Future of Social Networking Workshop Begins

2009-01-15: Today began a 2-day Workshop on the Future of Social Networking, organized by W3C to explore the landscape of social networking technologies. Participants submitted 72 position papers on a wide range of topics regarding the growth and future of social networking, including, but not limited to, the mobile context. The meeting is hosted in Barcelona, Spain by Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya and ReadyPeople. Many thanks to the hosts and to Silver Sponsors Ayuntamiento de Zaragoza, Flock, and Peperoni for their support. (Permalink)

W3C Advisory Committee Elects TAG Participants

2009-01-13: The W3C Advisory Committee has elected John Kemp (Nokia), Larry Masinter (Adobe), and T.V. Raman (Google) to the W3C Technical Architecture Group (TAG). Continuing TAG participants are Ashok Malhotra (Oracle), Noah Mendelsohn (IBM, appointed), Jonathan Rees (Science Commons, appointed), and Henry Thompson (U. of Edinburgh). The Director is expected to appoint one individual as well. 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)

W3C Talks in January

2009-01-05: Browse W3C presentations and events also available as an RSS channel. (Permalink)

• 9 January, Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Never is a long time - Disruptive technology and the Web.Steven Pemberton presents at Freelance Factory.
• 29 January, Orlando, USA: Update on Accessibility Guidelines for Browsers, Media Players, Cell phones, PDAs and Other User Agents.Jeanne Spellman presents at Assistive Technology Industry Association Conference 2009.
• 30 January, Orlando, USA: Web Accessibility Update 2009: WCAG 2.0, WAI-ARIA, Section 508.Shawn Henry presents at Assistive Technology Industry Association .
• 31 January, Orlando, USA: Accessible Social Networking and Web 2.0 Content.Jeanne Spellman presents at Assistive Technology Industry Association.
• View upcoming talks by country
• More talks...

Element Traversal Specification Is a W3C Recommendation

2008-12-22: The Web Applications Working Group has published the W3C 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. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity. (Permalink)

Web IDL Draft Published

2008-12-22: The Web Applications Working Group has published the Working Draft of Web IDL. This document defines an interface definition language, Web IDL, that can be used to describe interfaces that are intended to be implemented in web browsers. Web IDL is an IDL variant with a number of features that allow the behavior of common script objects in the web platform to be specified more readily. How interfaces described with Web IDL correspond to constructs within ECMAScript and Java execution environments is also detailed. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity. (Permalink)

SVG Tiny 1.2 Advances State of the Art for Web Graphics

2008-12-22: Creating beautiful and accessible interactive content was made easier today with the release of the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Tiny 1.2 Recommendation. Already implemented and deployed in mobile phones, media centers, and browsers around the world, this open standard allows authors to build documents and interfaces for the Web, with open-source and commercial authoring tools that output open, reusable content. Searchable, internationalized text and user-created metadata bring the Semantic Web to graphics, and improve the experience of users everywhere, while easier programming interfaces put the power in the hands of developers. A test suite helps to ensure interoperable SVG content in modern Web browsers, making it easier than ever to develop and deploy the right look and feel. Read the testimonials and start creating content today. Learn more about the Graphics Activity. (Permalink)

Last Call: Widgets 1.0: Packaging and Configuration

2008-12-22: The Web Applications Working Group has published the Last Call Working Draft of Widgets 1.0: Packaging and Configuration. This document standardizes a Zip-based packaging format, an XML-based configuration document format and a series of steps that user agents follow when processing and verifying various aspects of widgets. The packaging format acts as a container for files used by a widget. The configuration document is an XML vocabulary that authors can use to declare metadata and configuration parameters for a widget. The steps for processing a widget resource describe the expected behavior and means of error handling for widget user agents while processing the packaging format, configuration document, and other relevant files. Comments are welcome through 31 January. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity. (Permalink)

Mobile Web Application Best Practices Draft Published

2008-12-22: The Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group has published a Working Draft of Mobile Web Application Best Practices. This document specifies Best Practices for the development and delivery of Web applications on mobile devices. The recommendations expand upon statements made in the Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0 (BP1), especially concerning statements that relate to the exploitation of device capabilities and awareness of the delivery context. Furthermore, since BP1 was written, networks and devices have continued to evolve, with the result that a number of Best Practices that were omitted from BP1 can now be included. Learn more about the Mobile Web Initiative Activity. (Permalink)

