W3C

The Research and Development Working Group (RDWG) will hold an online symposium to explore mobile accessibility challenges, existing resources, and areas for future research and development. The Call for Papers is open until 7 May 2012. Learn more about the Symposium on Mobile Accessibility and the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).

The XML Schema Working Group has published W3C XML Schema Definition Language (XSD) 1.1 Part 1: Structures and Part 2: Datatypes as W3C Recommendations. The W3C XML Schema Recommendation specifies an XML language for describing the structure and constraining the content of XML documents. It provides both structures and data types, as well as facilities for people and specifications to define their own structures and data types, whether for validation, data binding, documentation or other purposes. Learn more about the XML Activity.

The Government Linked Data Working Group has published four First Public Working Drafts today:

• Data Catalog Vocabulary (DCAT). DCAT is an RDF vocabulary designed to facilitate interoperability between data catalogs published on the Web. This document defines the schema and provides examples for its use.
• The RDF Data Cube Vocabulary. There are many situations where it would be useful to be able to publish multi-dimensional data, such as statistics, on the web in such a way that it can be linked to related data sets and concepts. The Data Cube vocabulary provides a means to do this using the W3C RDF (Resource Description Framework) standard. The model underpinning the Data Cube vocabulary is compatible with the cube model that underlies SDMX (Statistical Data and Metadata eXchange), an ISO standard for exchanging and sharing statistical data and metadata among organizations. The Data Cube vocabulary is a core foundation which supports extension vocabularies to enable publication of other aspects of statistical data flows.
• Terms for describing people. This document defines a set of terms for describing people. It defines how to describe people's characteristics such as names or addresses and how to relate people to other things, for example to organizations or projects. For each term, guidance on the usage within a running example is provided. This document also defines mappings to widely used vocabularies to enable interoperability.
• An organization ontology. This document describes a core ontology for organizational structures, aimed at supporting linked-data publishing of organizational information across a number of domains. It is designed to allow domain-specific extensions to add classification of organzations and roles, as well as extensions to support neighbouring information such as organizational activities.

Learn more about the eGovernment Activity.

The Web Applications Working Group has published a Working Draft of DOM4. DOM4 defines the event and document model the Web platform uses. The DOM is a language- and platform neutral interface that allows programs and scripts to dynamically access and update the content and structure of documents. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

W3C launched today a new Web Cryptography Working Group, whose mission is to define an API that lets developers implement secure application protocols on the level of Web applications, including message confidentiality and authentication services, by exposing trusted cryptographic primitives from the browser. Web application developers will no longer have to create their own or use untrusted third-party libraries for cryptographic primitives. This will improve security on the Web. Some of the chartered use cases for this API include:

• The ability to select credentials and sign statements can be necessary to perform high-value transactions such as those involved in finance, corporate security, and identity-related claims about personal data.
• The provisioning and use of keys within Web applications can be used for scenarios such as increasing the security of user authentication and determining whether a particular device is authenticated for particular services.
• The ability to check source integrity before executing Javascript code previously stored in local storage.

Learn more about the Security Activity.