Note: As of September 2013 W3C changed its management of the News archive. This and similar files will remain in place (so links do not break). Please refer to the new W3C News archives.

Last Call: TriG The RDF Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of TriG. The Resource Description Framework (RDF) is a general-purpose language for representing information in the Web. This document defines a textual syntax for RDF called TriG that allows an RDF dataset to be completely written in a compact and natural text form, with abbreviations for common usage patterns and datatypes. TriG is an extension of the Turtle [turtle] format. Comments are welcome through 11 October. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity.

DOMMatrix interface Draft Published The CSS Working Group and the SVG Working Group have published a First Public Working Draft of DOMMatrix interface. This specification describes a transformation matrix interface with the dimension of 3x2 and 4x4. The transformation matrix interface replaces the SVGMatrix interface from SVG. It is a common interface used to describe 2D and 3D transformations on a graphical context for SVG, Canvas 2D Context and CSS Transforms. Learn more about the Style Activity and the Graphics Activity

W3C Webinar: Discovery in Distributed Multimodal Interaction The W3C Multimodal Interaction Working Group (MMI-WG) is pleased to announce the second webinar on "Discovery in Distributed Multimodal Interaction", to be held on September 24, 2013, at 11:00 a.m. ET. Prior to this second webinar, the MMI-WG held the W3C Workshop on Rich Multimodal Application Development on July 22-23 in New York Metropolitan Area, US, and identified that distributed/dynamic applications depend on the ability of devices and environments to find each other and learn what modalities they support. Therefore this second webinar will focus on the topic of device/service discovery to handle Modality Components of the MMI Architecture dynamically. The discussion during the webinar will interest anyone who wants to take advantage of the dramatic increase in new interaction modes, whether for health care, financial services, broadcasting, automotive, gaming, or consumer devices. Several experts from the industry and analyst communities will share their experiences and views on the explosive growth of opportunities for the development of applications that provide enhanced multimodal user-experiences. Read more and register for the webinar. Learn more about Multimodal Interaction at W3C.

Updated Drafts of Tracking Preference Expression (DNT), and Tracking Compliance and Scope The Tracking Protection Working Group has updated two Working Drafts: Tracking Preference Expression (DNT). This specification defines the technical mechanisms for expressing a tracking preference via the DNT request header field in HTTP, via an HTML DOM property readable by embedded scripts, and via properties accessible to various user agent plug-in or extension APIs. It also defines mechanisms for sites to signal whether and how they honor this preference, both in the form of a machine-readable tracking status resource at a well-known location and via a "Tk" response header field, and a mechanism for allowing the user to approve exceptions to DNT as desired.

Tracking Compliance and Scope. This specification defines the meaning of a Do Not Track (DNT) preference and sets out practices for websites to comply with this preference. Learn more about the Privacy Activity.

Last Call: Web Notifications The Web Notification Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of Web Notifications. Web notifications defines an API for end-user notifications. A notification allows alerting the user outside the context of a web page of an occurrence, such as the delivery of email. Comments are welcome through 24 October. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

Last Call: File API The Web Applications Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of File API. This specification provides an API for representing file objects in web applications, as well as programmatically selecting them and accessing their data. It also defines objects to be used within threaded web applications for the synchronous reading of files. Comments are welcome through 24 October. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

W3C Invites Implementations of JSON-LD 1.0 The RDF Working Group and the JSON-LD Community Grouppublished the Candidate Recommendation of JSON-LD 1.0, and JSON-LD 1.0 Processing Algorithms and API. This signals the beginning of the call for implementations for JSON-LD 1.0. JSON-LD harmonizes the representation of Linked Data in JSON by describing a common JSON representation format for expressing directed graphs; mixing both Linked Data and non-Linked Data in a single document. The syntax is designed to not disturb already deployed systems running on JSON, but provide a smooth upgrade path from JSON to JSON-LD. It is primarily intended to be a way to use Linked Data in Web-based programming environments, to build interoperable Linked Data Web services, and to store Linked Data in JSON-based storage engines. The JSON-LD 1.0 specification describes the JSON-LD language in a way that is useful to authors. It also provides the core grammar of the language for implementers. The JSON-LD 1.0 Algorithms and API specification describes useful Algorithms for working with JSON-LD data. It also specifies an Application Programming Interface that can be used to transform JSON-LD documents in order to make them easier to work with in programming environments like JavaScript, Python, and Ruby. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity.

Last Call: Use Cases & Exploratory Approaches for Ruby Markup The Internationalization Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of Use Cases & Exploratory Approaches for Ruby Markup. This document aims to support discussion about what is needed in the HTML5 specification, and possibly other markup vocabularies, to adequately support ruby markup. It looks at a number of use cases involving ruby, and how well the following approaches support those use cases: the HTML5 model described in the Candidate Recommendation as of 17 December 2012, the XHTML Ruby Annotation model, and the Ruby Extension Specification proposed in February 2013. Comments are welcome through 24 September. Learn more about the Internationalization Activity.

WebRTC 1.0: Real-time Communication Between Browsers Draft Published The Web Real-Time Communications Working Group has published a Working Draft of WebRTC 1.0: Real-time Communication Between Browsers. This document defines a set of ECMAScript APIs in WebIDL to allow media to be sent to and received from another browser or device implementing the appropriate set of real-time protocols. This specification is being developed in conjunction with a protocol specification developed by the IETF RTCWEB group and an API specification to get access to local media devices developed by the Media Capture Task Force. Learn more about the Ubiquitous Web Applications Activity.

CSS Grid Layout Module Level 1 Draft Published The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group has published a Working Draft of CSS Grid Layout Module Level 1. This CSS module defines a two-dimensional grid-based layout system, optimized for user interface design. In the grid layout model, the children of a grid container can be positioned into arbitrary slots in a flexible or fixed predefined layout grid. CSS is a language for describing the rendering of structured documents (such as HTML and XML) on screen, on paper, in speech, etc. Learn more about the Style Activity.

Web Cryptography API Use Cases Note Published The Web Cryptography Working Group has published a Group Note of Web Cryptography API Use Cases. These use cases, described as scenarios, represent some of the set of expected functionality that may be achieved by the Web Cryptography API which provides an API for cryptographic operations such as encryption and decryption, and the Key Discovery API, which specifically covers the ability to access cryptographic keys that have been pre-provisioned. As both APIs are under construction, the reader should consult each specification for changes, and should treat sample code provided here as illustrative only. Presented here are primary use cases, showing what the working group hopes to achieve first. This document is NOT a recommendation track document, and should be read as an informative overview of the target use cases for a cryptographic API for the web. Learn more about the Security Activity.

W3C Validator Suite Launched to Improve Web Quality The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) today announced a premium W3C Validator Suite to help people improve the quality of Web pages. With the Validator Suite, it becomes easier and faster to perform checks on HTML, CSS, and Internationalization (I18n) for an entire public site. The Validator Suite service scans an entire site to produce customizable, integrated reports for easier tracking and prioritization of any Web issues. W3C will continue to operate and enhance its free validators, as it has done for 15 years. Revenues from the new service will help W3C improve both the free service and the Validator Suite, and provide long-term stability of these services. Today W3C transitions the service out of beta. While the new service is young, we are already studying enhancements based on feedback we have received and our own goals to help people use W3C's open standards. We invite the entire community to try the Validator Suite. Discount rates are available for W3C Members. For more information, contact the Validator Suite Team.

