Web

2008-07-01: Browse W3C presentations and events also available as an RSS channel. (Permalink)

2008-06-30: Today W3C publishes a report on the June 2008 Workshop on the Role of Mobile Technologies in Fostering Social Development. Participants discussed how numerous available services on mobile phones could help people in underserved regions. Discussion underlined the need for a concerted effort among all the stakeholders (including practitioners, academics, regulators, and mobile industry) to build a shared view of the future of the mobile platform as a tool to bridge the digital divide. The Workshop was jointly organized by W3C and NIC.br, with the generous support of UNDP and Fundacion CTIC (Gold Sponsors), Opera Software and MobileActive.org (Silver sponsors). This work takes place under the European Union's 7th Research Framework Programme (FP7), part of Digital World Forum project. Learn more about the W3C Mobile Web for Social Development Interest Group and the W3C Mobile Web Initiative. (Photo credit: A. Mangin (Cibervoluntarios). Permalink)

2008-06-30: The Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER) Working Group has published two Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER) Working Drafts: Grouping of Resources and Description Resources. The first document describes how to publish descriptions of multiple resources such as all those available from a Web site. These descriptions are always attributed to a named individual, organization or entity that may or may not be the creator of the described resources. The second publication provides a means for individuals or organizations to create machine-readable descriptions. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity. (Permalink)

2008-06-25: The Web Applications Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of Widgets 1.0: Requirements. This document lists the design goals and requirements that a specification would need to address in order to standardize various aspects of widgets. Widgets are small client-side Web applications for displaying and updating remote data, that are packaged in a way to allow download and installation on a client machine, mobile phone, or mobile Internet device. Comments are welcome through 01 August. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity. (Permalink)

Thanks to Sebastian Snopek from the International Liaison Group (WaSP ILG), this post is also available in Polish: Wtórny hAccessibility?. Fanning the fires of the ABBR pattern debate, the developers at BBC Radio Labs announced today that they’ll be removing the hCalendar microformat from their programmes listing pages, pending further accessibility testing or the establishment [...]

2008-06-24: W3C is pleased to announce the creation of the Common Web Language (CWL) Evaluation and Installation Incubator Group, sponsored by W3C Members Institute of Semantic Computing (ISeC), (Japan) National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Keio University, and JustSystems Corporation. The group's mission is to examine the the Common Web Language in real Web environments using the pilot model of the CWL platform. CWL is a graphic language of semantic network with hyper node and is used to describe contents and meta-data of web pages in three different type of form such as UNL, CDL and RDF. The CWL platform allows people to input CWL using natural languages and display information written in CWL in natural languages. Using this CWL platform, the CWL will be evaluated from multilingualism, semantic computing and semantic web points of view. Read more about the Incubator Activity, an initiative to foster development of emerging Web-related technologies. Incubator Activity work is not on the W3C standards track. (Permalink)

Those clever folks at the Royal National Institute of Blind People have teamed up with the Web Accessibility Tools Consortium and The Paciello Group to produce a toolbar for Internet Explorer that exposes some of its usually buried accessibility options. It’s not for developers so much as end-users; the RNIB say The Surf Right Toolbar is really [...]

2008-06-20: The Semantic Web Deployment Working Group and XHTML2 Working Group have published a Candidate Recommendation of RDFa in XHTML: Syntax and Processing. Web documents contain significant amounts of structured data, which is largely unavailable to tools and applications. When publishers can express this data more completely, and when tools can read it, a new world of user functionality becomes available, letting users transfer structured data between applications and web sites, and allowing browsing applications to improve the user experience. RDFa is a specification for attributes to be used with languages such as HTML and XHTML to express structured data. See the groups' RDFa implementation report. The Working Groups also updated the companion document RDFa Primer. Learn more about the Semantic Web and the HTML Activity. (Permalink)

2008-06-20: The XML Schema Working Group has published Last Call Working Drafts of W3C XML Schema Definition Language (XSD) 1.1 Part 1: Structures and Part 2: Datatypes. The former specifies the XML Schema Definition Language, which offers facilities for describing the structure and constraining the contents of XML documents, including those which exploit the XML Namespace facility. The latter defines facilities for defining datatypes to be used in XML Schemas as well as other XML specifications. Comments are welcome through 12 September. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity. (Permalink)

2008-06-20: The Voice Browser Working Group has released the Last Call Working Draft of Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) Version 1.1. SSML provides a rich, XML-based markup language for assisting the generation of synthetic speech in Web and other applications. SSML 1.1 improves on W3C's SSML 1.0 Recommendation by adding support for more conventions and practices of the world's languages including Asian, Eastern European, and Middle Eastern languages. Comments are welcome through 20 July. See the list of changes in this draft and learn more about W3C's Voice Browser Activity. (Permalink)

It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that accessibility is only about the blind people with physical disabilities, and forget about those with cognitive difficulties, or those who are new to the Web. Many pages are very busy and confusing and hence off-putting. Flame-haired DOMscripting lovegod Christian Heillman, has been experimenting with easy-to-use [...]

Just a short buzz: the final version of Opera 9.5 was released today, with a boatload of exciting features. Of particular interest: excellent support for current standards — (X)HTML, XML, XSLT, CSS 2.1, SVG 1.1 partial implementations of new emerging standards — CSS 3, HTML 5, and ARIA More details about the browser’s new capabilities and what they [...]

2008-06-12: The XHTML2 Working Group published two Proposed Recommendations today: XHTML Modularization 1.1 and XHTML Basic 1.1. The former provides a means for subsetting and extending XHTML, a feature needed for extending XHTML's reach onto emerging platforms. This specification is intended for use by language designers as they construct new XHTML Family Markup Languages. This second version of this specification includes several minor updates to provide clarifications and address errors found in the first version. It also provides an implementation using XML Schemas. This version of XHTML Basic, which uses the Modularization approach, has been brought into alignment with the widely deployed XHTML Mobile Profile from the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA). XHTML Basic 1.1 will thus make it easier to author Web pages that work on millions of mobile handsets. Comments on these specifications are welcome through 15 July. Learn more about the HTML Activity. (Permalink)

2008-06-10: The XML Security Specifications Maintenance Working Group has published the W3C Recommendation of XML Signature Syntax and Processing (Second Edition). This document specifies XML syntax and processing rules for creating and representing digital signatures; the list of changes from the First Edition is available. The Working Group also published a Group Note Test Cases for C14N 1.1 and XMLDSig Interoperability, which specifies test cases for Canonical XML 1.1 and XML Signature Syntax and Processing, Second Edition. Learn more about the Security Activity. (Permalink)

2008-06-10: The HTML Working Group has published three documents: HTML 5, HTML 5 differences from HTML 4, and the first public draft of HTML 5 Publication Notes . HTML 5 introduces features for Web application authors, new elements based on research into prevailing authoring practices, and clear conformance criteria for user agents in an effort to improve interoperability. See the diff-marked version showing changes made since the 22 January 2008 draft. Learn more about the HTML Activity. (Permalink)

Adobe's JavaScript frameworks is maturing, but there's still room for improvement.

Mozilla hat sich vorgenommen, ins Guinness Buch der Rekorde zu kommen mit den meisten Software-Downloads in 24 Stunden! Darum wird der 17. Juni 2008 ein besonderer Tag sein: der Download Day. Was wird an diesem Tag so Besonderes sein? Mozilla möchte den Weltrekord aufstellen für die meisten Software-Downloads an einem einzigen Tag. Um teilzunehmen, musst Du [...]

Mozilla is on a mission to set a Guinness World Record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours!

... or, as Google folks call it internally, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Web.