First Draft of Geolocation API Specification Published

2008-12-22: The Geolocation Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of Geolocation API Specification. This specification defines an API that provides scripted access to geographical location information associated with the hosting device. The API defines a high-level interface to location information associated with the hosting device, such as latitude and longitude. The API itself is agnostic of the underlying location information sources. Common sources of location information include Global Positioning System (GPS) and location inferred from network signals such as IP address, RFID, WiFi and Bluetooth MAC addresses, and GSM/CDMA cell IDs. Learn more about the Ubiquitous Web Applications Activity. (Permalink)

First Draft of Voice Extensible Markup Language (VoiceXML) 3.0 Published

2008-12-22: The Voice Browser Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of Voice Extensible Markup Language (VoiceXML) 3.0. This document specifies VoiceXML 3.0, a modular XML language for creating interactive media dialogs that feature synthesized speech, recognition of spoken and DTMF key input, telephony, mixed initiative conversations, and recording and presentation of a variety of media formats including digitized audio, and digitized video. The primary goal of this version is to bring the advantages of Web-based development and content delivery to interactive voice response applications. Learn more about the Voice Browser Activity. (Permalink)

Five Publications from RIF-WG

2008-12-19: The Rule Interchange Format (RIF) Working Group published five new Working Drafts today. Since the Last Call Working Draft of RIF Basic Logic Dialect (BLD), the group has been developing other key dialects, components, and test cases. The new publications are:

1. RIF Use Cases and Requirements: minor changes
2. RIF Core: new design to support both BLD and PRD
3. RIF Datatypes and Built-Ins 1.0: various improvements
4. RIF Production Rule Dialect (PRD): operational semantics are complete
5. RIF Test Cases: early stages of test suite

The Working Group is nearing Last Call on these remaining elements of RIF, and welcomes feedback from rulesystem users and designers. Please send comments by 23 January. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity. (Permalink)

XForms for HTML, First Public Draft

2008-12-19: The Forms Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of XForms for HTML. XForms for HTML provides a set of attributes and script methods that can be used by the tags or elements of an HTML or XHTML web page to simplify the integration of data-intensive interactive processing capabilities from XForms. The semantics of the attributes are mapped to the rich XForms model-view-controller-connector architecture, thereby allowing web application authors a smoother, selective migration path to the higher-order behaviors available from the full element markup available in modules of XForms. Learn more about the XForms Activity. (Permalink)

Report Announced from Workshop on Semantic Web in Energy Industries Part I: Oil & Gas

2008-12-18: Today W3C published a report on the W3C Workshop on Semantic Web in Oil & Gas Industry. 54 experts from 33 organizations discussed how Semantic Web technologies can help to handle the staggering amount of new data that is produced every day as well as the challenges of interfacing to service companies and managing joint ventures between operators that are very important in this industry. Participants discussed issues related to data integration, ontology management and creation, presented applications and tool developments in the oil & gas area. The Workshop concluded with a panel that explored the next steps that this community may take, possibly in conjunction with W3C, to explore this area further. W3C thanks Chevron for hosting the Workshop, which took place in Houston, Texas, USA, on the 9 and 10 December, 2008. Read the 17 position papers and learn more about the Semantic Web. (Permalink)

Call for Review: EMMA: Extensible MultiModal Annotation markup language Proposed Recommendation

2008-12-15: The Multimodal Interaction Working Group has published the Proposed Recommendation of EMMA: Extensible MultiModal Annotation markup language. This document is part of a set of specifications for multimodal systems, and provides details of an XML markup language for containing and annotating the interpretation of user input. The interpretation of the user's input is expected to be generated by signal interpretation processes, such as speech and ink recognition, semantic interpreters, and other types of processors for use by components that act on the user's inputs such as interaction managers. See the group's implementation report. Comments are welcome through 15 January. Learn more about the Multimodal Interaction Activity. (Permalink)