Last Call: Media Source Extensions The HTML Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of Media Source Extensions. This specification extends HTMLMediaElement to allow JavaScript to generate media streams for playback. Allowing JavaScript to generate streams facilitates a variety of use cases like adaptive streaming and time shifting live streams. If you wish to make comments or file bugs regarding this document in a manner that is tracked by the W3C, please submit them via our public bug database. Comments are welcome through 17 October. Learn more about the HTML Activity.

Public Identifiers for entity resolution in XHTML Draft Published The HTML Working Group has published a Working Draft of Public Identifiers for entity resolution in XHTML. This document adds an additional public identifier that should be recognised by XHTML user agents and cause the HTML character entity definitions to be loaded. Unlike the identifiers already listed by the HTML5 specification, the identifier added by this extension references the set of defintions that is used by HTML. Learn more about the HTML Activity.

WebCrypto Key Discovery Working Draft Published The Web Cryptography Working Group has published a Working Draft of WebCrypto Key Discovery. This specification describes a JavaScript API for discovering named, origin-specific pre-provisioned cryptographic keys for use with the Web Cryptography API. Pre-provisioned keys are keys which have been made available to the user agent by means other than the generation, derivation, importation functions of the Web Cryptography API. Origin-specific keys are keys that are available only to a specified origin. Named keys are identified by a name assumed to be known to the origin in question and provisioned with the key itself. Learn more about the Security Activity.

Three RDFa Recommendations Published The RDFa Working Group today published three RDFa Recommendations. RDFa lets authors put machine-readable data in HTML documents. Using RDFa, authors may turn their existing human-visible text and links into machine-readable data without repeating content. Today's publications were: HTML+RDFa 1.1, which defines rules and guidelines for adapting the RDFa Core 1.1 and RDFa Lite 1.1 specifications for use in HTML5 and XHTML5. The rules defined in this specification not only apply to HTML5 documents in non-XML and XML mode, but also to HTML4 and XHTML documents interpreted through the HTML5 parsing rules.

The group also published two Second Editions for RDFa Core 1.1 and XHTML+RDFa 1.1, folding in the errata reported by the community since their publication as Recommendations in June 2012; all changes were editorial.

The group also updated the a RDFa 1.1 Primer. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity.

Last Call: Internationalization Tag Set (ITS) Version 2.0 The MultilingualWeb-LT Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of Internationalization Tag Set (ITS) Version 2.0. ITS 2.0 makes it easier to integrate automated processing of human language into core Web technologies. ITS 2.0 focuses on HTML, XML-based formats in general, and can leverage processing based on the XML Localization Interchange File Format (XLIFF), as well as the Natural Language Processing Interchange Format (NIF). Comments are welcome through 10 September. Learn more about the Internationalization Activity.

W3C Launches Web and Mobile Interest Group W3C launched today a Web and Mobile Interest Group that is chartered to accelerate the development of Web technology so that it becomes a compelling platform for mobile applications and the obvious choice for cross platform development. The forum is intended to include organisations that commission such products and services, designers, developers, equipment manufacturers, tool and platform vendors, browser vendors, operators and other relevant participants in the value chain that creates and operates such products and services. Participants will focus on a wide range of sectors including retail, advertising, technology, network operators, content creation and content distribution. The initial deliverables of the group include: Core Mobile Web Platform 2012 Deployment Status, which will summarize the various actions that the Interest Group is undertaking to ensure that the relevant stakeholders facilitate the deployment and adoption of the features that have been identified in the Core Mobile Web Platform 2012 report. The group will also publish new versions of the report

Standards for Web Applications on Mobile: current state and roadmap, which will take a broader look at all the Web technologies under development that are particularly relevant to mobile devices, and tracks their status and adoption.

A gap analysis that provides an overview of the differences between the Web as a platform on mobile and other popular platforms and ecosystems, both from a technical and commercial perspective.

Additional reports on use cases and scenarios for context-relevant user experiences, multi-device and cross-device user experiences on the Web, and Usability and Efficiency Considerations for the Web on Mobile. Read more about the Mobile Web Initiative.

HTML5 and Canvas 2D Candidate Recommendations Updated by the HTML Working Group The HTML Working Group updated two Candidate Recommendations today: HTML5, which defines the 5th major revision of the core language of the World Wide Web, the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). In this version, new features are introduced to help Web application authors, new elements are introduced based on research into prevailing authoring practices, and special attention has been given to defining clear conformance criteria for user agents in an effort to improve interoperability.

HTML Canvas 2D Context, which defines the 2D Context for the HTML canvas element. The 2D Context provides objects, methods, and properties to draw and manipulate graphics on a canvas drawing surface. Learn more about the HTML Activity.

W3C Highlights - August 2013 Today, W3C published W3C Highlights - August 2013, a survey of select recent work and upcoming priorities. The report includes: progress and work ahead in making the Open Web Platform a success on mobile devices, news in Web for All areas like accessibility and internationalization, how W3C is collaborating more closely with various industries that are being transformed by the Web, liaison updates, and new opportunities for more people to get involved in W3C.

Web and TV Interest Group Rechartered with New Mission W3C has just rechartered its Web and TV Interest Group. The Interest Group has been the primary driver for the inclusion of television industry features in core standards, e.g. Encrypted Media Extensions, Media Source Extensions, and multi-track HTML video and audio. After an initial wave of specifications, the Interest Group has created new task forces and is recharted with new mission to focus on: Testing

Media API (covering Recording and downloading, Terminal capabilities and Metadata)

Stereoscopic 3D

Timed text/captions The Interest Group also liaises with several organizations developing TV standards, software and tests for the next generation of network-enabled TV sets, including OIPF, MMI, and HbbTV, thus raising awareness of W3C work in this converging market. See the group's charter for more information. Learn more about Web and TV at W3C.

IndieUI: Events (for Mobile and More) Working Draft Published The IndieUI Working Group today published an updated Working Draft of IndieUI: Events 1.0 - Events for User Interface Independence. IndieUI defines a way for different user interactions to be translated into simple events and communicated to Web applications. (For example, if a user wants to scroll down a page, they might use their finger on a touch screen, or click a scroll bar with a mouse, or use a scroll wheel, or say 'scroll down' with a voice command. With IndieUI, these are all sent to the Web app as simply: scroll down.) IndieUI will make it easier for Web applications to work in a wide range of contexts — different devices (such as mobile phones and tablets), different assistive technologies (AT), different user needs. With IndieUI, Web application developers will have a uniform way to design applications that work for multiple devices and contexts. Comments on this Draft are encouraged by 13 September 2013. Learn more from the IndieUI Overview and the Call for Review e-mail; and read about the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).

Predefined Counter Styles Draft Published The Internationalization Working Group has published a Working Draft of Predefined Counter Styles. This document describes numbering systems used by various cultures around the world and can be used as a reference for those wishing to create user-defined counter styles for CSS. Learn more about the Internationalization Activity.

Last Call: XQuery 3.0: An XML Query Language The XML Query Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of XQuery 3.0: An XML Query Language. XML is a versatile markup language, capable of labeling the information content of diverse data sources including structured and semi-structured documents, relational databases, and object repositories. A query language that uses the structure of XML intelligently can express queries across all these kinds of data, whether physically stored in XML or viewed as XML via middleware. This specification describes a query language called XQuery, which is designed to be broadly applicable across many types of XML data sources. Comments are welcome through 13 August. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity.

Last Call: CSS Counter Styles Level 3 The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of CSS Counter Styles Level 3. This module introduces the ‘@counter-style’ rule, which allows authors to define their own custom counter styles for use with CSS list-marker and generated-content counters [CSS3LIST]. It also predefines a set of common counter styles, including the ones present in CSS2 and CSS2.1. Comments are welcome through 18 August. Learn more about the Style Activity.

