pour ces technologies de travailler ensemble et façon interchangeable. Mon intervention portera sur pourquoi la conformité aux standards ouverts est le fondement pour cette interopérabilité. Cet exposé portera sur ces standards, leur développement au sein du W3C et des efforts W3C pour le eGov.

23, 24 April

• Chris Bizer, Tom Heath, and Tim Berners-Lee give a talk entitled "Linking Open Data" ; Daniel Dardailler gives a talk entitled "A World of Stakeholders: Lessons from Global Outreach" ; Dave Raggett gives a talk entitled "Geolocation in the Mobile Web " ; Dominique Hazaël-Massieux gives a talk entitled "News from W3C's Mobile Web Initiative" ; Henny Swan gives a talk entitled "Making a Web Site Accessible Both for Mobile Devices and for People with Disabilities" ; Huajun Chen gives a talk entitled "Semantic Web Development in China" ; Judy Brewer gives a talk entitled "Adopting International Standards Locally: The Importance of Harmonization " ; Paul Nelson gives a talk entitled "Localization and Internationalization of Layout on the Web" ; Raphaël Troncy gives a talk entitled "Managing Online Video (or Multimedia) Content with the Semantic Web" ; Richard Ishida gives a talk entitled "What you Need to Know to Reach a Chinese Audience?" ; Stéphane Boyera gives a talk entitled "Mobile Web in Rural China" ; Tina Dam gives a talk entitled "International Domain Names" ; Zhi Wei Shuang gives a talk entitled "Internationalizing Speech Synthesis" on Wednesday, 23 April 2008;
• Art Barstow gives a talk entitled "Standards and mobile applications, services and widgets" ; Doug Schepers gives a talk entitled "Wicked Wide Web: Integrating Documents and Devices" ; José Manuel Alonso gives a talk entitled "Improving Access to Government through Better Use of the Web" ; Kai-Dietrich Scheppe gives a talk entitled "POWDER Use Cases" ; Lisa Pappas gives a talk entitled "Accessibility for rich Web applications" ; Mary-Ellen Zurko gives a talk entitled "Building a More Secure Browser" ; Michael Smith gives a talk entitled "HTML 5, the future of Web Content" ; Philippe Le Hégaret gives a talk entitled "Video on the Web" ; Shawn Henry gives a talk entitled "Designing the Web for All of Society" ; Thomas Roessler gives a talk entitled "Web applications security issues" ; Weihan Liu gives a talk entitled "Web Usage in China" on Thursday, 24 April 2008;

at the "W3C Track, The 17th International World Wide Web Conference (WWW2008)" , Beijing, China.

26 April

Bert Bos gives an invited talk on behalf of the Hungary Office entitled "Advanced layout in CSS" at the "Magyarországi Web Konferencia 2008 (Hungarian Web Conference 2008)" on Saturday, 26 April 2008, in Budapest, Hungary.

28 April

Oreste Signore gives a tutorial entitled " Origini, motivazioni e regole di evoluzione del World Wide Web (Origins, motivations and evolution rules for the World Wide Web)" at the "Storia dell' Informatica (History of informatics)" on Monday, 28 April 2008, in Pisa, Italy. (see abstract)

Abstract:

A brief history of the Web, with an insight towards the Semantic Web

May 2008

5 May

Ivan Herman participates at a panel entitled "XBRL and the Semantic Web" and gives a talk entitled "What is the Semantic Web?" at the "17th International XBRL Conference" , on Monday, 5 May 2008, in Eindhoven, The Netherlands.

6, 8 May

Steven Pemberton gives a tutorial entitled "XForms 1.1" (see abstract) on Tuesday, 6 May 2008; Bert Bos gives a talk entitled "CSS Template Layout is not only for big grids" (see abstract) on Thursday, 8 May 2008; Steven Pemberton gives a talk entitled "Why you should have a Website" (see abstract) on Thursday, 8 May 2008 at the "XTech 2008" , Dublin, Ireland.

