Early Bird Rate Extended for SVG Introduction Course Register for the next session of W3C's online training course: Introduction to SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics). The early bird rate of €124 is extended until 4 January 2011. After that, the rate is €165. Professor David Dailey of Slippery Rock University, Pennsylvania, will lead the course, as he has led previous sessions. The course is six weeks long, starting in January 2011. The first four weeks are the "core" of the training, where participants learn how to create SVG documents, add border effects, rescale and rotate images, etc.The final two weeks of the course, optional, will show how to add animation, use scripting, create interactive graphics, and more. The only pre-requisite for the course is to have some familiarity with HTML/XML and the ability to edit source code directly. Full details of the course (audience, content, timing, weekly commitment) are available in the Introduction to SVG: Course Description. Learn more about Scalable Vector Graphics.

W3C Launches Federated Social Web Incubator Group W3C is pleased to announce the creation of the Federated Social Web Incubator Group, whose mission is to investigate the core functionality and the overall technical architecture for a federated social web, provide a set of community-driven specifications and a test-case suite for a federated social web that offers a compelling experience for users. The following W3C Members have sponsored the charter for this group: DERI, Google, OpenLink, Vodafone. 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 but in many cases serves as a starting point for a future Working Group.

Incubator Group Report: Provenance XG Final Report The W3C Provenance Incubator Group has published their final report. The provenance of information is crucial to making determinations about whether information is trusted, how to integrate diverse information sources, and how to give credit to originators when reusing information. The report highlights the importance of provenance and presents requirements in a variety of contexts in the Web based on use cases collected from the community. Based on these requirements and a close examination of existing provenance work, the XG identified the need for standard mechanisms to represent and access provenance. The group formulated a roadmap for provenance on the Web that includes short term and long term priorities. The group also agreed to concrete starting points to ensure rapid progress towards a standardization effort, and proposed a charter for a Provenance Interchange Working Group. This publication is part of the Incubator Activity, a forum where W3C Members can innovate and experiment. This work is not on the W3C standards track.

W3C Launches Media Analysis Management Interface Incubator Group W3C is pleased to announce the creation of the Media Analysis Management Interface Incubator Group, whose mission is to discuss the requirements and determine the feasibility of the "Media Analysis Management Interface." That interfaces consists of the data model and exchange protocol for the analysis data of various media, such as video images, RFID sensor data, and so on. The following W3C Members have sponsored the charter for this group: NEC Corporation, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. (NTT), and Fujitsu Limited. 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 but in many cases serves as a starting point for a future Working Group.

Contacts API Draft Updated The Device APIs and Policy Working Group has published a Working Draft of Contacts API. This specification defines the concept of a user's unified address book - where address book data may be sourced from a plurality of sources - both online and locally. This specification then defines the interfaces on which third party applications can access a user's unified address book, with explicit user permission and filtering. The focus of this data sharing is on making the user aware of the data that they will share and putting them at the center of the data sharing process; free to select both the extent to which they share their address book information and the ability to restrict which pieces of information related to which contact gets shared. Learn more about the Ubiquitous Web Applications Activity.

Introduction to SVG online course: Early Bird Registration Open for January 2011 Session! Registration is now open for the next session of W3C's online training course: Introduction to SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics). Professor David Dailey of Slippery Rock University, Pennsylvania, will lead the course, as he has led previous sessions. The course is six weeks long, starting in January 2011. During the first four weeks (the "core" of the session), participants learn how to create SVG documents, to use basic elements to create effective graphics quickly and easily, add border effects, linear and radial gradients, re-use components, and rescale, rotate and translate images. During the (optional) final two weeks of the course participants learn how to: add animation, use scripting to transform and manipulate images, and create interactive graphics. The last two weeks will most benefit those with some background in scripting. The only pre-requisite for the course is to have some familiarity with HTML/XML and the ability to edit source code directly. The early bird rate of €124 is available until Thursday, 23 December. After that, the rate is €165. Full details of the course (audience, content, timing, weekly commitment) are available in the Introduction to SVG: Course Description. Learn more about Scalable Vector Graphics.

Incubator Group Report: A Standards-based, Open and Privacy-aware Social Web The W3C Social Web Incubator Group has published their final report. The mission of the Incubator Group was to understand the systems and technologies that permit the description and identification of people, groups, organizations, and user-generated content in extensible and privacy-respecting ways. The report describes a framework for understanding the Social Web and many relevant standards (from both within and outside the W3C), and concludes by proposing a strategy for making the Social Web a "first-class citizen" of the Web. The report recommends that the W3C should offer resources to start a Federated Social Web Incubator Group, and that the W3C host a workshop to investigate identity in the browser with existing communities in order to determine how digital identity fits into the One Web platform. This publication is part of the Incubator Activity, a forum where W3C Members can innovate and experiment. This work is not on the W3C standards track.

Technical Architecture Group Participants Announced W3C announces the results of this year's Technical Architecture Group (TAG) election process: Peter Linss (HP), Ashok Malhotra (Oracle), and Larry Masinter (Adobe) all begin 2-year terms on 1 February 2011. 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. Peter, Ashok, and Larry join fellow TAG members Dan Appelquist (Vodafone), Jonathan Rees (Creative Commons), and Henry Thompson (U. of Edinburgh). Noah Mendelsohn (unaffiliated) and Tim Berners-Lee co-Chair the TAG. There remains one seat for appointment by the Director. Learn more about the TAG.

Last Call: XML Processor Profiles The XML Processing Model Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of XML Processor Profiles. This specification defines several XML processor profiles, each of which fully determines a data model for any given XML document. It is intended as a resource for other specifications, which can by a single normative reference establish precisely what input processing they require. Comments are welcome through 14 January. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity.

Smarter Integration of Web and Broadcasting: Second Workshop on Web and TV Scheduled W3C announces the second in a series of Workshops on the Web and TV. The Second W3C Web and TV Workshop takes place in Berlin, Germany, 8-9 February 2011, hosted by Fraunhofer-Fokus. Participants in this workshop will continue discussions begun in Japan in September 2010 (see summary) among the television industry, other producers of consumer electronics, and the Web community. Participants in this Workshop have the opportunity to share their own perspectives, requirements, and ideas to ensure that emerging global standards meet their needs. Topics are likely to include: the advantages of supporting HTML5 (such as its rich feature set, global language support, and support for accessibility), compatibility with existing television technology, performance issues, the transition from existing approaches to Web-based ones, digital rights management, nomadic user interfaces (where users change devices without losing the flow of their activity), and more. Anyone may participate in this Workshop; a position paper is required and space is limited to 80 people. Position papers are due 7 January 2011 but expressions of interest sooner than that are appreciated. Please see the the Call for Participation for further details.

HTML5 Web Messaging Draft Published The Web Applications Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of HTML5 Web Messaging. This specification defines two mechanisms for communicating between browsing contexts in HTML documents. Cross document messaging allows documents to communicate with each other regardless of their source domain, in a way designed to not enable cross-site scripting attacks. Channel messaging allows independent pieces of code (e.g. running in different browsing contexts) to communicate directly. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

Internet Society Reconfirms Support for W3C Open Web Platform with Donation In its continuing efforts to foster an open Internet ecosystem, the Internet Society today announced a 1M USD donation to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). This donation, the second installment of the Internet Society's 2009 pledge of 2.5M USD over three years, will support the evolution of W3C as an organization that creates open Web standards. "The W3C is a key member of the ecosystem of organizations that supports the continued development, operation, and use of the open, global Internet," said Raúl Echeberría, Chair of the Internet Society Board of Trustees. ISOC and W3C have closely aligned views and strongly support the ongoing evolution of open Internet as an invaluable platform for innovation. Read more in the press release and FAQ about ISOC and W3C.