Last Call: CSS Fonts Module Level 3 The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of CSS Fonts Module Level 3. This CSS3 module describes how font properties are specified and how font resources are loaded dynamically. The contents of this specification are a consolidation of content previously divided into CSS3 Fonts and CSS3 Web Fonts modules. The description of font load events was moved into the CSS3 Font Load Events module. Comments are welcome through 22 August. Learn more about the Style Activity.

W3C Invites Implementations of Indexed Database API The Web Applications Working Group invites implementation of the Candidate Recommendation of Indexed Database API. This document defines APIs for a database of records holding simple values and hierarchical objects. Each record consists of a key and some value. Moreover, the database maintains indexes over records it stores. An application developer directly uses an API to locate records either by their key or by using an index. A query language can be layered on this API. An indexed database can be implemented using a persistent B-tree data structure. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

Online Symposium: User Modeling for Accessibility Registration is now open for the online symposium on User Modeling for Accessibility to be held on 15 July 2013. Researchers, practitioners, designers, application developers, users with disabilities, and others are invited to participate. The symposium will analyze different methods and implementations of user modeling and their potential usage for improving accessibility. This includes the design, creation, storage, and usage of user models, in particular in web browsers, applications, authoring tools, and other aspects of the Web. For details and registration, see User Modeling for Accessibility - Online Symposium. Learn more about the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).

EMMA: Extensible MultiModal Annotation markup language Version 1.1 Draft Published The Multimodal Interaction Working Group has published a Working Draft of EMMA: Extensible MultiModal Annotation markup language Version 1.1. This specification provides details for an XML markup language for containing and annotating the interpretation of user input. Examples of interpretation of user input are a transcription into words of a raw signal, for instance derived from speech, pen or keystroke input, a set of attribute/value pairs describing their meaning, or a set of attribute/value pairs describing a gesture. 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. Learn more about the Multimodal Interaction Activity.

Linked Data Glossary Note Published The Government Linked Data Working Group has published a Group Note of Linked Data Glossary. This document is a glossary of terms defined and used to describe Linked Data, and its associated vocabularies and Best Practices. This document will help information management professionals, Web developers, scientists and the general public better understand publishing structured data using Linked Data Principles. Learn more about the eGovernment Activity.

First Draft of Web Animations 1.0; Compositing and Blending Level 1 Updated The CSS Working Group and SVG Working Group today jointly published a First Public Working Draft of Web Animations 1.0, which defines a model for synchronization and timing of changes to the presentation of a Web page. This specification also defines an application programming interface for interacting with this model and it is expected that further specifications will define declarative means for exposing these features. The Web Animations model aims at two broad areas of application: User interface effects, and Storytelling and visualisation. The two groups also updated today Compositing and Blending Level 1. Compositing describes how shapes of different elements are combined into a single image.

Web Cryptography API Draft Published The Web Cryptography Working Group has published a Working Draft of Web Cryptography API. This specification describes a JavaScript API for performing basic cryptographic operations in web applications, such as hashing, signature generation and verification, and encryption and decryption. Additionally, it describes an API for applications to generate and/or manage the keying material necessary to perform these operations. Uses for this API range from user or service authentication, document or code signing, and the confidentiality and integrity of communications. Learn more about the Security Activity.

W3C Launches New Digital Publishing Activity Today W3C launched a new Digital Publishing Activity to make the Web a platform for the digital publishing industry, and to build the necessary bridges between the developers of the Open Web Platform and the publishing industry. Today's eBook readers and tablets for electronic books, magazines, journals and educational resources use W3C technologies such as (X)HTML, CSS, SVG, SMIL, MathML, or various Web API-s. Commercial publishers also rely on W3C technologies in their back-end processing all the way from authoring through to delivering the printed or electronic product and beyond.The publishing industry is one of the largest consumers of W3C technology. Work in this activity primarily takes place in the Digital Publishing Interest Group. That Interest Group is a forum for experts in the digital publishing ecosystem of electronic journals, magazines, news, or book publishing (authors, creators, publishers, news organizations, booksellers, accessibility and internationalization specialists, etc.) for technical discussions, gathering use cases and requirements to align the existing formats and technologies (e.g., for electronic books) with those used by the Open Web Platform. The launch of this Activity follows two W3C Workshops this year so far: Great Expectations for Web Standards (February) and Richer Internationalization for eBooks (June). W3C is also holding a Workshop on publishing workflow in September in Paris.

Publishing Workflow Focus of September Workshop in Paris In April we announced the third W3C Workshop on digital publishing, Workshop on Publishing using the Open Web Platform, which takes place Paris 16-17 September. The goal of this W3C Workshop is to bring together major players, including publishers, standardization organizations, technology developers, booksellers, accessibility organizations and others to identify areas where work is needed to make the Open Web Platform suitable for commercial publishing, especially in print, all the way from authoring through to delivering the printed product and beyond. We have extended the deadline for position papers to 15 July. Participation is free and open to W3C members and non-members. Each organization may provide a maximum of two attendees. Learn more about how to participate.

Web Telephony API Draft Published The System Applications Working Group has published a Working Draft of Web Telephony API. This specification defines an API to manage telephone calls. A typical use case of the Web Telephony API is the implementation of a 'Dialer' application supporting multiparty calls and multiple telephony services. Learn more about the Ubiquitous Web Applications Activity.

Mobile Accessibility Examples: Implementing UAAG 2.0 Updated One aspect of mobile accessibility is how web browsers on mobile devices support the accessibility needs of people with disabilities. Accessibility of web browsers is covered in User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG). The User Agent Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (UAWG) today published an updated Working Draft of Implementing UAAG 2.0, which explains how browsers, media players, and other "user agents" should support accessibility for people with disabilities and work with assistive technologies. The update provides a page of Mobile Accessibility Examples from UAAG that show how web browsers that follow UAAG benefit people with disabilities using the Web on mobile devices. Learn more about W3C WAI's broader work related to Mobile Accessibility and about the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).

Widget Updates Note, Introduction to Web Components Draft Published The Web Applications Working Group has published two documents today: A Group Note of Widget Updates. This specification defines a process and a document format to allow a user agent to update an installed widget package with a different version of a widget package. A widget cannot automatically update itself; instead, a widget relies on the user agent to manage the update process. The working group reached consensus to stop work on this specification. It is published for archival reasons and no longer progresses along the W3C's Recommendation Track.

A Working Draft of Introduction to Web Components. This document is a non-normative reference, which provides an overview of Web Components. It summarizes the normative information in the respective specifications in easy-to-digest prose with illustrations. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

W3C Advisory Committee Elects Advisory Board The W3C Advisory Committee has filled four open seats on the W3C Advisory Board. Created in 1998, the Advisory Board provides guidance to the Team on issues of strategy, management, legal matters, process, and conflict resolution. Beginning 1 July 2013, the nine Advisory Board participants are Ann Bassetti (Boeing), Jim Bell (HP), Tantek Çelik (Mozilla), Michael Champion (Microsoft), Steve Holbrook (IBM), Charles McCathieNevile (Yandex), Qiuling Pan (Huawei), Jean-Charles Verdié (MStar Semiconductor), and Chris Wilson (Google). Many thanks to Ora Lassila (Nokia) and Takeshi Natsuno (Keio University) whose term ends this month. Read more about the Advisory Board.

Content Security Policy 1.1 Draft Published The Web Application Security Working Group has published a Working Draft of Content Security Policy 1.1. This document defines a policy language used to declare a set of content restrictions for a Web resource, and a mechanism for transmitting the policy from a server to a client where the policy is enforced. Learn more about the Security Activity.