Abstract for “XForms 1.1”:

XForms 1.1 XForms is a new technology being widely adopted by industry: even though it was designed for forms, as the name suggests, it is capable of, and is being used for, much more. It has been adopted by Open Office for use in its ODF Document Format, and Yahoo! has recently announced its use on their new mobile platform Blueprint. Industry experience is showing that using XForms can greatly reduce the amount of work needed: one company reported that a task that in the past needed 150 person-years needed only 10 person-years with XForms. The advantages of XForms include: * It improves the user experience: XForms has been designed to allow much to be checked by the browser, such as types of fields being filled in, or that one date is later than another. This reduces the need for round trips to the server or for extensive script-based solutions, and improves the user experience by giving immediate feedback to what is being filled in. * It is XML, and it can submit XML. * It combines existing XML technologies: Rather than reinventing the wheel, XForms uses a number of existing XML technologies, such as XPath for addressing and calculating values, and XML Schemas for defining data types. This has a dual benefit: ease of learning for people who already know these technologies, and implementors can use off-the-shelf components to build their systems. * It is internationalized. * It is accessible: XForms has been designed so that it will work equally well with accessible technologies (for instance for blind users) and with traditional visual browsers. * It is device independent: the same form can be delivered without change to a traditional browser, a PDA, a mobile phone, a voice browser, and even some more exotic emerging clients such as an Instant Messenger. This greatly eases providing forms to a wide audience, since forms only need to be authored once. * It is easier to author complicated forms. The presenter is one of the authors of the XForms specifications, and is Forms Activity lead at the W3C. This tutorial introduces XForms step-by-step. It covers essentially all of XForms except some technical details about events, and no more than a passing reference to the use of Schemas. It particularly deals with what is new in XForms 1.1, which is currently at candidate recommendation phase, and is being implemented for several browsers. Emphasis is on how to improve the user experience, and how XForms improves accessibility and device independence, and makes the author's life easy in producing a better experience.

Abstract for “ CSS Template Layout is not only for big…”:

The CSS Advanced Layout module that is currently under development in W3C grew out of a need to easily create “portal” pages in HTML with different layouts on screens of different sizes, in particular on mobile phones. But it can not only create grids for positioning text boxes and images, but also create very small grids, such as for placing the elements of a mathematical formula.

This presentation shows how the same idea, the traditional layout grid, can be used at different scales, from a whole document or a printed page, via forms and GUIs, down to an inline formula.

The CSS rule to define a grid is typically only one line. And the grids are quite independent of the mark-up, which is what makes it possible, e.g., to render subscripts in MathML in front of a symbol, although they come after the symbol in the mark-up.

The Advanced Layout module thus promises not only to make the “visual semantics” of a document easier to express, but also to make the mark-up, which embodies the rest of the meaning, less dependent on the desired rendering.

The presentation includes a demo with a (partial) prototype implementation.

Abstract for “Why you should have a Website”:

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis postulates a link between thought and language: if you haven’t got a word for a concept, you can’t think about it; if you don’t think about it, you won’t invent a word for it. The term “Web 2.0” is a case in point. It was invented by a book publisher as a term to build a series of conferences around, and conceptualises the idea of Web sites that gain value by their users adding data to them. But the concept existed before the term: Ebay was already Web 2.0 in the era of Web 1.0. But now we have the term we can talk about it, and it becomes a structure in our minds, and in this case a movement has built up around it. There are inherent dangers for users of Web 2.0. For a start, by putting a lot of work into a Web site, you commit yourself to it, and lock yourself into their data formats. This is similar to data lock-in when you use a proprietary program. You commit yourself and lock yourself in. Moving comes at great cost. This was one of the justifications for creating the eXtended Markup Language (XML): it reduces the possibility of data lock-in – having a standard representation for data helps using the same data in different ways too. As an example, if you commit to a particular photo-sharing Web site, you upload thousands of photos, tagging extensively, and then a better site comes along. What do you do? How about if the site you have chosen closes down (as has happened with some Web 2.0 music sites): all your work is lost. How do you decide which social networking site to join? Do you join several and repeat the work? How about geneology sites, and school-friend sites? These are all examples of Metcalf’s law, which postulates that the value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of nodes in the network. Simple maths shows that if you split a network into two, its value is halved. This is why it is good that there is a single email network, and bad that there are many instant messenger networks. It is why it is good that there is only one World Wide Web. Web 2.0 partitions the Web into a number of topical sub-Webs, and locks you in, thereby reducing the value of the network as a whole. So does this mean that user contributed content is a Bad Thing? Not at all, it is the method of delivery and storage that is wrong. The future lies in better aggregators.