Last Call: WOFF File Format 1.0 The WebFonts Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of WOFF File Format 1.0. This document specifies a simple compressed file format for fonts, designed primarily for use on the Web and known as WOFF (Web Open Font Format). WOFF provides lightweight, easy-to-implement compression of font data, suitable for use with CSS style sheets. WOFF is a container format or "wrapper" for font data in already-existing formats rather than an actual font format in its own right. Comments are welcome through 14 December. Learn more about the Fonts Activity.

Last Call: XHTML+RDFa 1.1 The RDFa Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of XHTML+RDFa 1.1. RDFa Core 1.1 defines attributes and syntax for embedding semantic markup in Host Languages. XHTML+RDFa 1.1 defines one such Host Language. XHTML+RDFa 1.1 augments XHTML 1.1 by adding the attributes defined in RDFa Core 1.1. The result allows authors to create XHTML documents that also feature additional semantic markup. The announcement as a Last Call Working Draft is an open invitation to the general public to review and provide feedback on the specification via the RDFa Working Group mailing list. Comments are welcome through 09 December. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity.

Global Adoption of W3C Standards Boosted by ISO/IEC Official Recognition Today W3C, the International Standards Organization (ISO), and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) took steps that will encourage greater international adoption of W3C standards. W3C is now an "ISO/IEC JTC 1 PAS Submitter" (see the application), bringing "de jure" standards communities closer to the Internet ecosystem. As national bodies refer increasingly to W3C's widely deployed standards, users will benefit from an improved Web experience based on W3C's standards for an Open Web Platform. W3C expects to use this process (1) to help avoid global market fragmentation; (2) to improve deployment within government use of the specification; and (3) when there is evidence of stability/market acceptance of the specification. Web Services specifications will likely constitute the first package W3C will submit, by the end of 2010. For more information, see the W3C PAS Submission FAQ.

W3C Community Convenes Over Open Web Platform and Future Work About 300 people from the W3C community convene today in Lyon, France for TPAC 2010 Plenary to discuss the current challenges in building an Open Web Platform as well as ideas for future work. The day's agenda includes discussion of current integration challenges, demos of HTML5, CSS3 and other pieces of the Open Web Platform, discussion about next generation technologies and the connection between TV and the Web. The procedings of TPAC 2010 are public and will be made available shortly after the meeting. W3C also invites local developers to a 4 November meetup in Lyon.

Call for Review: CSS Color Module Level 3 Proposed Recommendation The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group has published a Proposed Recommendation of CSS Color Module Level 3. CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is a language for describing the rendering of HTML and XML documents in a variety of ways, including on screen and paper. CSS uses color-related properties and values to color the text, backgrounds, borders, and other parts of elements in a document. This specification describes color values and properties for foreground color and group opacity. These include properties and values from CSS level 2 and new values. Comments are welcome through 25 November. Learn more about the Style Activity.

W3C Launches Web Events Working Group W3C today launches the Web Events Working Group, whose chartered mission is to provide methods to enable the use of multi-touch and pen-tablet input on devices of all types. Web browsers and mobile devices are making increasing use of touch-sensitive inputs, such as with a screen, trackpad, or tablet interface, as the primary or supplementary interface for web applications. A related class of devices, including drawing tablets, interactive surfaces, pen devices, digital whiteboards, and spatial sensors, are also becoming more Web-enabled, driving the need to account for a wider range of capability than simple touch interfaces. The aim of this group is to determine an appropriate set of functionality to standardize, and to define those features in way that may be deployed quickly, widely, and interoperably. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

W3C Invites Developers to Meetup in Lyon (4 November) W3C invites people to a W3C meetup in Lyon, France on Thursday, 4 November (7-9pm) at the Lyon Convention Center. Anyone may attend the meetup at no cost. We encourage Web developers and designers to join these discussions, and to meet and chat with others in the W3C community who are convening that week during W3C's TPAC 2010. The evening will include a few speakers and demos on topics such as HTML5, SVG, augmented reality and the Web, W3C's new Unicorn validator, and more. W3C appreciates the support of sponsor Grand Lyon as well as other local partners. Please register online and meet us there.

First Draft of Navigation Timing Draft Published The Web Performance Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of Navigation Timing. To address the need for complete information on user experience, this document introduces the NavigationTiming interfaces. This interface allows JavaScript mechanisms to provide complete client-side latency measurements within applications. With the proposed interface, it will be possible, for instance, to measure a user's perceived page load time. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

Last Call: SOAP over Java Message Service 1.0 The SOAP-JMS Binding Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of SOAP over Java Message Service 1.0. This document specifies how SOAP binds to a messaging system that supports the Java Message Service (JMS). Bindings are specified for both SOAP 1.1 and SOAP 1.2 using the SOAP 1.2 Protocol Binding Framework. This specification also describes how to use WSDL documents to indicate and control the use of this binding. Comments are welcome through 19 November. Learn more about the Web Services Activity.

Last Call: RDFa Core 1.1 The RDFa Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of RDFa Core 1.1. RDFa Core is a specification for attributes to express structured data in any markup language, with an emphasis on HTML-family languages, the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Format, the Open Document Format and other Web-enabled document formats. The specification enables the human-readable and machine-readable markup of people, places, events, products, recipes, social networks, and many other concepts that are frequently published on the web. RDFa 1.1 improves upon RDFa 1.0 by adding a number of features requested by people to ease authoring. The announcement as a Last Call Working Draft is an open invitation to the general public to review and provide feedback on the specification via the RDFa Working Group mailing list. The deadline for review feedback is 6 December. Learn more about the Semantic Web.

Web Content Transformation Proxies 1.0 Retired W3C today retired Guidelines for Web Content Transformation Proxies 1.0. This document had been expected to become a W3C Recommendation. W3C published the document as a Candidate Recommendation in June. Since then, the Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group has not gathered sufficient evidence of implementation and W3C has therefore decided to discontinue work on this document.

XML Processor Profiles Draft Published The XML Processing Model Working Group has published a Working Draft of XML processor profiles. This specification defines several XML processor profiles, each of which fully determines a data model for any given XML document. It is intended as a resource for other specifications, which can by a single normative reference establish precisely what input processing they require. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity.

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

W3C Integrates Math on the Web with MathML 3 Standard W3C announces today an important standard for making mathematics on the Web more accessible and international, especially for early mathematics education. MathML 3 is the third version of a standard supported in a wide variety of applications including Web pages, e-books, equation editors, publishing systems, screen readers (that read aloud the information on a page) and braille displays, ink input devices, e-learning and computational software. MathML 3 is part of W3C's Open Web Platform, which includes HTML5, CSS, and SVG. "We expect wider deployment of MathML 3.0 will facilitate communication of mathematics and science over the Web," said Don McClure, Executive Director, American Mathematical Society. Read the full press release and testimonials. Learn more about Math at W3C.