Workshop: Smart Homes, Cars, Devices and the Web - Rich Multimodal Apps W3C announced today Get Smart: Smart Homes, Cars and Devices on the Web, a W3C Workshop on Rich Multimodal Application Development, 22-23 July 2013, Metropolitan New York/NJ, USA. The event is hosted by Openstream. The goal of this workshop is to highlight the merits of HTML5 and the W3C Multimodal Interaction (MMI) Architecture and to demonstrate the maturity of the MMI Architecture and its suitability for developing innovative and compelling user-experiences across applications/devices. This Workshop is of particular interest to industries seeking to leverage the dramatic increase in new modes of interaction, such as speech, touch, gesture, handwriting, video cameras, and other sensors. Industries including health care, financial services, publishing, broadcasting, automotive, gaming, TV's, and consumer devices will find this workshop especially valuable as a way to learn how W3C standards support these new forms of interaction. W3C membership is not required for participation. The event is open to all. All participants are required to submit a position paper by 24 June.

Filter Effects 1.0 Draft Published The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group and the SVG Working Group have published a Working Draft of Filter Effects 1.0. Filter effects are a way of processing an element's rendering before it is displayed in the document. Typically, rendering an element via CSS or SVG can conceptually be described as if the element, including its children, are drawn into a buffer (such as a raster image) and then that buffer is composited into the elements parent. Filters apply an effect before the compositing stage. Examples of such effects are blurring, changing color intensity and warping the image. Although originally designed for use in SVG, filter effects are a set of operations to apply on an image buffer and therefore can be applied to nearly any presentational environment, including CSS. They are triggered by a style instruction (the ‘filter’ property). This specification describes filters in a manner that allows them to be used in content styled by CSS, such as HTML and SVG. It also defines a CSS property value function that produces a CSS <image> value. Learn more about the Style Activity, and the Graphics Activity.

CSS Exclusions and CSS Regions Drafts Published The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group has published three Working Drafts today: CSS Exclusions Module Level 1. CSS Exclusions define arbitrary areas around which inline content (CSS21) can flow. CSS Exclusions can be defined on any CSS block-level elements. CSS Exclusions extend the notion of content wrapping previously limited to floats.

CSS Regions Module Level 1. The CSS regions module allows content to flow across multiple areas called regions. The regions are not necessarily contiguous in the document order. The CSS regions module provides an advanced content flow mechanism, which can be combined with positioning schemes as defined by other CSS modules such as the Multi-Column Module or the Grid Layout Module to position the regions where content flows. Learn more about the Style Activity.

W3C Developer Meetup in Tokyo - 8 June W3C is pleased to invite the Japanese developer community to attend the first ever W3C developer meetup, in Tokyo, Japan, on Saturday 8 June 2013. Chaired by Marie-Claire Forgue (W3C) and Kensaku Komatsu (NTT Communications), the event's agenda consists of a mix of presentations and demonstrations by W3C members and staff, on topics such as HTML5, CSS3, Web Security, Testing, etc. Web designers and application developers are encouraged to gather for an evening of discussions and networking. Participation in the meetup is open to anyone at no cost, but space is limited. Please register before 6 June 2013. W3C warmly thanks both GREE for hosting the event and html5j for additional support.

Web Intents Note Published The Device APIs Working Group and the Web Applications (WebApps) Working Group have published Working Group Note of Web Intents. This informative specification defines a service discovery and light-weight RPC mechanism for web apps called Web Intents. This document defines DOM interfaces and markup used by client and service pages to create, receive, and reply to Web Intents messages, and the procedures the User Agent carries out to facilitate that process. Learn more about the Ubiquitous Web Applications Activity.

Last Call: Vibration API The Device APIs Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of Vibration API. This specification defines an API that provides access to the vibration mechanism of the hosting device. Vibration is a form of tactile feedback. Comments are welcome through 13 June. Learn more about the Ubiquitous Web Applications Activity.

RDF Validation Workshop - Practical Assurances for Quality RDF Data W3C announced today a RDF Validation Workshop - Practical Assurances for Quality RDF Data, 10-11 September 2013, in Cambridge, USA. The Semantic Web has demonstrated considerable value for collaborative contributions to data. Adoption in many mission-critical environments requires data to conform to specified patterns. Validation in a banking context shares many requirements with quality assurance of linked clinical data. Systems like Linked Open Data, which don't have formal interface specifications, share these validation needs. Most data representation languages used in conventional settings offer some sort of input validation, ranging from parsing grammars for domain-specific languages to XML Schema or RelaxNG for XML structures. While the distributed nature of RDF affects the notions of "validity", tool chains need to be established to ensure data integrity. The goal of this workshop is to discuss use cases for data validation on the Semantic Web with development of technologies to enable those use cases. W3C membership is not required to participate. The event is open to all. All participants are required to submit a position paper by 30 June 2013.

W3C Workshop on Social Standards: The Future of Business W3C announced today a Workshop on Social Standards: The Future of Business, 7-8 August 2013, in San Francisco, USA. The event is hosted by AppFusions, sponsored by IBM, and jointly organized with the OpenSocial Foundation. The goal of this workshop is to bring together social business experts and social technology experts to discuss the use-cases that existing specifications and standards don't adequately address, and understand where new standards are needed. This Workshop is open in particular to social business leaders and strategists, federated and decentralized social Web technologists, security experts, and developers. W3C membership is not required to participate. The event is open to all. All participants are required to submit a position paper by 1 July 2013.

Last Call: Indexed Database API The Web Applications Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of Indexed Database API. This document defines APIs for a database of records holding simple values and hierarchical objects. Each record consists of a key and some value. Moreover, the database maintains indexes over records it stores. An application developer directly uses an API to locate records either by their key or by using an index. A query language can be layered on this API. An indexed database can be implemented using a persistent B-tree data structure. Comments are welcome through 07 June. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

Two Drafts Published by the System Applications Working Group The System Applications Working Group has published two Working Drafts today: The app: URI scheme. This specification defines the app: URI scheme and rules for dereferencing an app: URI, which can be used to address resources inside a package (e.g., a packaged application). The dereferencing model relies on HTTP semantics to return resources in a manner akin to a HTTP GET request. Doing so allows this URI scheme to be used with other technologies that rely on HTTP responses to function as intended, such as XHR.

Messaging API. This specification defines a System Level API which offers a simple interface to get access to mobile messaging services. A typical use case of the Messaging API is the implementation of a messaging client application that allows the user to send SMS and MMS messages as well as to access and manage the received SMS and MMS messages. Learn more about the Ubiquitous Web Applications Activity.

How Can W3C Improve Its Web Site? Let Us Know! The Site Redesign Task Force invites the community to take a short site redesign survey. As discussed in the A List Apart Column "W3C is Getting Some Work Done" W3C is developing a plan to refresh its Web presence for a variety of audiences. We appreciate your input on what you value from the site and what you would like to see us do better. We will be collecting survey responses until 11:59pm Boston time on 29 May 2013.

