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2008-12-01: Today W3C announced a new standard to make it easier to author interactive multimedia presentations. Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL 3.0) allows video, audio, images, text, and hypertext links to be combined into interactive presentations, with fine-grain control of layout and timing. "The importance of SMIL 3.0 is that it contains a set of user-requested features that provide exciting new functionality, while retaining all the advantages of a declarative (that is, without scripting) approach to building a multimedia presentation," said Dick Bulterman, chair of the Synchronized Multimedia Working Group, which published the specification. Read the full press release, testimonials, and learn more about the Synchronized Multimedia Activity. (Permalink)
2008-12-03: W3C updated the Interest Group Note Cool URIs for the Semantic Web to include a link to an errata page. (Permalink)
2008-12-02: The OWL Working Group published eleven documents today relating to the OWL 2 Web Ontology Language. OWL 2 extends OWL, a core standard of the Semantic Web, adding new features that users have requested and that software providers are prepared to implement. Six of these documents are last call drafts, indicating the Working Group believes the technical work in those areas is done. The documents are:
The Manchester Syntax is an optional, alternative OWL serialization; this document is expected to become a Note. The XML datatype rdf:text was co-developed with the RIF Working Group for use with RDF data. Please send comments by 23 January. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity. (Permalink)
2008-12-01: Browse W3C presentations and events also available as an RSS channel. (Permalink)
2008-11-26: The XML Core Working Group has published the W3C Recommendation of Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 (Fifth Edition). This fifth edition of the widely deployed standard XML incorporates corrections to errata found in previous versions. In particular, one correction relaxes the restrictions on element and attribute names, thereby providing in XML 1.0 the major end user benefit currently achievable only by using XML 1.1. As a consequence, many possible documents that were not well-formed according to previous editions of this specification are now well-formed, and previously invalid documents using the newly-allowed name characters in, for example, ID attributes, are now valid. XML has been designed for ease of implementation and for interoperability with both SGML and HTML. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity. (Permalink)
2008-11-26: The XML Processing Model Working Group invites implementation of the Candidate Recommendation of XProc: An XML Pipeline Language. This specification describes the syntax and semantics of XProc, a language for describing operations to be performed on XML documents. A pipeline consists of steps. Like pipelines, steps take zero or more XML documents as their inputs and produce zero or more XML documents as their outputs. The inputs of a step come from the web, from the pipeline document, from the inputs to the pipeline itself, or from the outputs of other steps in the pipeline. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity. (Permalink)
2008-11-25: W3C announced a Workshop on Africa Perspective on the Role of Mobile Technologies in Fostering Social and Economic Development, April 1-2 2009, in Maputo, Mozambique. Participants will explore ways to fulfill the potential of mobile phones as a platform for deploying development-oriented ICT services towards the poorest segments of populations in developing countries, with an emphasis on the African context. The Workshop is open to the public; learn how to participate. You may also become a Workshop Sponsor to help support the participation of those with expertise who might not otherwise be able to attend due to travel or other costs. The Workshop is hosted by the Ministry of Science and Technology of the Government of Mozambique and is organized as part of the Digital World Forum project (European Union's FP7). Read the press release and learn more about W3C's Mobile Web Initiative (MWI).(Permalink)
2008-11-25: The Service Modeling Language Working Group invites implementation of the Candidate Recommendations of Service Modeling Language, Version 1.1 and Service Modeling Language Interchange Format Version 1.1. The former defines the Service Modeling Language, Version 1.1 (SML) used to model complex services and systems, including their structure, constraints, policies, and best practices. The latter defines the interchange format for SML 1.1 models. This 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 model. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity. (Permalink)
2008-11-25: The XML Schema Working Group has published the Last Call Working Draft of W3C XML Schema Definition Language (XSD): Component Designators. XML Schema: Component Designators defines a scheme for identifying XML Schema components as specified by XML Schema Part 1: Structures and XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes. Comments are welcome through 19 January. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity. (Permalink)
2008-11-25: The Emotion Markup Language Incubator Group published their final report. As the web is becoming ubiquitous, interactive, and multimodal, technology needs to deal increasingly with human factors, including emotions. The report provides elements for an Emotion Markup Language striking a balance between scientific well-foundedness and practical applicability. The language is conceived as a "plug-in" language suitable for use in three different areas: (1) manual annotation of data; (2) automatic recognition of emotion-related states from user behaviour; and (3) generation of emotion-related system behaviour. 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)