Progress Events Draft Updated The Web Applications Working Group has published a Working Draft of Progress Events. The Progress Events specification defines an abstract event interface that can be used for measuring progress, e.g., in the sense of how much of a document has loaded. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

W3C Invites Implementations of CSS Style Attributes The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group invites implementation of the Candidate Recommendation of CSS Style Attributes. Markup languages such as HTML and SVG provide a style attribute on most elements, to hold inline style information that applies to those elements. One of the possible style sheet languages is CSS. This draft describes the syntax and interpretation of the CSS fragment that can be used in such style attributes. Learn more about the Style Activity.

First Draft of Web DOM Core Draft Published The Web Applications Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of Web DOM Core. Web DOM Core defines interfaces for accessing and updating various types of nodes in a DOM tree, as well as interfaces for adding, getting, and removing items from lists of tokens, and interfaces for retrieving items from collections of nodes and from lists of strings. W3C invites feedback on this early draft. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

Starts Monday, 11 October: Introduction to SVG Course As part of the Open Media Web project, co-funded by the European Union, the new W3C Course: Introduction to SVG begins on Monday, 11 October. The course is being lead by SVG IG member and author of an SVG Primer, David Dailey of Slippery Rock University, Pennsylvania with support from W3C Team member Phil Archer who leads the successful Mobile Web Best Practices course. The aim of this activity is to help people already familiar with core Web technologies, like HTML and XML, to extend their knowledge. Scalable Vector Graphics is not new, but it is rapidly gaining adherents and deployment across the world as developers aim to make content available on different sized screens without any loss of image quality. All modern browsers have at least some support for SVG and now really is the time to get to grips with this powerful and exciting technology. Registration will remain open for a while after the course starts but it's best to be there at the start when fellow participants are discussing the current material and receiving feedback from David Dailey on the assignments. For full details of the course and how to register, please see the course description. Learn more about SVG.

Last Call: Widget Packaging and Configuration The Web Applications Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of Widget Packaging and Configuration. Widgets are client-side applications that are authored using Web standards such as HTML5, but whose content can also be embedded into Web documents. The packaging specification relies on PKWare's Zip specification as the archive format, XML as a configuration document format, and a series of steps that runtimes follow when processing and verifying various aspects of a package. Comments are welcome through 26 October. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

First Draft of Permissions for Device API Access Published The Device APIs and Policy Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of Permissions for Device API Access. A number of Web APIs, in particular those used to access private or sensitive data from the hosting device, are meant to be discoverable, as well as disabled or enabled on a site-by-site or application-by-application basis, depending on the security context. For instance, the feature element as defined in the Widget Packaging and Configuration specification allows a widget runtime engine to grant access only to the specific APIs that the configuration file of the widget listed. This document identifies and names the various permissions that are attached to existing Web APIs. Learn more about the Ubiquitous Web Applications Activity.

W3C Launches Points of Interest Working Group W3C has launched a Points of Interest Working Group, whose mission is to develop technical specifications for the representation of "Points of Interest" information on the Web. For the purposes of this Working Group, a "Point of Interest" is defined simply as an entity at a physical location about which information is available. For example, the Taj Mahal in India is a point of interest, located at 27.174799° N, 78.042111°E (in the WGS84 geodetic system). Additional information could be associated with it, such as: it was completed around 1653, has a particular shape, and that it is open to visitors during specific hours. Points of Interest information is used in a wide variety of applications such as: augmented reality ("AR"), mapping and navigation systems, geocaching, etc. This group will primarily focus on POI use within AR applications but will strive to ensure reusability across applications. The group will also explore how the AR industry could best use, influence and contribute to Web standards. More information is available in the Working Group Charter. W3C launches this group as the result of discussion at the W3C Workshop on Augmented Reality on the Web. Learn more about the Ubiquitous Web Applications Activity.

Multilingual Web Workshop Program Published The MultilingualWeb Project, funded by the European Commission and coordinated by the W3C, is looking at best practices and standards related to all aspects of creating, localizing and deploying the multilingual Web. The project will raise visibility of what's available and identify gaps via a series of four events, over two years. The first Workshop takes place in Madrid, Spain on 26-27 October 2010. It is free and open to the public. A first view of the workshop program has just been published. Speakers represent a wide range of organizations and interests, including: BBC, DFKI, European Commission, Facebook, Google, Loquendo, LRC, Microsoft, Mozilla, Opera, SAP, W3C, WHO, and the World Wide Web Foundation. Session titles include: Developers, Creators, Localizers, Machines, and Users. The Workshop should provide useful cross-domain networking opportunities. Learn more about participation and registration in the Call for Participation and learn more about Internationalization at W3C.

W3C UK and Ireland Office Moves to Nominet After 13 years of successful work at STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, the W3C UK and Ireland Office has a new home at Nominet. Nominet runs the one of the world’s largest Internet registries, the registry for .uk domain names, with over eight million domain names. Phil Kingsland, Director of Marketing and Communications at Nominet, will be the new Office manager. He said, "We believe the work W3C does promoting web accessibility standards, and developing other standards that help web users to trust in the reputation of the Internet is well aligned with Nominet’s public purpose remit and vision, which is to be a leading force in making the Internet a trusted space, which everyone can be part of and has a positive impact on people’s lives." The Office plans a ceremonial launch later this year. W3C would like to thank STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and the W3C UK and Ireland Office staff, led by Michel D Wilson and his predecessors Stuart Robinson and Bob Hopgood, for their contributions to W3C and the Web. Learn more about the W3C Offices, regional W3C representatives that help promote the W3C mission.

Web on TV: Towards Smarter Integration of Web and Broadcasting The explosion of the mobile device market demonstrates how consumers have come to expect and rely on access to the network from anywhere, at any time. Increasingly, people expect similar access to the Web from consumer electronics such as televisions. W3C has begun to organize a series of workshops to discuss this convergence with television industry and other producers of consumer electronics. The first workshop in the series took place in Japan on 2-3 September. There, 150 participants from various industries discussed key use cases and important requirements for smarter integration of Web, broadcasting and consumer electronics technologies. A summary of the workshop is now available. One recommendation from the participants was for W3C to create "Web and TV" Interest Group. A draft charter is now available; W3C invites public comment on public-web-and-tv@w3.org. The proposed scope for the group is: Minimum clarification about the conceptual relationship between Web and TV, especially the architectural relationship between the services on Web and the TV services;

Identification of important requirements for the Web to function effectively with TV services on TV devices and TV-like devices;

Identification of important requirements for TV to function effectively on various devices with services on the Web;

Review and discussion of deliverables under development by other W3C groups, which touch on the use of the Web and TV;

Exploration of barriers to the Web and TV services working on TV devices and TV-like devices, and potential solutions;

Provide a forum for the exchange information about Web and TV activities around the world. Learn more about a Web of devices.

Widget Updates Draft Published The Web Applications Working Group has published a Working Draft 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 update itself; instead, a widget relies on the user agent to manage the update process. A user agent can perform an update over HTTP and from non-HTTP sources (e.g., directly from a device's memory card or hard disk). Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

W3C Launches Object Memory Modeling Incubator Group W3C is pleased to announce the creation of the Object Memory Modeling Incubator Group, whose mission is to define an object memory format, which allows for modeling of events or other information about individual physical artifacts - ideally over their lifetime - and which is explicitly designed to support data storage of those logs on so-called smart labels attached to the physical artifact. The following W3C Members have sponsored the charter for this group: German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI GmbH), SAP AG, Siemens AG. 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 but in many cases serves as a starting point for a future Working Group.