Page Visibility is a W3C Recommendation The Web Performance Working Group has published a W3C Recommendation of Page Visibility. This specification defines a means for site developers to programmatically determine the current visibility state of the page in order to develop power and CPU efficient web applications. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

Selectors Level 4 Draft Published The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group has published a Working Draft of Selectors Level 4. Selectors are patterns that match against elements in a tree, and as such form one of several technologies that can be used to select nodes in an XML document. Selectors have been optimized for use with HTML and XML, and are designed to be usable in performance-critical code. They are a core component of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), which uses Selectors to bind style properties to elements in the document. Selectors Level 4 describes the selectors that already exist in [SELECT], and further introduces new selectors for CSS and other languages that may need them. Learn more about the Style Activity.

vCard Ontology Draft Published The Semantic Web Interest Group has published a Working Draft of vCard Ontology. The document describes a mapping of the vCard specification (RFC6350) to RDF/OWL. The goal is to promote the use of vCard for the description of people and organisations utilising semantic web techniques and allowing compatibility with traditional vCard implementations. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity.

The PROV Family of Documents are W3C Recommendations The Provenance Working Group was chartered to develop a framework for interchanging provenance on the Web. The Working Group has now published the PROV Family of Documents as W3C Recommendations, along with corresponding supporting notes. You can find a complete list of the documents in the PROV Overview Note. PROV enables one to represent and interchange provenance information using widely available formats such as RDF and XML. In addition, it provides definitions for accessing provenance information, validating it, and mapping to Dublin Core. Learn more about the Semantic Web.

Publishing and Linking on the Web Note Published The Technical Architecture Group has published a Group Note of Publishing and Linking on the Web. The Web borrows familiar concepts from physical media (e.g., the notion of a "page") and overlays them on top of a networked infrastructure (the Internet) and a digital presentation medium (browser software). This is a convenient abstraction, but when social or legal concepts and frameworks relating documents, publishing and speech are applied to the Web, the analogies can be misleading, for example, publishing a page on the Web is fundamentally different from printing and distributing a page in a magazine or book. Learn more about the Technical Architecture Group.

Two Drafts Published by the Tracking Protection Working Group The Tracking Protection Working Group has published two Working Drafts today: Tracking Preference Expression (DNT). This specification defines the technical mechanisms for expressing a tracking preference via the DNT request header field in HTTP, via an HTML DOM property readable by embedded scripts, and via properties accessible to various user agent plug-in or extension APIs. It also defines mechanisms for sites to signal whether and how they honor this preference, both in the form of a machine-readable tracking status resource at a well-known location and via a Tk response header field, and a mechanism for allowing the user to approve exceptions to DNT as desired.

Tracking Compliance and Scope. This specification defines the meaning of a Do Not Track (DNT) preference and sets out practices for websites to comply with this preference. Learn more about the Privacy Activity.

Take the W3C Brand Survey through 5 May 2013 - Enter to Win! Who is W3C to you? Who should we be? As W3C nears its 20th anniversary in 2014 we are conducting a research project. We invite you to complete our first public survey about the W3C brand. Your responses will help guide where we direct our energies as we evolve the W3C brand. The survey, open through 5 May 2013, should take approximately 15 minutes to complete. Participants who complete the survey may enter to win an Apple iPad mini. W3C has retained Salloway and Associates, an independent market strategy and research company, to conduct this survey on a confidential and professional basis. W3C will receive only anonymized data. Please see the survey for the complete privacy policy. We look forward to hearing from you!

Registration Open for HTML5 Training Course; Early Bird Rate through 6 May Registration is open for a new session of the HTML5 training course. Experienced trainer Michel Buffa will cover the techniques developers and designers need to create great Web pages and apps. Topics include video, animations, forms, and APIs to create location-based services, and offline applications. Training starts 3 June and lasts six weeks; students receive a certificate upon course completion. Register before May 6 to benefit from the early bird rate. Learn more about W3DevCampus, the W3C online training for Web developers.

Registration Open for Mobile Web Training Course Registration is open for a new session of the W3C mobile Web best practices training course, to start on 13 May 2013. In this course, you will learn how to "mobilize" pages and deliver a good Web experience on mobile devices. This 6-week online training course, taught by Frances de Waal, let you study step by step and at your own pace (the course effort is about 6 hours a week). The registration fee is 245€ (approx. 318US$). Enroll soon to become a mobile Web expert and learn more about W3DevCampus, the W3C online training for Web developers.

XML Digital Signatures for Widgets is a W3C Recommendation The Web Applications Working Group has published a W3C Recommendation of XML Digital Signatures for Widgets. This document defines a profile of the XML Signature Syntax and Processing specification to allow a widget package to be digitally signed. Authors and distributors can digitally sign a widget as a mechanism to ensure continuity of authorship and distributorship. A user agent, or other validation system, can use a digital signature to verify the data integrity of the files within a widget package and to confirm the signing key(s). Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

CSS Overflow Module Level 3 Draft Published The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group has published a Working Draft of CSS Overflow Module Level 3. This module contains the features of CSS relating to new mechanisms of overflow handling in visual media (e.g., screen or paper). In interactive media, it describes features that allow the overflow from a fixed size container to be handled by pagination (displaying one page at a time). It also describes features, applying to all visual media, that allow the contents of an element to be spread across multiple fragments, allowing the contents to flow across multiple regions or to have different styles for different fragments. Learn more about the Style Activity.

Call for Review: Emotion Markup Language (EmotionML) 1.0 Proposed Recommendation Published The W3C Multimodal Working Group has published a Proposed Recommendation of Emotion Markup Language (EmotionML) 1.0. As the web is becoming ubiquitous, interactive, and multimodal, technology needs to deal increasingly with human factors, including emotions. The specification of Emotion Markup Language 1.0 aims to strike a balance between practical applicability and scientific well-foundedness. 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 behavior; and (3) generation of emotion-related system behavior. Comments are welcome through 14 May. Learn more about the Multimodal Interaction Activity.

Media Source Extensions Draft Published The HTML Working Group has published a Working Draft of Media Source Extensions. This specification extends HTMLMediaElement to allow JavaScript to generate media streams for playback. Allowing JavaScript to generate streams facilitates a variety of use cases like adaptive streaming and time shifting live streams. Learn more about the HTML Activity.

Last Call: API for Media Resources 1.0 The Media Annotations Working Group has published a 3rd Last Call Working Draft of API for Media Resources 1.0. This specification defines an API to access metadata information related to media resources on the Web. The overall purpose is to provide developers with a convenient access to metadata information stored in different metadata formats. The API provides means to access the set of metadata properties defined in the Ontology for Media Resources 1.0 specification. These properties are used as a pivot vocabulary in this API. The core of this specification is the definition of API interfaces for retrieving metadata information in synchronous and asynchronous. It also defines interfaces for structured return types along with the specification of the behavior of an API implementation. Comments are welcome through 03 June. Learn more about the Video in the Web Activity.

Last Call: JSON-LD 1.0, JSON-LD 1.0 Processing Algorithms and API The RDF Working Group and the JSON-LD Community Group have published two Last Call Working Drafts today: JSON-LD 1.0. JSON-LD harmonizes the representation of Linked Data in JSON by describing a common JSON representation format for expressing directed graphs; mixing both Linked Data and non-Linked Data in a single document. The syntax is designed to not disturb already deployed systems running on JSON, but provide a smooth upgrade path from JSON to JSON-LD. It is primarily intended to be a way to use Linked Data in Web-based programming environments, to build interoperable Linked Data Web services, and to store Linked Data in JSON-based storage engines. JSON-LD is capable of serializing any RDF graph or dataset and most, but not all, JSON-LD documents can be directly transformed to RDF.

JSON-LD 1.0: Algorithms and API. The JSON-LD 1.0 Algorithms and API specification describes useful Algorithms for working with JSON-LD data. It also specifies an Application Programming Interface that can be used to transform JSON-LD documents in order to make them easier to work with in programming environments like JavaScript, Python, and Ruby. This is a Last Call publication for both specifications. All substantive technical work on the specification is complete. Feedback on both specifications is encouraged and should be sent to public-rdf-comments@w3.org. The Last Call period will end in 4 weeks, on May 10th 2013 Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity and W3C Community Groups.

Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 2 Draft Published The SVG Working Group has published a Working Draft of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 2. This specification defines the features and syntax for Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Version 2, a language for describing two-dimensional vector and mixed vector/raster graphics. Although an XML serialization is given, processing is defined in terms of a DOM. Learn more about the Graphics Activity.

Two upcoming W3C Workshops on Digital Publishing W3C announced today two closely related workshops, part of the W3C headlights 2013 exercise on Digital Publishing: eBooks & i18n: Richer Internationalization for eBooks on 4 June 2013 in Tokyo, Japan. This workshop will investigate international functionality that needs to be added to the Open Web Platform; the goal is to make the various eBook reading platforms suitable for electronic books that use the printing and typesetting traditions of different cultures. If you are interested in participating, please submit a position paper by 30 April 2013.

Publishing and the Open Web Platform on 16-17 September 2013 in Paris, France. This workshop will look at the "back-end" processing to make the Open Web Platform suitable for commercial publishing, especially in print, all the way from authoring through to delivering the printed product and beyond. If you are interested in participating, please submit a position paper by 1 July 2013.

Input Method Editor API Draft Published The Web Applications Working Group has published a Working Draft of Input Method Editor API. This specification defines an “IME API” that provides Web applications with scripted access to an IME (input-method editor) associated with a hosting user agent. This IME API includes: an InputMethodContext interface, which provides methods to retrieve detailed data from an in-progress IME composition, a Composition dictionary, which represents read-only attributes about the current composition, such as the actual text and its style. This API is designed to be used in conjunction with DOM events. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

Network Service Discovery Draft Published The Device APIs Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of Network Service Discovery. This specification defines a mechanism for an HTML document to discover and subsequently communicate with HTTP-based services advertised via common discovery protocols within the current network. Learn more about the Ubiquitous Web Applications Activity.

W3C Invites Implementations of CSS Conditional Rules Module Level 3, and CSS Values and Units Module Level 3 The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group invites implementation of two Candidate Recommendations: CSS Conditional Rules Module Level 3. This module contains the features of CSS for conditional processing of parts of style sheets, conditioned on capabilities of the processor or the document the style sheet is being applied to. It includes and extends the functionality of CSS level 2], which builds on CSS level 1. The main extensions compared to level 2 are allowing nesting of certain at-rules inside ‘@media’, and the addition of the ‘@supports’ rule for conditional processing.

CSS Values and Units Module Level 3. This CSS3 module describes the common values and units that CSS properties accept and the syntax used for describing them in CSS property definitions. This is an update that clarifies that the viewport size used by the 'vw' and 'vh' units includes the size of any scrollbars only when the scrollbars are “automatic” (CSS rule 'overflow: auto'), and that the corresponding definition of viewport size for paged media is *not* part of this module. Learn more about the Style Activity.

CSS Grid Layout Draft Published The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group has published a Working Draft of CSS Grid Layout. This CSS module defines a two-dimensional grid-based layout system, optimized for user interface design. In the grid layout model, the children of a grid container can be positioned into arbitrary slots in a flexible or fixed predefined layout grid. Learn more about the Style Activity.

Last Call: HTML Media Capture The Device APIs Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of HTML Media Capture. The HTML Media Capture specification defines an HTML form extension that facilitates user access to a device's media capture mechanism, such as a camera, or microphone, from within a file upload control. Comments are welcome through 19 April. Learn more about the Ubiquitous Web Applications Activity.

Runtime and Security Model for Web Applications Draft Published The System Applications Working Group has published a Working Draft of Runtime and Security Model for Web Applications. This document specifies a runtime and security model for Web Applications. It describes how an application is defined through an application manifest, and how it can be installed, updated and packaged. It also specifies how such an application can put into the background, put back in the foreground or woken up. Finally, the document describes the security model for such applications. This includes the permission model and the different security rules that would apply. Learn more about the Ubiquitous Web Applications Activity.

CSS Paged Media Module Level 3 Draft Published, CSS Print Profile Note Published The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group has published two documents today: A Working Draft of CSS Paged Media Module Level 3. This module describes the page model that partitions a flow into pages. It builds on the Box model module and introduces and defines the page model and paged media. It adds functionality for pagination, page margins, page size and orientation, headers and footers, widows and orphans, and image orientation. Finally it extends generated content to enable page numbering and running headers / footers.

A Group Note of CSS Print Profile. This specification defines a subset of Cascading Style Sheets Level 2, revision 1 and CSS Paged Media Level 3 for printing across multiple devices and media types. It is designed for printing in situations where it is not feasible or desirable to install a printer-specific driver, and for situations were some variability in the output is acceptable. This profile is designed to work in conjunction with XHTML-Print and defines a minimum level of conformance as well as an extension set that provides stronger layout control for the printing of mixed text and images, tables and image collections. Learn more about the Style Activity.

Call for Review: PROV Family of Documents Published as Proposed Recommendations The Provenance Working Group has published four Proposed Recommendation Documents along with corresponding supporting notes. You can find a complete list at the PROV Overview draft. These documents provide a framework for interchanging provenance on the Web. PROV enables one to represent and interchange provenance information using widely available formats such as RDF and XML. In addition, it provides definitions for accessing provenance information, validating it, and mapping to Dublin Core. Comments are welcome through 9 April 2013. Learn more about the Semantic Web.

WebDriver Draft Published The Browser Testing and Tools Working Group has published a Working Draft of WebDriver. The WebDriver API aims to provide a synchronous API that can be used for a variety of use cases, though it is primarily designed to support automated testing of web apps. This specification defines the WebDriver API, a platform and language-neutral interface and associated wire protocol that allows programs or scripts to introspect into, and control the behavior of a web browser. The WebDriver API is primarily intended to allow developers to write tests that automate a browser from a separate controlling process, but may also be implemented in such a way as to allow in-browser scripts to control a possibly separate browser. Learn more about the Web Testing Activity.

Two Last Call drafts: The RDF Data Cube Vocabulary, Data Catalog Vocabulary (DCAT) The Government Linked Data Working Group has published two Last Call Working Drafts today: The RDF Data Cube Vocabulary. This is an RDF vocabulary for publishing multidimensional data, particularly statistical data. It is compatible with the cube model that underlies SDMX (Statistical Data and Metadata eXchange), a widely used ISO standard. The Data Cube Vocabulary brings essential SDMX elements to RDF, providing a standard way for governments to publish statistical information as Linked Data. Comments are welcome through 08 April.

Data Catalog Vocabulary (DCAT). This is an RDF vocabulary for expressing the contents of data catalogs, such as government data portals. DCAT is for catalogs of all kinds of data (not just RDF data), but uses RDF to support easy aggregation of catalogs and construction of services which can search across many unrelated catalogs. Comments are welcome through 08 April. Learn more about the eGovernment Activity.

Contacts Manager API Draft Published The System Applications Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of Contacts Manager API. This specification defines a System Level API which offers a simple interface to manage user's contacts stored in the system's address book. A typical use case of the Contacts API is the implementation of an application to manage said address book. Learn more about the Ubiquitous Web Applications Activity.

