From Chaos, Order: SKOS Recommendation Helps Organize Knowledge

2009-08-18: Today W3C announces a new standard that builds a bridge between the world of knowledge organization systems - including thesauri, classifications, subject headings, taxonomies, and folksonomies - and the linked data community, bringing benefits to both. Libraries, museums, newspapers, government portals, enterprises, social networking applications, and other communities that manage large collections of books, historical artifacts, news reports, business glossaries, blog entries, and other items can now use Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS) to leverage the power of linked data. The Semantic Web Deployment Working Group also published today two Group Notes with the Recommendation, updating the SKOS Primer and SKOS Use Cases and Requirements. Read the press release and testimonials and learn more about the Semantic Web Activity. (Permalink)

XMLHttpRequest Drafts Published

2009-08-20: The Web Applications Working Group has published updates to Working Drafts of XMLHttpRequest and XMLHttpRequest Level 2. The XMLHttpRequest specification is part of the Web application technology stack, enabling Ajax-style development. XMLHttpRequest defines an API that provides scripted client functionality for transferring data between a client and a server. XMLHttpRequest Level 2 offers additional features, such as cross-origin requests, progress events, and the handling of byte streams for both sending and receiving. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity. (Permalink)

W3C Relaunches Multimodal Interaction Working Group

2009-08-19: W3C is pleased to announce the relaunch of the Multimodal Interaction Working Group to develop technology that enables users to use their preferred modes of interaction with the Web. Deborah Dahl (Invited Expert) chairs the group which is chartered to develop open standards to adapt to device, user and environmental conditions, and to allow multiple modes of Web interaction including GUI, speech, vision, pen, gestures, haptic interfaces, sensor data, etc. W3C Members may use this form to join the Working Group. Read about the Multimodal Interaction Activity. (Permalink)

Call for Review: XForms 1.1 Proposed Recommendation Published

2009-08-18: The Forms Working Group has published a Proposed Recommendation of XForms 1.1. XForms is not a free-standing document type, but is intended to be integrated into other markup languages, such as XHTML, ODF or SVG. XForms 1.1 refines the XML processing platform introduced by XForms 1.0 by adding several new submission capabilities, action handlers, utility functions, user interface improvements, and helpful datatypes as well as a more powerful action processing facility, including conditional, iterated and background execution, the ability to manipulate data arbitrarily and to access event context information. Comments are welcome through 22 September. Learn more about the XForms Activity. (Permalink)

Last Call: Widgets 1.0: APIs and Events

2009-08-18: The Web Applications Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of Widgets 1.0: APIs and Events. Widgets are full-fledged client-side applications that are authored using Web standards. Examples range from simple clocks, stock tickers, news streamers, games and weather forecasters, to complex applications that pull data from multiple sources to be "mashed-up" and presented to a user in some interesting and useful way. The APIs and Events specification defines a set of APIs and events for the Widgets 1.0 family of specifications. Comments are welcome through 15 September. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity. (Permalink)

Incubator Group Report: Emergency Information Interoperability Framework (EIIF)

2009-08-18: The Emergency Information Interoperability Framework Incubator Group published their final report. The group also published Emergency Information Interoperability Frameworks, which describes some critical requirements for an interoperability information framework for emergency management, and provides candidate components of an ontology that can support interoperability for some common use cases. The approach discussed outlines how one can achieve information interoperability across the stakeholder functions within the area of emergency management. The group recommends that W3C initiate an Interest Group to continue the work of the Incubator Group and expand the outreach to standards development through partnerships with professional communities and interoperability workshops. 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)

Namespaces in XML 1.0 (Third Edition) is a W3C Proposed Edited Recommendation

2009-08-06: The XML Core Working Group has published the Third Edition of Namespaces in XML 1.0 as W3C Proposed Edited Recommendation. XML Namespaces provide a simple method for qualifying element and attribute names used in Extensible Markup Language documents by associating them with namespaces identified by URI references. The Third Edition as proposed incorporates all outstanding errata. The review period is open until 14 September 2009. Learn more about the XML Activity. (Permalink)

Last Call for Widgets 1.0: Access Requests Policy

2009-08-04: The Web Applications Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of Widgets 1.0: Access Requests Policy. This specification defines the security model controlling network access from within a widget, as well as a method for widget authors to request that the user agent grant access to certain network resources. Comments are welcome through 20 September 2009. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity. (Permalink)

CSSOM View Module: Updated Working Draft

2009-08-04: The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group has published an updated Working Draft of CSSOM View Module. This specification describes APIs that should be useful for Web application authors. The APIs inspect and manipulate the view information of a document, such as the position of element layout boxes, the width of the viewport, and also an element's scroll position. Learn more about the Style Activity. (Permalink)

Six XML Security Documents Published

2009-07-31: The XML Security Working Group published six documents related to XML signature and encryption. 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.

• XML Signature Best Practices. This Working Draft describes best practices 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.
• XML Signature Syntax and Processing Version 1.1. This Working Draft updates the signature specification.
• XML Signature Transform Simplification: Requirements and Design. This Working Draft outlines a proposed simplification of the XML Signature Transform mechanism, intended to enhance security, performance, streamability and to ease adoption.
• W3C XML Encryption Syntax and Processing Version 1.1. This Working Draft updates the encryption specification.
• XML Security Generic Hybrid Ciphers. This First Public Working Draft augments XML Encryption Version 1.1 by defining algorithms, XML types and elements necessary to enable use of generic hybrid ciphers in XML Security applications.
• XML Security Algorithm Cross-Reference. This Group Note collects the various known URIs for encryption algorithms (at the time of its publication) and indicates which specifications define them.

Learn more about the Security Activity. (Permalink)

Daniel Weitzner Named to Run US Government Internet Policy Unit

2009-07-30: Daniel Weitzner has been named Associate Administrator for the Office of Policy Analysis and Development at the US National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). Danny will have a leading role in fulfilling the NTIA's mandate to provide the President advice on telecommunications and information policy issues.

Danny will thus be leaving the W3C staff, which he joined in 1998 as the Technology and Society Domain Lead. During these 11 years, Danny has contributed significantly to advances in many areas where policy meets technology, including privacy, security, intellectual property, and trust. As Chair of the Patent Policy Working Group, Danny led the effort that culminated in W3C's Royalty-Free Patent Policy, now a cornerstone of W3C's value proposition to the Web community.

Before joining the W3C, Danny was co-founder and Deputy Director of the Center for Democracy and Technology and was Deputy Policy Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Danny is also Director of the the MIT CSAIL Decentralized Information Group with Tim Berners- Lee and a founding director of the Web Science Research Initiative and holds an appointment as Principal Research Scientist at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

While W3C regrets that Danny will be stepping down from W3C, it is encouraging that US policy may well be shaped by someone who has demonstrated a commitment to open standards as a tool for improving society. Danny, good luck! (Permalink)

W3C Invites Implementations of Widgets 1.0: Packaging and Configuration

2009-07-24: The Web Applications Working Group invites implementation of the Candidate Recommendation of Widgets 1.0: Packaging and Configuration. This specification standardizes a packaging format for software known as widgets. Widgets are client-side applications that are authored using Web standards, but whose content can also be embedded into Web documents. The specification relies on PKWare's Zip specification as the archive format, XML as a configuration document format, and a series of steps that runtimes follow when processing and verifying various aspects of a package. The packaging format acts as a container for files used by a widget. The Working Group plans to develop a test suite during the Candidate Recommendation phase. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity. (Permalink)