RDFa API Draft Published The RDFa Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of RDFa API. RDFa enables authors to publish structured information that is both human- and machine-readable. Concepts that have traditionally been difficult for machines to detect, like people, places, events, music, movies, and recipes, are now easily marked up in Web documents. While publishing this data is vital to the growth of Linked Data, using the information to improve the collective utility of the Web for humankind is the true goal. To accomplish this goal, it must be simple for Web developers to extract and utilize structured information from a Web document. This document details such a mechanism; an RDFa Application Programming Interface (RDFa API) that allows simple extraction and usage of structured information from a Web document. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity.

Multimodal Architecture and Interfaces Draft Updated The Multimodal Interaction Working Group has published an updated Working Draft of Multimodal Architecture and Interfaces (MMI Architecture), which defines a general and flexible framework providing interoperability among modality-specific components from different vendors - for example, speech recognition from one vendor and handwriting recognition from another. The main changes from the previous draft are (1) the inclusion of state charts for modality components, (2) the addition of a 'confidential' field to life-cycle events and (3) the removal of the 'media' field from life-cycle events. A diff-marked version of this document is available. Learn more about the W3C Multimodal Interaction Activity.

W3C Launches Unified Services Description Language Incubator Group W3C is pleased to announce the creation of the Unified Service Description Language Incubator Group, whose mission is to define a language for describing general and generic parts of technical and business services to allow services to become tradable and consumable. The following W3C Members have sponsored the charter for this group: Attensity Europe GmbH (formerly Empolis GmbH), German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI GmbH), SAP AG, Siemens AG. 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 but in many cases serves as a starting point for a future Working Group.

Call for Review: Timed Text Markup Language (TTML) 1.0 Proposed Recommendation The Timed Text Working Group has published a Proposed Recommendation of Timed Text Markup Language (TTML) 1.0. The Timed Text Markup Language is a content type that represents timed text media for the purpose of interchange among authoring systems. Timed text is textual information that is intrinsically or extrinsically associated with timing information. It is intended to be used for the purpose of transcoding or exchanging timed text information among legacy distribution content formats presently in use for subtitling and captioning functions. Comments are welcome through 12 October. Learn more about the Video in the Web Activity.

Introduction to SVG online course: Early Bird Registration open! W3C is delighted to announce its latest online training course: Introduction to SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics). The 5-week online course will be lead by David Dailey of Slippery Rock University, Pennsylvania, who is writing an SVG Primer. People taking the course will: create SVG documents;

learn how to add border effects, linear and radial gradients;

add animation using SMIL;

use scripting to transform and manipulate images; and

make graphics interactive and responsive to user input. The only pre-requisite for the course is that participants have some familiarity with HTML/XML and the ability to edit source code directly. Participants will have access to lectures and assignments guided by W3C experts on this topic. There will also be opportunities to discuss and share experiences with your peers who are faced with the same challenges of Web design. Registration is now open. The Early bird rate of 95 Euros is available until 1 October. After that date, the rate is 125 Euros. Full details of the course (audience, content, timing, weekly commitment) is available in the Introduction to SVG: Course Description.

Last Call: Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Events Specification The Web Applications Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Events Specification. DOM Events is designed with two main goals. The first goal is the design of an event system which allows registration of event listeners and describes event flow through a tree structure. Additionally, the specification will provide standard modules of events for user interface control and document mutation notifications, including defined contextual information for each of these event modules. The second goal of DOM Events is to provide a common subset of the current event systems used in existing browsers. This is intended to foster interoperability of existing scripts and content. Comments are welcome through 18 October. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

W3C Invites Implementations of Geolocation API Specification The Geolocation Working Group invites implementation of the Candidate Recommendation of Geolocation API Specification. The Geolocation API defines a high-level interface to location information associated only with the device hosting the implementation, such as latitude and longitude. The API itself is agnostic of the underlying location information sources. Common sources of location information include Global Positioning System (GPS) and location inferred from network signals such as IP address, RFID, WiFi and Bluetooth MAC addresses, and GSM/CDMA cell IDs, as well as user input. Learn more about the Ubiquitous Web Applications Activity.

Last Call: The Widget Interface The Web Applications Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of The Widget Interface. This specification defines an application programming interface (API) for widgets that provides, amongst other things, functionality for accessing a widget's metadata and persistently storing data. Comments are welcome through 28 September. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

W3C Launches HTML Speech Incubator Group W3C is pleased to announce the creation of the HTML Speech Incubator Group, whose mission is to determine the feasibility of integrating speech technology in HTML5 in a way that leverages the capabilities of both speech and HTML (e.g., DOM) to provide a high-quality, browser-independent speech/multimodal experience while avoiding unnecessary standards fragmentation or overlap. The following W3C Members have sponsored the charter for this group: Voxeo, Microsoft, Openstream, Google, AT&T, Mozilla. 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 but in many cases serves as a starting point for a future Working Group.

W3C Launches Web Performance Working Group W3C has launched a new Web Performance Working Group, whose mission is to provide methods to measure aspects of application performance of user agent features and APIs. As Web browsers and their underlying engines include richer capabilities and become more powerful, Web developers are building more sophisticated applications where application performance is increasingly important. Developers need the ability to assess and understand the performance characteristics of their applications using well-defined interoperable methods. This new Working Group will look at user agent features and APIs to measure aspects of application performance. Group deliverables will apply to desktop and mobile browsers and other non-browser environments where appropriate and will be consistent with Web technologies designed in other working groups including HTML, CSS, WebApps, DAP and SVG. Learn more in the Working Group charter and how this work fits into the W3C's Rich Web Client Activity.

Contacts API Draft Published The Device APIs and Policy Working Group has published a Working Draft of Contacts API. This specification defines the concept of a user's unified address book - where address book data may be sourced from a plurality of sources - both online and locally. This specification then defines the interfaces on which 3rd party applications can access a user's unified address book; with explicit user permission and filtering. Learn more about the Ubiquitous Web Applications Activity.

W3C Invites Implementations of XMLHttpRequest The Web Applications Working Group invites implementation of the Candidate Recommendation of XMLHttpRequest. The XMLHttpRequest specification defines an API that provides scripted client functionality for transferring data between a client and a server. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

Drafts of RDFa Core 1.1 and XHTML+RDFa 1.1 Published The RDFa Working Group has just published two Working Drafts: RDFa Core 1.1 and XHTML+RDFa 1.1. RDFa Core 1.1 is a specification for attributes to express structured data in any markup language. The embedded data already available in the markup language (e.g., XHTML) is reused by the RDFa markup, so that publishers don't need to repeat significant data in the document content. XHTML+RDFa 1.1 is an XHTML family markup language. That extends the XHTML 1.1 markup language with the attributes defined in RDFa Core 1.1. This document is intended for authors who want to create XHTML-Family documents that embed rich semantic markup. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity.

XHTML Modularization 1.1 - Second Edition is a W3C Recommendation The XHTML2 Working Group has published a W3C Recommendation of XHTML Modularization 1.1 - Second Edition. XHTML Modularization is a tool for people who design markup languages. XHTML Modularization helps people design and manage markup language schemas and DTDs; it explains how to write schemas that will plug together. Modules can be reused and recombined across different languages, which helps keep related languages in sync. This edition includes several minor updates to provide clarifications and address errors found in version 1.1. Learn more about the HTML Activity.