W3C Workshop Report on the Electronic Books and the Open Web Platform W3C today published the report of the workshop eBooks: Great Expectations for Web Standards, hosted by O'Reilly TOC on 11-12 February, 2013, in New York, USA, and sponsored by Pearson. W3C seeks to support the wide adoption of Web technologies in digital publishing contexts. Consequently, there is a need for the Web and Publishing communities to reinforce cooperation around well defined technical issues. This Workshop was a first step, bringing together a wide range of stakeholders to share their own perspectives, requirements, and ideas to ensure that emerging global technology standards meet the needs of the Digital Publishing industry. The Workshop has identified a number of technical issues where the W3C could and should work together in the coming years. The Workshop participants began discussions to prioritize lists of topics such as presentation, layout, fonts, or accessibility. As a next step, the W3C staff will work with stakeholders, such as IDPF and BISG, in the digital publishing ecosystem to identify opportunities for work related to publishing standards that can be launched at W3C.

Selectors API Level 1 is a W3C Recommendation The Web Applications Working Group has published a W3C Recommendation of Selectors API Level 1. 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. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

CSS Counter Styles Level 3 Draft Published The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group has published a Working Draft of CSS Counter Styles Level 3. This module introduces the ‘@counter-style’ rule, which allows authors to define their own custom counter styles for use with CSS list-marker and generated-content counters. It also predefines a set of common counter styles, including the ones present in CSS2 and CSS2.1. CSS is a language for describing the rendering of structured documents (such as HTML and XML) on screen, on paper, in speech, etc. Learn more about the Style Activity.

Last Call: Pointer Events The Pointer Events Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of Pointer Events. This document defines events and related interfaces for handling hardware agnostic pointer input from devices like a mouse, pen, or touchscreen. For compatibility with existing mouse-based content, this specification also describes a mapping to fire Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Events Mouse Events for pointer device types other than mouse. Comments are welcome through 19 March. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

CSS Animations Draft Published The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group has published a Working Draft of CSS Animations. This CSS module describes a way for authors to animate the values of CSS properties over time, using keyframes. The behavior of these keyframe animations can be controlled by specifying their duration, number of repeats, and repeating behavior. Learn more about the Style Activity.

Registration Open for New HTML5 Training Course; Early Bird Rate through 22 February W3C is pleased to launch a new "HTML5" training course. Experienced trainer Michel Buffa will cover the techniques developers and designers need to create great Web pages and apps. Topics include video, animations, forms, and APIs to create location-based services, and offline applications. Training starts 18 March and lasts six weeks; students receive a certificate upon course completion. Read the W3C HTML5 training course outline, and register before February 22 to benefit from the early bird rate. Learn more about W3DevCampus, the W3C online training for Web developers.

Streams API, HTML Templates Drafts Published The Web Applications Working Group has published two First Public Working Drafts today: Streams API, which provides an API for representing binary data in web applications as a Stream object, as well as programmatically building and reading its contents. This specification defines objects to be used within threaded web applications for the synchronous reading of a Stream. This API is designed to be used in conjunction with other APIs and elements on the web platform, notably: File, XMLHttpRequest, postMessage, and Web Workers.

HTML Templates, which describes a method for declaring inert DOM subtrees in HTML and manipulating them to instantiate document fragments with identical contents. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

Using WAI-ARIA in HTML Draft Published The HTML Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of Using WAI-ARIA in HTML. This document is a practical guide for developers on how to add accessibility information to HTML elements using the Accessible Rich Internet Applications specification [WAI-ARIA], which defines a way to make Web content and Web applications more accessible to people with disabilities. This document demonstrates how to use WAI-ARIA in [HTML5], which especially helps with dynamic content and advanced user interface controls developed with Ajax, HTML, JavaScript, and related technologies. Learn more about the HTML Activity.

W3C Workshop: Open Data on the Web W3C announced today a Workshop on Open Data on the Web, 23-24 April 2013, in London (England). The event is hosted by Google and jointly organized with the Open data Institute and the Open Knowledge Foundation. Participants will help prioritize W3C's agenda in the area of data on the Web at a time when a number of working groups have either completed or are close to completing their charters. As well the promises of government transparency and efficiency, the claim that is made most frequently of open data is that it is the "new oil" that is driving the digital economy. At this workshop, participants will discuss their experiences of realizing this aim and identify what's needed to make it easier. W3C membership is not required to participate. The event is open to all, but limited to 80 attendees. All participants are required to submit a position paper by 3 March 2013.

Last Call: HTML+RDFa 1.1 The RDFa Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of HTML+RDFa 1.1. This specification defines rules and guidelines for adapting the RDFa Core 1.1 and RDFa Lite 1.1 specifications for use in HTML5 and XHTML5. The rules defined in this specification not only apply to HTML5 documents in non-XML and XML mode, but also to HTML4 and XHTML documents interpreted through the HTML5 parsing rules. Comments are welcome through 28 February. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity.

MediaStream Recording Draft Published The Web Real-Time Communication Working Group and Device APIs Working Group have published the First Public Working Draft of MediaStream Recording. This document defines a recording API for use with MediaStreams as defined in Media Capture and Streams. This API attempts to make basic recording very simple, while still allowing for more complex use cases. The contents of the recording will be made available in the platform's default encoding via the dataavailable event. Functions are available to query the platform's available set of encodings, and to select the desired ones if the author wishes. The application can also choose how much data it wants to receive at one time. Learn more about the Ubiquitous Web Applications Activity.

Web Alarms API Specification Draft Published The System Applications Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of Web Alarms API Specification. This specification defines a System Level API to provide access to the device alarm settings, which can schedule a notification or for an application to be started at a specific time. For example, some applications like alarm-clock, calendar or auto-update might need to utilize Alarm API to trigger particular device behaviors at specified time points. Learn more about the Ubiquitous Web Applications Activity.

TTML Simple Delivery Profile for Closed Captions (US) Note Published The Timed Text Working Group has published a Group Note of TTML Simple Delivery Profile for Closed Captions (US). This document specifies the Simple Online Delivery Profile (US) of the Timed Text Markup Language (TTML). The primary goal of the profile is to establish a minimum level of interoperability between TTML 1.0 and legacy caption formats employed in US markets. This is accomplished by (1) defining a set of constraints that apply to TTML document instances that claim adherence to this profile, and (2) defining a set of mandatory features and behaviors that must be supported by implementations of a TTML Presentation Processor that claim adherence to this profile. Learn more about the Video in the Web Activity.

W3C Announces TPAC 2013 in China Each year the W3C community gathers for a week of joint meetings and discussion of technical challenges that have a broad impact on the Web. W3C, and our exclusive Host Tencent, are pleased to announce today that TPAC2013 will be held in Shenzhen, China 18-22 November. "Tencent is excited to work with W3C to bring TPAC to China" said HuoTao (Hugo) Wang, Assistant General Manager for Tencent. "We believe this will be the first of many exciting events for W3C in China driven by the new Host at Beihang University." Nearly 500 people attended TPAC 2012 in France and we anticipate at least that many attendees in China. This is a landmark event for W3C and an opportunity to bring the global Web community together for closer cooperation. Learn more about W3C Membership meetings.

Media Source Extensions Draft Published The HTML Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of Media Source Extensions. This specification extends HTMLMediaElement to allow JavaScript to generate media streams for playback. Allowing JavaScript to generate streams facilitates a variety of use cases like adaptive streaming and time shifting live streams. Learn more about the HTML Activity.

Registration extended for W3Conf 2013, W3C's Developer Conference The W3C is organizing the second W3Conf: Practical Standards for Web Professionals on February 21-22 at The Regency Center in San Francisco. This is an opportunity to attend the developer conference organized by the makers of HTML, CSS, SVG and many other standards that are the foundation of today's and tomorrow's Open Web Platform. Come and hear from an outstanding list of speakers and get a chance to meet a lot of the W3C experts in person. Register using the "w3c" promo code to get $100 off the early-bird price.