2008-11-24: The Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines Working Group has published an updated Working Draft of the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) 2.0. ATAG defines how authoring tools should help Web developers produce Web content that is accessible and conforms to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. ATAG also defines how to make authoring tools accessible so that people with disabilities can use them. Read the invitation to review the ATAG 2.0 Working Draft and about the Web Accessibility Initiative.(Permalink)
2008-11-21: The SOAP-JMS Binding Working Group has published the Last Call Working Draft of SOAP over Java Message Service 1.0. This document specifies how SOAP should bind to a messaging system that supports the Java Message Service (JMS). The specification helps to ensure interoperability between the implementations of different Web services vendors. It should also enable customers to implement their own Web services for part of their infrastructure, and to have this interoperate with vendor provided Web services. Comments are welcome through 13 January. Learn more about the Web Services Activity.(Permalink)
2008-11-19: The Web Applications Working Group has published the Proposed Recommendation 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 also provides an attribute to expose the number of child elements of an element. It is intended to provide a more convenient alternative to existing DOM navigation interfaces, with a low implementation footprint. Comments are welcome through 15 December. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.(Permalink)
2008-11-19: The SVG Working Group has published the Proposed Recommendation of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Tiny 1.2 Specification.This specification defines the features and syntax for Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Tiny, Version 1.2, a language for describing two-dimensional vector and mixed vector/raster graphics in XML. The specification enables the creation of graphical content, from static images to animations to interactive Web applications. SVG 1.2 Tiny is a profile of SVG intended for implementation on a range of devices, from cell phones and PDAs to desktop and laptop computers, and thus includes a subset of the features included in SVG 1.1 Full, along with new features to extend the capabilities of SVG. Comments are welcome through 15 December.(Permalink)
2008-11-17: The Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER) Working Group published four Working Drafts today. The purpose of the Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER) is to provide a means for individuals or organizations to describe a group of resources through the publication of machine-readable metadata.
Last Call comments are welcome through 5 December. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity.(Permalink)
2008-11-17: The XML Security Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of XML Signature Best Practices. This document collects best practices for implementors and users of the XML Signature specification. Most of these best practices are related to improving security and mitigating attacks, yet others are for best practices in the practical use of XML Signature, such as signing XML that doesn't use namespaces, for example. Learn more about the Security Activity.(Permalink)
2008-11-17: The Math Working Group has published a Working Draft of Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) Version 3.0, which defines the Mathematical Markup Language, or MathML. MathML is 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)
2008-11-17: The Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group has published an update of Working Draft of W3C mobileOK Scheme 1.0. The document provides an overview of how the mobileOK specification helps ensure that content is suitable for use on very basic mobile devices. Learn more about the Mobile Web Initiative Activity.(Permalink)
2008-11-14: The XML Security Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of XML Signature Best Practices. The XML Signature specification offers powerful and flexible mechanisms to support a variety of use cases. This flexibility has the downside of increasing the number of possible attacks. One countermeasure to the increased number of threats is to follow best practices, including a simplification of the use of XML Signature where possible. This document outlines best practices noted by the XML Security Specifications Maintenance Working Group, the XML Security Working Group, and other ideas cited at the Workshop on Next Steps for XML Security. While most of these best practices are related to improving security and mitigating attacks, yet others are for best practices in the practical use of XML Signature, such as signing XML that doesn't use namespaces. Learn more about the Security Activity.(Permalink)
2008-11-14: The Web Applications Working Group has published the Last Call Working Draft of Selectors API. Selectors, which are widely used in CSS, are patterns that match against elements in a tree structure. The Selectors API specification defines methods for retrieving Element nodes from the DOM by matching against a group of selectors. It is often desirable to perform DOM operations on a specific set of elements in a document. These methods simplify the process of acquiring specific elements, especially compared with the more verbose techniques defined and used in the past. Comments are welcome through 12 December. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.(Permalink)
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