Draft of Emotion Markup Language (EmotionML) 1.0 Published The Multimodal Interaction Working Group has published a Working Draft 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 present draft specification of Emotion Markup Language 1.0 aims to strike a balance between practical applicability and basis in science. 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. Learn more about the Multimodal Interaction Activity.

Privacy Workshop Participants to Study Data Usage and Handling W3C announces organization of a Workshop on Privacy and Data Usage Control, to take place in Cambridge, MA, USA on 4-5 October 2010. Users trust enormous amounts of personal information to a large variety of online services including social network sites, search engines, photo and video sharing services, and hosted email solutions. As those services become ever more tightly integrated, it becomes increasingly difficult to control the spread of information on the Web. Participants will represent a broad set of stakeholders, including researchers, database manufacturers, CRM-system manufacturers, and Social Networking Providers. Participants will study whether there is interest in further work on policy languages and data handling/data usage work within W3C. Anyone may participate in the Workshop; all participants must submit a short position paper. More information about the Workshop is available in the Call for Participation. Learn more about W3C's Privacy Activity.

First Draft of WOFF File Format 1.0 Published The WebFonts Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of WOFF File Format 1.0. This document specifies the WOFF font format. This format was designed to provide lightweight, easy-to-implement compression of the font data, suitable for use in conjunction with CSS. Any TrueType/OpenType/Open Font Format file can be losslessly converted to WOFF for Web use (subject to licensing of the font data); once decoded by a user agent, the WOFF font will display identically to the original desktop font from which it was created. Learn more about the Fonts Activity.

Cross-Origin Resource Sharing Draft Published The Web Applications Working Group has published a Working Draft of Cross-Origin Resource Sharing. User agents commonly apply same-origin restrictions to network requests. These restrictions prevent a client-side Web application running from one origin from obtaining data retrieved from another origin, and also limit unsafe HTTP requests that can be automatically launched toward destinations that differ from the running application's origin. In user agents that follow this pattern, network requests typically use ambient authentication and session management information, including HTTP authentication and cookie information. This specification extends this model in a number of ways.Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

Last Call: Mobile Web Application Best Practices The Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of Mobile Web Application Best Practices. The goal of this document is to aid the development of rich and dynamic mobile Web applications. It collects the most relevant engineering practices, promoting those that enable a better user experience and warning against those that are considered harmful. The Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group does not expect more substantive changes at this point and expects to be able to transition directly to Proposed Recommendation at the end of the Last Call review period. Last call comments welcome before Comments are welcome through 06 August 2010. Learn more about the Mobile Web Initiative Activity.

Last Call: Media Fragments URI 1.0 The Media Fragments Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of Media Fragments URI 1.0. This document describes the Media Fragments 1.0 specification. It specifies the syntax for constructing media fragment URIs and explains how to handle them when used over the HTTP protocol. The syntax is based on the specification of particular field-value pairs that can be used in URI fragment and URI query requests to restrict a media resource to a certain fragment. Comments are welcome through 27 August. Learn more about the Video in the Web Activity.

Call for Review: Web Security Context: User Interface Guidelines Proposed Recommendation Published The Web Security Context Working Group has published a Proposed Recommendation of Web Security Context: User Interface Guidelines. This specification deals with the trust decisions that users must make online, and with ways to support them in making safe and informed decisions where possible. In order to achieve that goal, this specification includes recommendations on the presentation of identity information by user agents as well as recommendations on conveying error situations in security protocols. Comments are welcome through 20 July. Learn more about the Security Activity.

W3C Invites Implementations of Guidelines for Web Content Transformation Proxies 1.0 The Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group invites implementation of the Candidate Recommendation of Guidelines for Web Content Transformation Proxies 1.0. This document provides guidance to Content Transformation proxies as to whether and how to transform Web content. Content Transformation proxies are mostly used to convert Web sites designed for desktop computers to a form suitable for mobile devices. The objective is to reduce undesirable effects on Web applications, especially mobile-ready ones, and to limit the diversity in the modes of operation of Content Transformation proxies, while at the same time allowing proxies to alter content that would otherwise not display successfully on mobile devices. Learn more about the Mobile Web Initiative.

Last Call: Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) Version 3.0 The Math Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) Version 3.0. MathML is an XML application for describing mathematical notation and capturing both its structure and content. The goal of MathML is to enable mathematics to be served, received, and processed on the World Wide Web, just as HTML has enabled this functionality for text. MathML can be used to encode both mathematical notation and mathematical content. About thirty-eight of the MathML tags describe abstract notational structures, while another about one hundred and seventy provide a way of unambiguously specifying the intended meaning of an expression. Comments are welcome through 01 July. Learn more about the Math Activity.

First Draft of RDFa API Published The RDFa Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of the RDFa API. RDFa API provides a mechanism that allows Web-based applications using documents containing RDFa markup to extract and utilize structured data in a way that is useful to developers. The specification details how a developer may extract, store and query structured data contained within one or more RDFa-enabled documents. The design of the system is modular and allows multiple pluggable extraction and storage mechanisms supporting not only RDFa, but also Microformats, Microdata, and other structured data formats. For more information about the Semantic Web, please see the Semantic Web Activity.

CSS Generated Content for Paged Media Module Draft Published The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group has published a Working Draft of CSS Generated Content for Paged Media Module. This module describes features often used in printed publications. Most of the specified functionality involves some sort of generated content where content from the document is adorned, replicated, or moved in the final presentation of the document. Along with two other CSS3 modules - multi-column layout and paged media - this module offers advanced functionality for presenting structured documents on paged media. Learn more about the Style Activity.

Last Call: Ink Markup Language (InkML) The Multimodal Interaction Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of Ink Markup Language (InkML). The Ink Markup Language serves as the data format for representing ink entered with an electronic pen or stylus. The markup allows for the input and processing of handwriting, gestures, sketches, music and other notational languages in applications. It provides a common format for the exchange of ink data between components such as handwriting and gesture recognizers, signature verifiers, and other ink-aware modules. Comments are welcome through 17 June. Learn more about the Multimodal Interaction Activity.

W3C Launches Library Linked Data Incubator Group W3C is pleased to announce the creation of the Library Linked Data Incubator Group, whose mission is to help increase global interoperability of library data on the Web, by bringing together people involved in Semantic Web activities - focusing on Linked Data - in the library community and beyond, building on existing initiatives, and identifying collaboration tracks for the future. The following W3C Members have sponsored the charter for this group: Helsinki University of Technology, DERI Galway, Competence Centre for Interoperable Metadata (KIM), Library of Congress, Los Alamos National Laboratory, MIMOS, OCLC, Talis, University of Applied Sciences Potsdam, and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. 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 but in many cases serves as a starting point for a future Working Group.

W3C Launches Audio Incubator Group W3C is pleased to announce the creation of the Audio Incubator Group, whose mission is to explore the possibility of starting one or more specifications dealing with various aspects of advanced audio functionality, including reading and writing raw audio data, and synthesizing sound or speech. The Audio Incubator Group will engage the various constituents of such specifications, including musicians, audio engineers, accessibility experts, user-interface designers, implementers, and hardware manufacturers, to collect use cases and requirements on what can and should be done for various specifications at different levels of priority, and deliver one or more reports including recommendations for specification work items. The following W3C Members have sponsored the charter for this group: Mozilla Foundation, PUC-Rico, BBC, and Google. 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 but in many cases serves as a starting point for a future Working Group.