6 May

Shadi Abou-Zahra participates at a panel entitled "Verordnete (Barriere-)Freiheit (Prescribed (Barrier-)Freedom)" at the "Einfach-für-Alle Tagung (Easy-for-All Conference)" on Tuesday, 6 May 2008, in Gelsenkirchen, Germany.

8 May

Jesús García gives a talk entitled "Claves de accesibilidad para las empresas" at the "Expansión Conferencias: Novedades Legislativas para el Impulso de la sociedad de la Información y la Protección de Datos" on Thursday, 8 May 2008, in Madrid, Spain.

10 May

Liam Quin gives a talk entitled " Proposal, shared type/text specification for the desktop" at the "Libre Graphics Meeting 2008" on Saturday, 10 May 2008, in Wrocław, Poland.

14 May

Olle Olsson gives a talk entitled "Internationalisering och lokalisering -- språk på webben (Internationalization and Localization - languages on the web)" at the "Språk och Internet (Languages and the Internet)" on Wednesday, 14 May 2008, in Stockholm, Sweden.

15 May

José Manuel Alonso gives an invited talk on behalf of the Australia Office entitled "How to make the most out of eGovernment" at the "Web Standards Group Meeting" on Thursday, 15 May 2008, in Melbourne, Australia.

16 May

José Manuel Alonso gives an invited talk on behalf of the Australia Office entitled "How to make the most out of eGovernment" at the "Web Standards Group Meeting" on Friday, 16 May 2008, in Sydney, Australia.

18, 22 May

Ivan Herman gives a talk entitled "State of the Semantic Web" (see abstract) on Sunday, 18 May 2008 and participates at a panel entitled "Bringing SemTech Back to the Business" (see abstract) on Thursday, 22 May 2008 at the "2008 Semantic Technology Conference" , San Jose, CA, USA.

Abstract for “State of the Semantic Web”:

The history of the Semantic Web goes back several years now. It is worth looking at what has been achieved, where we are, and where we are going. Ivan Herman, Semantic Web Activity Lead for the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) leads us through this as we prepare for a week of deep discussions with people from all parts of the community of semantic technologies.

Abstract for “Bringing SemTech Back to the Business”:

With a panel of leaders from the semantic technology industry, this session will give us the opportunity to reflect on the many discussions that have taken place during the week of SemTech 2008 and help us map the course as we prepare to extend those conversations back into our workplaces. We will touch on issues of ROI, making the case for semantic technologies in the enterprise, and what to expect in the coming year in the semantic tech space.

19 May

José Manuel Alonso gives a keynote on behalf of the Australia Office entitled "Improving Government through better use of the Web" at the "Web Directions South: Government" on Monday, 19 May 2008, in Canberra, Australia. (see abstract)

Abstract:

It’s no secret that just as the web has revolutionised business, the media, and many other parts of our lives, it is also revolutionising how governments and citizens interact, and how government provide services. But how to do it well is still something of a black art. In this keynote presentation, the lead of the W3C's eGovernment initiative, Jose Manuel Alonso, looks at the opportunities the web provides governments, the challenges, old and new, the web poses, and the role of the W3C in helping to develop underlying, interoperable technologies with which to build these services. Jose's presentation will cover best practices and methodologies for providing eGovernment services, and look at case studies of how governments and communities are connecting via the web around the world.

20 May

Steve Bratt gives a keynote on behalf of the Spain Office entitled "Fast Forward: Get Ready for Web 3.0" at the "bdigital Global Congress" on Tuesday, 20 May 2008, in Barcelona, Spain. (see abstract)

Abstract:

Fast Forward: Get Ready for Web 3.0 The Web has been a tremendous vehicle for global communication, commerce and change. A suite of emerging technologies is leveraging the fundamental principles that has made Web a success, and will enable the useful integration of data, information and knowledge from across the entire Web. Steve Bratt, CEO of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), will discuss how new, interoperable standards in areas such Web 2.0 semantic Web, mobility, ubiquity, accessibility and security will foster unbounded, Web-scale mashups of information made available on an increasing range of devices. The benefits of this new "Web 3.0" will be felt by everyone everywhere -- from physicians seeking critical information to deliver better medical care, to farmers in rural Africa looking for the most favorable markets for their produce.

21 May

José Manuel Alonso gives a keynote on behalf of the Australia Office entitled "Towards eGovernment 2.0" at the "eGovernment Forum at CeBIT" on Wednesday, 21 May 2008, in Sydney, Australia. (see abstract)

Abstract:

eGovernment services are achieving the highest levels of sophistication ever. Several countries are at 100% of online availability and close to perfectly sophisticated services but even so, their usage is not taking off and some good old problems are still unsolved. This talk will review the challenges that governments are still facing and propose ways to tackle them by using open standards, improving transparency and participation and achieving seamless integration of data.

27 May

Dan Brickley gives a talk entitled "One Big Happy Family: Practical Collaboration on Meaningful Markup " at the "Microformats vEvent" on Tuesday, 27 May 2008, in London, United Kingdom. (see abstract)

Abstract:

This talk explores some ways in which the Microformat and RDF approaches can complement each other, and some ways in which we can share data, tools and experiences between these two technologies. It will outline the often-unarticulated history of the RDF design, the techniques used for parsing and querying RDF data, and the things made easy and hard through this approach. RDF techniques can be contrasted with the different choices made for Microformats. However these differences obscure an underlying similarity that comes from shared ‘Webby’ values.

June 2008

2 June

Olle Olsson participates at a panel entitled "Framtidssäkra eFörvaltningen (Technologies and the future of eGovernment)" at the "Offentliga Rummet 2008 (The Public Room 2008)" on Monday, 2 June 2008, in Västerås, Sweden.

17 June

Tim Berners-Lee gives a talk entitled "Web of Data" at the "LinkedData Planet Conference: exploring the new web of linked data" on Tuesday, 17 June 2008, in New York, NY, USA.

18 June

Ivan Herman gives a keynote entitled "États des lieux du Web sémantique" at the "19èmes Journées Francophones d'Ingénierie des Connaissances (IC2008) (19th Francophone Knowledge Engineering Days)" on Wednesday, 18 June 2008, in Nancy, France.

19 June

Shawn Henry gives a talk entitled "How New Web Accessibility Standards Impact User Experience Design" at the "Usability Professionals' Association International Conference 2008" on Thursday, 19 June 2008, in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. (see abstract)

Abstract:

This presentation provides the latest on new international standards expected in 2008, including the updated U.S. Section 508 Standards, WCAG 2.0, and WAI-ARIA for accessibility of Ajax applications. It compares the different documents, and demos how the new requirements impact user experience design, such as new accessibility requirements for forms.

26 June

Steve Bratt participates at a panel entitled "Mobile Internet – the Way Forward" at the "2nd NGMN Industry Conference 2008" on Thursday, 26 June 2008, in Frankfurt, Germany.

August 2008

20 August

Deborah Dahl , Ingmar Kliche, and Raj Tumuluri give a talk entitled "Multimodal Standards and Applications" at the "SpeechTEK" on Wednesday, 20 August 2008, in New York, USA. (see abstract)

Abstract:

This presentation will showcase standards-based multimodal applications developed by member companies of the W3C Multimodal Interaction Working Group. It will also demonstrate some laboratory applications that illustrate the principles of the W3C Multimodal Architecture and a deployed healthcare application that enables users to type, speak, and scribble on their mobile devices to record vital readings, highlight regions of interest on images, and submit them wirelessly.

October 2008

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.