Last Call: Touch Events version 1 The Web Events Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of Touch Events version 1. The Touch Events specification defines a set of low-level events that represent one or more points of contact with a touch-sensitive surface, and changes of those points with respect to the surface and any DOM elements displayed upon it (e.g. for touch screens) or associated with it (e.g. for drawing tablets without displays). It also addresses pen-tablet devices, such as drawing tablets, with consideration toward stylus capabilities. Comments are welcome through 14 February. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

IndieUI: Events - New Work for Mobile and More The IndieUI Working Group today published a First Public Working Draft of IndieUI: Events 1.0 - Events for User Interface Independence. IndieUI defines a way for different user interactions to be translated into simple events and communicated to web applications. (For example, if a user wants to scroll down a page, they might use their finger on a touch screen, or click a scroll bar with a mouse, or use a scroll wheel, or say 'scroll down' with a voice command. With IndieUI, these are all sent to the web app as simply: scroll down.) IndieUI will make it easier for web applications to work in a wide range of contexts — different devices (such as mobile phones and tablets), different assistive technologies (AT), different user needs. With IndieUI, web application developers will have a uniform way to design applications that work for multiple devices and contexts. Comments on this Draft are encouraged by 22 February 2013. Learn more from the IndieUI Overview and the IndieUI: Events expands user interface interactions blog post; read about the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).

Beihang University Becomes Newest Institution to Host W3C and Invites China to Assume Greater Role in Global Web Innovation W3C announces Beihang University as a new center for W3C technical staff and leadership activities in China. W3C anticipates that a dedicated presence in China will enhance opportunities for collaboration among Chinese companies, Web developers, and research institutes, and W3C's full international community, including Members from more than 40 countries. "This is an important step of the internationalization strategy of Beihang University, creating a platform to help Chinese industry participate in the Web standards ecosystem," said Professor Jinpeng Huai, President of Beihang University. China has the world's second largest economy, the largest internet user population of any country with (560 million and growing rapidly), a large Web developer community, and growing involvement in international standards bodies. "In the past two years W3C has benefited from greater Chinese participation," said Jeff Jaffe, W3C CEO. "We look forward to that trend accelerating through the efforts of local industry and Beihang University. Global participation in W3C enables our community to identify global needs for the Web, and drive solutions." Read the press release and testimonials from W3C Members and other organizations, and the blog post from Jeff Jaffe.

W3C Webinar: Developing Portable Mobile Applications with Compelling User Experience using the W3C MMI Architecture The W3C Multimodal Interaction (MMI) Working Group is pleased to announce the first webinar on “Developing Portable Mobile Applications with Compelling User Experience using the W3C MMI Architecture”, to be held on January 31, 2013, at 11:00 a.m. ET. The 90-minute webinar, the first in a series, is aimed at Web developers who may find it daunting to incorporate innovative input and output methods such as speech, touch, gesture and swipe into their applications, given the diversity of mobile devices and programming techniques available today. The topic will interest anyone who wants to take advantage of the dramatic increase in new interaction modes, whether for health care, financial services, broadcasting, automotive, gaming, or consumer devices. Several experts from the industry and analyst communities will share their experiences and views on the explosive growth of opportunities for the development of applications that provide enhanced multimodal user-experiences. Read more and register for the webinar. Learn more about Multimodal Interaction at W3C.

WebDriver Draft Published The Browser Testing and Tools Working Group has published a Working Draft of WebDriver. This specification defines the WebDriver API, a platform and language-neutral interface that allows programs or scripts to introspect into, and control the behavior of, a web browser. The WebDriver API is primarily intended to allow developers to write tests that automate a browser from a separate controlling process, but may also be implemented in such a way as to allow in-browser scripts to control a (possibly separate) browser. The WebDriver API is defined by a set of interfaces to discover and manipulate DOM elements on a page, and to control the behavior of the containing browser. This specification also includes a non-normative reference serialization (to JSON) of the interface's invocations and responses that may be useful for browser vendors. Learn more about the Web Testing Activity.

Last Call: XML Inclusions (XInclude) Version 1.1 The XML Core Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of XML Inclusions (XInclude) Version 1.1. This document specifies a processing model and syntax for general purpose inclusion. Inclusion is accomplished by merging a number of XML information sets into a single composite infoset. Specification of the XML documents (infosets) to be merged and control over the merging process is expressed in XML-friendly syntax (elements, attributes, URI references). Comments are welcome through 22 February. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity.

RDF 1.1 Concepts and Abstract Syntax Draft Published The RDF Working Group has published a Working Draft of RDF 1.1 Concepts and Abstract Syntax. RDF 1.1 Concepts and Abstract Syntax defines an abstract syntax (a data model) which serves to link all RDF-based languages and specifications. The abstract syntax has two key data structures: RDF graphs are sets of subject-predicate-object triples, where the elements may be IRIs, blank nodes, or datatyped literals. They are used to express descriptions of resources. RDF datasets are used to organize collections of RDF graphs, and comprise a default graph and zero or more named graphs. This document also introduces key concepts and terminology, and discusses datatyping and the handling of fragment identifiers in IRIs within RDF graphs. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity.

Pointer Events Draft Published The Pointer Events Working Group has published a Working Draft of Pointer Events. This document defines events and related interfaces for handling hardware agnostic pointer input from devices like a mouse, pen, or touchscreen. For compatibility with existing mouse-based content, this specification also describes a mapping to fire DOM-LEVEL-3-EVENTS Mouse Events for pointer device types other than mouse. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

W3C Advisory Committee Elects Technical Architecture Group The W3C Advisory Committee has elected the following people to the Technical Architecture Group (TAG): Marcos Caceres (Unaffiliated), Yehuda Katz (jQuery Foundation), Alex Russell (Google), and Anne van Kesteren (Unaffiliated). They join continuing participants Noah Mendelsohn (unaffiliated), Jonathan Rees (unaffiliated), Jeni Tennison (Open Data Institute), and Henry Thompson (U. of Edinburgh), as well as co-Chair Tim Berners-Lee. W3C thanks those TAG participants whose terms end this month for their contributions: Peter Linss (HP), Ashok Malhotra (Oracle), and Larry Masinter (Adobe). 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. Learn more about the TAG.

Three drafts published by the Web Cryptography Working Group The Web Cryptography Working Group has published three documents today. A Working Draft of Web Cryptography API. This specification describes a JavaScript API for performing basic cryptographic operations in web applications, such as hashing, signature generation and verification, and encryption and decryption. Additionally, it describes an API for applications to generate and/or manage the keying material necessary to perform these operations. Uses for this API range from user or service authentication, document or code signing, and the confidentiality and integrity of communications.

A First Public Working Draft of WebCrypto Key Discovery. This specification describes a JavaScript API for discovering named, origin-specific pre-provisioned cryptographic keys for use with the Web Cryptography API. Pre-provisioned keys are keys which have been made available to the UA by means other than the generation, derivation, imporation functions of the Web Cryptography API. Origin-specific keys are keys that are available only to a specified origin. Named keys are identified by a name assumed to be known to the origin in question and provisioned with the key itself.

A First Public Working Draft of Web Cryptography API Use Cases. This document is an informative overview of the target use cases for a cryptographic API for the web. These use cases, described as scenarios, represent some of the set of expected functionality that may be achieved by the Web Cryptography API, which provides an API for cryptographic operations such as encryption and decryption, and the Key Discovery API, which specifically covers the ability to access cryptographic keys that have been pre-provisioned. Learn more about the Security Activity. This document is