First Draft of XSL Transformations (XSLT) Version 2.1 Draft Published The XSL Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of XSL Transformations (XSLT) Version 2.1. This specification defines the syntax and semantics of XSLT 2.1, a language for transforming XML documents into other XML documents. The main focus for enhancements in XSLT 2.1 is the requirement to enable streaming of source documents. This is needed when source documents become too large to hold in main memory, and also for applications where it is important to start delivering results before the entire source document is available. The approach adopted in this specification is twofold: it identifies a set of restrictions which, if followed by stylesheet authors, will enable implementations to adopt a streaming mode of operation without placing excessive demands on the optimization capabilities of the processor; and it provides new constructs to indicate that streaming is required, or to express transformations in a way that makes it easier for the processor to adopt a streaming execution plan. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity.

Last Call: Digital Signatures for Widgets The Web Applications Working Group has published a second Last Call Working Draft of Digital Signatures for Widgets. This document defines a profile of the XML Signature Syntax and Processing 1.1 specification to allow a widget package to be digitally signed. Widget authors and distributors can digitally sign widgets as a mechanism to ensure continuity of authorship and distributorship. Comments are welcome through 01 June. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

XProc Standard Defines Way to Organize and Share XML Workflows Today W3C announced a powerful tool for managing XML-rich processes such as business processes used in enterprise environments. The W3C Recommendation "XProc: An XML Pipeline Language," provides a standard framework for composing XML processes. XProc streamlines the automation, sequencing and management of complex computations involving XML by leveraging existing technologies widely adopted in the enterprise setting. "XML is tremendously versatile," said Norman Walsh, MarkLogic, and one of the co-editors of the specification. "Just off the top of my head, I can name standard ways to store, validate, query, transform, include, label, and link XML. What we haven't had is any standard way to describe how to combine them to accomplish any particular task. That's what XProc provides." Read more in the press release and learn more about XML.

Incubator Report: Model-Based User Interfaces The Model-Based User Interfaces Incubator Group (MBUI-XG) published their final report today. During the last year the MBUI-XG has evaluated research on MBUIs, including end-to-end models that extend beyond a single Web page, and has assessed its potential as a framework for developing context-sensitive Web applications. This report gives an overview of the main results achieved by such an Incubator Group. W3C has also organized a Workshop on Future Standards for Model-Based User Interfaces (13-14 May 2010, Rome) to identify opportunities and challenges for new open standards in this area, particularly concerning the semantics and syntaxes of task, abstract and concrete user interface models. This publication is part of the Incubator Activity, a forum where W3C Members can innovate and experiment. This work is not on the W3C standards track.

W3C Advisory Committee Elects Advisory Board The W3C Advisory Committee has filled five 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 2010, the nine Advisory Board participants are Jean-François Abramatic (IBM), Ann Bassetti (The Boeing Company), Jim Bell (HP), Michael Champion (Microsoft), Don Deutsch (Oracle), Robert Freund (Hitachi), Ora Lassila (Nokia), Charles McCathieNevile (Opera Software), and Takeshi Natsuno (Keio University). Steve Zilles continues as interim Advisory Board Chair. Read more about the Advisory Board.

CSS Template Layout Module Draft Published The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group has published a Working Draft of CSS Template Layout Module. This specification is part of level 3 of CSS and contains features to describe layouts at a high level, meant for tasks such as the positioning and alignment of "widgets" in a graphical user interface or the layout grid for a page or a window, in particular when the desired visual order is different from the order of the elements in the source document. Learn more about the Style Activity.

W3C to Examine Privacy Challenges of Advanced Web Technologies in Workshop The broad availability of possibly sensitive data collected through location sensors and other facilities in a Web browser illustrates the broad new privacy challenges Web users face today. For example, new APIs in Web browsers running on a mobile device provide Web applications with access to GPS data or a camera. W3C invites the community to examine these privacy challenges at a Workshop on Privacy for Advanced Web APIs, 12-13 July 2010 in London, England, and hosted by Vodafone. Workshop participants will review recent experience and investigate strategies for effective, near-term privacy protection on the Web. Anyone who submits a position paper following the guidelines may participate, space permitting. There is no fee to participate and W3C Membership is not required. Paper submissions are due 1 June. For more information, see the Workshop home page.

Community Invited to Discuss Augmented Reality on the Web at W3C Workshop W3C announced today a Workshop on Augmented Reality on the Web, 15-16 June 2010 in Barcelona (Spain). Augmented reality (AR) is a long standing topic in its own right but it has not been developed on the Web platform. As mobile devices become more powerful and feature-rich, the workshop will explore the possible convergence of AR and the Web. The objective of this Workshop is to provide a single forum for researchers and technologists to discuss the state of the art for AR on the Web, particularly the mobile platform, and what role standardization should play for Open Augmented Reality. Position papers are due 29 May. Please see the Call for Participation for more information.

Early Bird Registration for New Mobile Web Training Course ends 23 April W3C has updated the popular online training course "Introduction to Mobile Web Best Practices" for 2010. The first run of this updated course begins on Monday, 10 May. Early Bird registration ends this Friday, 23 April! (although full registration remains open until after the course has begun). Led by members of W3C's Mobile Web Initiative, people attending the course will: learn about the specific promises and challenges of the mobile platform;

learn how to use W3C's Mobile Web Best Practices to design mobile-friendly Web content and to adapt existing content for mobile;

learn client side and server side techniques for adapting your content to different classes of device. Learn more about the Mobile Web Initiative.

W3C Invites Implementations of Widget Access Request Policy The Web Applications Working Group invites implementation of the Candidate Recommendation of Widget Access Request Policy. User agents running widgets are expected to provide access to potentially sensitive APIs (phone book, calendar, file system, etc.) that expose data which should not be exposed without the user's consent. The purpose of this specification is to define the security model for network interactions from within a widget that has access to sensitive information. It provides means for a widget to declare its intent to access specific network resources so that a policy may control it. Follow the group's development of an implementation report and learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

Last Call: View Mode Media Feature The Web Applications Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of View Mode Media Feature. Web applications, be they widgets or in-browser, can on most platforms be run in multiple visual modes. At times they may occupy the entire screen, at others they may be minimized to a specific docking area; at times they may have chrome that matches the operating system's style while at others they may be providing their own controls. The user is generally in control of at least several aspects of these modalities, and it is therefore important for authors to be able to react to these in order to provide different styling to their applications. In order to achieve this, this specification defines a media feature that allows different CSS style rules to be applied depending on whether a given media query matches. Comments are welcome through 18 May. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

Join W3C in Discussions on HTML5, Linked Open Data at WWW2010 W3C invites WWW2010 conference participants to attend two W3C track sessions on April 29 and 30 in Raleigh, North Carolina (USA). Responding to the Web community’s demand for open discussion on the future of HTML5 and Linked Data, W3C organizes this year an HTML5 camp and a Linked Open Data camp. Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director, will lead off the Linked Open Data camp and participate in discussions on topics such as open data deployment in government and managing privacy as the Web of data grows. At the HTML5 camp on April 30, W3C staff will lead discussions on what developers can expect today and in the near future from the open Web platform that is HTML5. W3C’s Chief Executive Officer, Jeff Jaffe and several other W3C staff will participate in and lead events at WWW2010 and other co-located meetings. Read the media advisory for more information.

Last Call: Digital Signatures for Widgets The Web Applications Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of Digital Signatures for Widgets. This document defines a profile of the XML Signature Syntax and Processing 1.1 specification to allow a widget package to be digitally signed. Widget authors and distributors can digitally sign widgets as a mechanism to ensure continuity of authorship and distributorship. Comments are welcome through 6 May. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

Associating Schemas with XML documents 1.0 (First Edition) Note Published The XML Core Working Group has published a Group Note of Associating Schemas with XML documents 1.0 (First Edition). There are several document schema definition languages in common use today that can be used to specify one or more validation processes performed against Extensible Markup Language (XML) documents. Some schema languages provide their own syntax for associating schemas with documents (DTD, W3C XML Schema) and some languages (RELAX NG, Schematron) do not provide schema association mechanisms at all. The purpose of this specification is to define a common, schema-agnostic syntax for associating schema documents written in any schema definition language with a given XML document. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity.

Call for Review: XHTML Modularization 1.1 - Second Edition Proposed Edited Recommendation Published The XHTML2 Working Group has published a Proposed Edited Recommendation of XHTML Modularization 1.1 - Second Edition. This document is the second edition of version 1.1 of XHTML Modularization, an abstract modularization of XHTML and implementations of the abstraction using XML Document Type Definitions (DTDs) and XML Schemas. This modularization 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 specification does not define the semantics of elements and attributes, only how those elements and attributes are assembled into modules, and from those modules into markup languages. This update includes several minor updates to provide clarifications and address errors found in version 1.1. Comments are welcome through 12 May. Learn more about the HTML Activity.

Widget Updates Draft Published The Web Applications Working Group has published a Working Draft of Widget Updates. This specification defines a process and a document format to allow a user agent to update an installed widget package with different version of a widget package. A widget cannot update itself; instead, a widget relies on the user agent to manage the update process. A user agent can perform an update over HTTP and from non-HTTP sources (e.g., directly from a device's memory card or hard disk). Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

Media Fragments URI 1.0 Draft Published The Media Fragments Working Group has published a Working Draft of Media Fragments URI 1.0. This specification provides for a media-format independent, standard means of addressing media fragments on the Web using Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI). In the context of this document, media fragments are regarded along three different dimensions: temporal, spatial, and tracks. Further, a fragment can be marked with a name and then addressed through a URI using that name. The specified addressing schemes apply mainly to audio and video resources - the spatial fragment addressing may also be used on images. Learn more about the Video in the Web Activity.

XQuery Scripting Extension 1.0 Draft Published The XML Query Working Group has published a Working Draft of XQuery Scripting Extension 1.0. This specification defines an extension to XQuery 1.0 and XQuery Update Facility. Expressions can be evaluated in a specific order, with later expressions seeing the effects of the expressions that came before them. This specification introduces several new kinds of expression, including the apply, assignment, while, and exit expression, and a block expression with local variable declarations. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity.

W3C Invites Comments on First Draft of File API: Writer The Device APIs and Policy Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of File API: Writer. Web applications are currently fairly limited in how they can write to files. One can present a link for download, but creating and writing files of arbitrary type, or modifying downloaded files on their way to the disk, is difficult or impossible. This specification defines an API through which user agents can permit applications to write generated or downloaded files. Learn more about the Ubiquitous Web Applications Activity.

XML Entity Definitions for Characters is a W3C Recommendation The Math Working Group has published a W3C Recommendation of XML Entity Definitions for Characters. Notation and symbols have proved very important for human communication, especially in scientific documents. Mathematics has grown in part because its notation continually changes toward being succinct and suggestive. On the Web, the majority of cases it is preferable to store characters directly as Unicode character data or as XML numeric character references. This document is the result of years of employing entity names on the Web. It presents a completed listing harmonizing the known uses of character entity names throughout the XML world and Unicode. Learn more about the Math Activity.

W3C Invites Implementations of Voice Browser Call Control: CCXML Version 1.0 The Voice Browser Working Group invites implementation of the Candidate Recommendation of Voice Browser Call Control: CCXML Version 1.0. This document describes CCXML, or the Call Control eXtensible Markup Language. CCXML provides declarative markup to describe telephony call control. It can provide a complete telephony service application, comprised of Web server CGI compliant application logic, one or more CCXML documents to declare and perform call control actions, and to control one or more dialog applications that perform user media interactions. CCXML is a language that can be used with a dialog system such as (but not limited to) VoiceXML. Learn more about the Voice Browser Activity.

New Mobile Web Training Course Open for Early Bird Registration W3C has updated the popular online training course Introduction to W3C's Mobile Web Best Practices for 2010. The first run of this updated course begins on Monday, 10 May. Early Bird registration is now open! Led by members of W3C's Mobile Web Initiative, people attending the course will: learn about the specific promises and challenges of the mobile platform;

learn how to use W3C's Mobile Web Best Practices to design mobile-friendly Web content and to adapt existing content for mobile;

learn client side and server side techniques for adapting your content to different classes of device. Read more about the Mobile Web Initiative.

W3C to Participate in SVG Open 2010 With SVG support announced for all major browsers, there is an uptake in interest in SVG. W3C joins other sponsors to help with SVG Open 2010, the 8th international conference on Scalable Vector Graphics, to be held in Paris, France from August 30 to September 1, 2010. SVG Open provides an opportunity for designers, developers and implementers to learn about SVG, and share ideas, experiences, products, and strategies. Members of the W3C SVG Working Group, including W3C Team members Chris Lilley and Doug Schepers, will be attending and presenting at the conference, which will include a Working Group panel session on future SVG developments, and an implementers panel. The conference includes a day of workshops. The conference organizers welcome proposals for presentation abstracts and course outlines through 31 March. Learn more about the W3C Graphics Activity.

W3C Launches WebFonts Working Group W3C launched today the new WebFonts Working Group, which aims to bring typographic richness on the Web to it’s full potential. Font linking mechanisms are already standardized or in development, so the group will focus on WOFF, an interoperable font format for the Web. The group will work in public and will consult widely with the typographic community. Read the WebFonts WG charter, join the group, and learn more about Fonts on the Web.

W3C Launches Decisions and Decision-Making Incubator Group W3C is pleased to announce the creation of the Decisions and Decision-Making Incubator Group, whose mission is to determine the requirements, use cases, and a representation of decisions and decision-making in a collaborative and networked environment suitable for leading to a potential standard for decision exchange, shared situational awareness, and measurement of the speed, effectiveness, and human factors of decision-making.. The following W3C Members have sponsored the charter for this group: DISA, MITRE, and CNR. 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 but in many cases serves as a starting point for a future Working Group.

Community Invited to Discuss Conversational Applications at Workshop W3C announced today a Workshop on Conversational Applications - Use Cases and Requirements for New Models of Human Language to Support Mobile Conversational Systems, 18-19 June 2010 in Somerset, New Jersey (USA), Hosted by Openstream. There is currently an increasing need for new capabilities of the human language model to support sophisticated conversational applications. The goal of the Workshop is to understand the limitations of the current W3C language model in order to develop a more comprehensive one. Participants will collect and analyze use cases and prioritize requirements that ultimately will improve support for language capabilities that are unsupported today. Position papers are due 2 April. Please see the Call for Participation for more information.

WebCGM 2.1 is a W3C Recommendation The WebCGM Working Group has published a W3C Recommendation of WebCGM 2.1. Computer Graphics Metafile (CGM) is an ISO standard, defined by ISO/IEC 8632:1999, for the interchange of 2D vector and mixed vector/raster graphics. WebCGM is a profile of CGM, which adds Web linking and is optimized for Web applications in technical illustration, electronic documentation, geophysical data visualization, and similar fields. WebCGM aims to balance graphical expressive power on the one hand, and simplicity and implementability on the other. A small but powerful set of standardized metadata elements supports the functionalities of hyperlinking and document navigation, picture structuring and layering, and enabling search and query of WebCGM picture content. WebCGM 2.1 refines and completes the features found in WebCGM 2.0. Learn more about the Graphics Activity.

Last Call: Web Security Context: User Interface Guidelines The Web Security Context Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of Web Security Context: User Interface Guidelines. This specification deals with the trust decisions that users must make online, and with ways to support them in making safe and informed decisions where possible. This document specifies user interactions with a goal toward making security usable, based on known best practice in this area. Comments are welcome through 31 March. Learn more about the Security Activity.

Dr. Jeffrey Jaffe Named W3C CEO W3C today named Dr. Jeffrey Jaffe its new Chief Executive Officer. "Web technologies continue to be the vehicle for every industry to incorporate the rapid pace of change into their way of doing business," said Dr. Jaffe. "I'm excited to join W3C at this time of increased innovation, since W3C is the place where the industry comes together to set standards for the Web in an open and collaborative fashion." As W3C CEO, Dr. Jaffe will work with Director Tim Berners-Lee, staff, Membership, and the public to evolve and communicate W3C's organizational vision. The CEO is responsible for W3C's global operations, for maintaining the interests of all of the W3C’s stakeholders, and for sustaining a culture of cooperation and transparency, so that W3C continues to be the leading forum for the technical development and stewardship of the Web. Read the CEO Blog and learn more in the press release.

W3C Community Invited to Discuss Future Standards for Model-Based User Interfaces W3C announced today a Workshop on Future Standards for Model-Based User Interfaces, 13-14 May 2010 in Rome Italy. Participants will examine the challenges facing Web developers due to variations in device capabilities, modes of interaction and software standards, the need to support assistive technologies for accessibility, and the demand for richer user interfaces. Discussion will focus on reviewing research on model-based design of context- sensitive user interfaces in relation to these challenges, and the opportunities for new open standards in the area of Model-Based User Interfaces. W3C Membership is not required to participate; anyone who satisfies the participation requirements may attend as long as space permits. Statements of interest are due 2 April. Please see the Call for Participation for more information.

Call for Review: XML Entity Definitions for Characters Proposed Recommendation Published The Math Working Group has published a Proposed Recommendation of XML Entity Definitions for Characters. This document presents a completed listing harmonizing the known uses in math and science of character entity names that appear throughout the XML world and Unicode. This document is the result of years of employing entity names on the Web. There were always a few named entities used for special characters in HTML, but a flood of new names came with the symbols of mathematics. Comments are welcome through 11 March. Learn more about the Math Activity.

W3C Welcomes Comments on First Draft of Web Services Event Descriptions The Web Services Resource Access Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of Web Services Event Descriptions (WS-EventDescriptions). In the Web Services context, there are many use cases in which it is necessary for an endpoint to advertise the structure and contents of the events that it might generate. For example, a subscriber might wish to know the shape of the events that are generated in order to properly formulate a filter to limit the number of notifications that are transmitted, or to ensure it can successfully process the type of events that are transmitted. This specification describes a mechanism by which an endpoint can advertise the structure and contents of the events it might generate. Learn more about the Web Services Activity.

Comments Welcome on First Draft of The System Information API The Device APIs and Policy Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of The System Information API. This specification defines an API to provide Web applications with access to various properties of the system which they are running on. Specifically, properties pertaining to the device hardware are addressed. Examples include battery status, current network bandwidth. Additionally, some of those properties offer access to the environment around the device, such as ambient brightness or atmospheric pressure. Learn more about the Ubiquitous Web Applications Activity.

Uniform Messaging Policy, Level One Draft Published The Web Applications Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of Uniform Messaging Policy, Level One. The Uniform Messaging Policy (UMP) enables cross-site messaging that avoids Cross-Site-Request-Forgery and similar attacks that abuse HTTP cookies and other credentials. For example, content from customer.example.org can safely specify requests to resources determined by service.example.com. Rather than restricting information retrieval to a single origin, as the Same Origin Policy almost does, the Uniform Messaging Policy supports origin independent messaging. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

Last Call: CSS Styling Attributes Level 1 The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of CSS Styling Attributes Level 1. Markup languages such as HTML and SVG provide a styling attribute on most elements, to hold a fragment of a style sheet that applies to those elements. One of the possible style sheet languages is CSS. This draft describes the syntax and interpretation of the CSS fragment that can be used in such styling attributes. Comments are welcome through 09 February. Learn more about the Style Activity.

Selectors API Level 2 First Draft Published The Web Applications Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of Selectors API Level 2. 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, and for testing if a given element matches a particular selector. It is often desirable to perform DOM operations on a specific set of elements in a document. These methods simplify the process of acquiring and testing specific elements, especially compared with the more verbose techniques defined and used in the past. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

Call for Review: WebCGM 2.1 Proposed Recommendation Published The WebCGM Working Group has published a Proposed Recommendation of WebCGM 2.1. Computer Graphics Metafile (CGM) is an ISO standard, defined by ISO/IEC 8632:1999, for the interchange of 2D vector and mixed vector/raster graphics. WebCGM is a profile of CGM, which adds Web linking and is optimized for Web applications in technical illustration, electronic documentation, geophysical data visualization, and similar fields. WebCGM 2.1, refines and completes the features of the major WebCGM 2.0 release. WebCGM 2.0 added a DOM (API) specification for programmatic access to WebCGM objects, a specification of an XML Companion File (XCF) architecture, and extended the graphical and intelligent content of WebCGM 1.0. Comments are welcome through 11 February. Learn more about the Graphics Activity. The review end date was corrected on 20 January.

W3C Advisory Committee Elects Technical Architecture Group Participants [CORRECTION] Correction 13 January 2010 : The W3C Advisory Committee has elected Daniel Appelquist (Vodafone) and Henry Thompson (U. of Edinburgh) to the W3C Technical Architecture Group (TAG). The Director has appointed Ashok Malhotra (Oracle), Noah Mendelsohn, and Jonathan Rees. This outcome reflects the correct application of the tie-breaking algorithm. Original message from 11 January: The W3C Advisory Committee has re-elected Ashok Malhotra (Oracle) and Henry Thompson (U. of Edinburgh) to the W3C Technical Architecture Group (TAG). Continuing TAG participants are John Kemp (Nokia), Larry Masinter (Adobe), T.V. Raman (Google). The Director is also expected to appoint three individuals very soon. 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.

Last Call: XProc: An XML Pipeline Language The XML Processing Model Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of XProc: An XML Pipeline Language, a language for describing operations to be performed on XML documents. A pipeline consists of steps. Like pipelines, steps take zero or more XML documents as their inputs and produce zero or more XML documents as their outputs. The inputs of a step come from the web, from the pipeline document, from the inputs to the pipeline itself, or from the outputs of other steps in the pipeline. The outputs from a step are consumed by other steps, are outputs of the pipeline as a whole, or are discarded. Comments are welcome through 02 February. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity.