W3C Takes Steps to Make Video "First-Class" Web Citizen

Example of media fragments 2008-08-15: Web-based video is exploding, for advertising, enterprise collaboration, entertainment, product reviews, and other applications. As prices drop for consumer electronics, amateur and professionals alike are creating increasingly high quality videos. Social networks are sprouting up around Web-delivered media. W3C today launched a new Video in the Web Activity to make video a "first-class citizen" of the Web. The initial scope of work, determined as a result of a successful W3C Workshop on Video will be conducted by three groups:

• Media Annotations, which will provide an ontology designed to facilitate cross-community data integration of information related to media objects in the Web, such as video, audio and images.
• Media Fragments, which will address temporary and spatial links (i.e., into a particular moment of a multimedia track, or location in two visual dimensions) using Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs).
• Timed Text, which will work on a standard for online captioning.

W3C continues to investigate the important topics of audio and video codecs on the Web. Learn more about the new Video in the Web Activity. (Photo credit: Bob Freund. Permalink)

Last Call: SKOS Simple Knowledge Organization System Reference; Primer Updated

2008-08-29: The Semantic Web Deployment Working Group has published the Last Call Working Draft of SKOS Simple Knowledge Organization System Reference. This document defines the Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS), a common data model for sharing and linking knowledge organization systems via the Web. The SKOS data model provides a standard, low-cost migration path for porting existing knowledge organization systems to the Semantic Web. SKOS also provides a light weight, intuitive language for developing and sharing new knowledge organization systems. It may be used on its own, or in combination with formal knowledge representation languages such as the Web Ontology language (OWL). Comments are welcome through 03 October. The group has also published an update of the companion SKOS Primer. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity. ( Permalink)

Web IDL Draft Published

2008-08-29: The Web Applications Working Group has published the Working Draft of Web IDL. This specification defines a syntactic subset of OMG IDL version 3.0 for use by specifications that define interfaces. 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. A number of extensions are given to the IDL to support common functionality that previously must have been written in prose. In addition, precise language bindings for ECMAScript 3rd Edition and Java are given. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity. ( Permalink)

Best Practice Recipes for Publishing RDF Vocabularies Note Published

2008-08-29: The Semantic Web Deployment Working Group has published the Group Note of Best Practice Recipes for Publishing RDF Vocabularies. This document describes best practice recipes for publishing vocabularies or ontologies on the Web (in RDF Schema or OWL). It is intended for the creators and maintainers of vocabularies in RDFS and OWL (vocabulary and ontology are used interchangeably in the context of this specification). It provides step-by-step instructions for publishing vocabularies on the Web, giving example configurations designed to cover the most common cases. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity. ( Permalink)

The Power of Tests: New Licenses Promote Collaboration

2008-08-20: W3C announced today its new Licenses for W3C Test Suites. Two licenses promote two goals:

1. A 3-clause BSD License is designed to enable developers to use test cases easily, and promote software development and bugtracking.
2. A W3C Test Suite License is designed to enable a W3C Working Group to create a branded, "Authoritative W3C Test Suite" to reflect the group consensus process, and to promote interoperability and stability of performance claims.

W3C appreciates the support of those who suggested these changes, who provided use cases, and who patiently reviewed drafts. ( Permalink)

Pronunciation Lexicon Specification (PLS) 1.0 Is a Proposed Recommendation

2008-08-18: The Voice Browser Working Group has published the Proposed Recommendation of Pronunciation Lexicon Specification (PLS) Version 1.0. PLS provides the basis for describing pronunciation information for use in speech recognition and speech synthesis, for use in tuning applications, e.g., for proper names that have irregular pronunciations. Changes from the previous Working Draft can be found in Appendix D of the specification. Comments are welcome through 18 September. Learn more about the Voice Browser Activity. ( Permalink)

Five POWDER Documents published; three Last Call Drafts

2008-08-18: The Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER) Working Group has published five Working Drafts. The purpose of the Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER) is to provide a means for individuals or organizations to describe a group of resources through the publication of machine-readable metadata.

• Description Resources (Last Call); which details the creation and lifecycle of Description Resources (DRs), which encapsulate metadata
• Grouping of Resources (Last Call); which describes how sets of IRIs can be defined such that descriptions or other data can be applied to the resources obtained by dereferencing IRIs that are elements of the set.
• Formal Semantics (Last Call); which describes how the relatively simple operational format of a POWDER document can be transformed for processing by Semantic Web tools
• Primer (First Public Draft)
• Test Suite (First Public Draft)

Last Call comments are welcome through 14 September. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity. ( Permalink)

Last Call: XProc: An XML Pipeline Language

2008-08-14: The XML Processing Model Working Group has published the Last Call Working Draft of XProc: An XML Pipeline Language. This specification describes the syntax and semantics 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. Comments are welcome through 26 September. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity. ( Permalink)

W3C Invites Implementations of Element Traversal Specification (Candidate Recommendation)

2008-08-13: The Web Applications Working Group invites implementation of the Candidate Recommendation of Element Traversal Specification. This specification defines the ElementTraversal interface, intended to provide a more convenient alternative to existing Document Object Model (DOM) navigation interfaces, with a low implementation footprint. It does so by allowing script navigation of the elements of a DOM tree, excluding all other nodes in the DOM, such as text nodes. It also provides an attribute to expose the number of child elements of an element. See the disposition of Last Call Comments and learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity. ( Permalink)

Voice Extensible Markup Language (VoiceXML) 3.0 Requirements

2008-08-08: The Voice Browser Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of Voice Extensible Markup Language (VoiceXML) 3.0 Requirements. VoiceXML 2.0 is designed for creating audio dialogs that feature synthesized speech, digitized audio, recognition of spoken and DTMF key input, recording of spoken input, telephony, and mixed initiative conversations. VoiceXML 3.0 is the next major release of VoiceXML. Its purpose is to provide even more powerful dialog capabilities that can be used to build advanced speech applications and to provide these capabilities in a form that can be easily and cleanly integrated with other W3C languages. Learn more about the Voice Browser Activity. ( Permalink)

Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) Working Draft Published

2008-08-06: The Protocols and Formats Working Group published an updated Working Draft of Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA). WAI-ARIA defines a way to make Web content and Web applications more accessible to people with disabilities. It especially helps with dynamic content and advanced user interface controls developed with Ajax, HTML, JavaScript, and related technologies. WAI-ARIA is introduced in the WAI-ARIA Overview and the WAI-ARIA FAQ. Read the updated WAI-ARIA Specification announcement that requests feedback on host language embedding, and about the Web Accessibility Initiative. ( Permalink)

W3C Invites Implementations of XQuery Update Facility 1.0 (Candidate Recommendation)

2008-08-07: The XML Query Working Group has published the Candidate Recommendation of XQuery Update Facility 1.0. This document defines an update facility that extends the XML Query language, XQuery. The XQuery Update Facility provides expressions that can be used to make persistent changes to instances of the XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Data Model. This document incorporates changes made against the Candidate Recommendation of 14 March 2008. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity. ( Permalink)

W3C Invites Implementations of CSS Mobile Profile 2.0 (Candidate Recommendation)

2008-08-01: The CSS Working Group has published a Candidate Recommendation for CSS Mobile Profile 2.0., which defines a common baseline of CSS support that even constrained mobile devices can provide. This effort is part of W3C's ongoing efforts to make the Web easier to use from a mobile devices (see related news). For the CSS Mobile Profile 2.0, W3C has worked closely together with OMA to remove the differences between W3C's and OMA's previous CSS-mobile profiles. An "alpha" quality test suite is available for the mobile profile. The Working Group will track implementations during the Candidate Recommendation phase. Implementers are invited to send feedback before February 2009. Learn more about the Style Activity. ( Permalink)

Six RIF Working Drafts Published; Last Call for Basic Logic Dialect and RDF-OWL

2008-08-01: The Rule Interchange Format (RIF) Working Group published six documents yesterday:

• RIF Basic Logic Dialect (Last Call)
• RIF RDF and OWL Compatibility (Last Call)
• RIF Framework for Logic Dialects
• RIF Use Cases and Requirements
• RIF Production Rule Dialect (First Public Draft)
• RIF Datatypes and Built-Ins 1.0

"RIF Basic Logic Dialect" (BLD) specifies an XML format for rules at an intermediate expressive power. The language is roughly Horn rules with URIs, datatypes, and builtins. This goes beyond datalog (it has function terms), but does not provide any kind of negation. "RIF RDF and OWL Compatibility" explains and specifies how RIF rulesets are to be used in combination with RDF and OWL. Comments on these documents welcome until 19 September. In addition, RIF Production Rule Dialect (PRD) specifies an XML format for the exchange of production rules. PRD and BLD are expected to be the basis of the two main dialect-branches, with RIF Core being the things in common between the two. RIF Framework for Logic Dialects (FLD) and RIF Datatypes and Builtins (DTB) provide common elements for specific dialects to use. RIF Uses Cases and Requirements (UCR), last published about two years ago, has been simplified and now has examples written in the PRD and BLD presentation syntaxes. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity. ( Permalink)

Last Call: Content Transformation Guidelines 1.0

2008-08-01: The Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of Content Transformation Guidelines 1.0. Content Transformation is the manipulation in various ways, by proxies, of requests made to and content delivered by an origin server with a view to making it more suitable for mobile presentation. The overall objective of this document is to provide a means, as far as is practical, for users to be provided with at least a "functional user experience" when accessing the Web with a mobile device. Comments are welcome through 16 September. Learn more about the Mobile Web Initiative. ( Permalink)

Last Call: CSS Marquee Module Level 3

2008-08-01: The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of CSS Marquee Module Level 3. CSS describes the rendering of documents on various media. When documents (e.g., HTML) are laid out on visual media (e.g., screen or print) and the contents of some element are too large for a given area, CSS allows the designer to specify whether and how the overflow is displayed. One way, available on certain devices, is the "marquee" effect: the content is animated and moves automatically back and forth. This module defines the properties to control that effect. Comments are welcome through 01 September. Learn more about the Style Activity. ( Permalink)

W3C Talks in August

2008-08-01: Browse W3C presentations and events also available as an RSS channel. ( Permalink)

• 1 August, Tel-Aviv, Israel: Why do we need Internet standards and W3C.Ori Idan presents at August Penguin.
• 16 August, Honolulu, HI, USA: Hot and Spicy Style with CSS.Molly E Holzschlag gives a tutorial at Hot and Spicy Style with CSS.
• 20 August, New York, USA: Multimodal Standards and Applications.Deborah Dahl, Ingmar Kliche, Raj Tumuluri present at SpeechTEK.
• 22 August, Ghent, Belgium: Detailed introduction into RDF and the Semantic Web.Ivan Herman gives a tutorial at 4th Search & Find Workshop.
• View upcoming talks by country
• More talks...

W3C Organizes Workshop on Semantic Web in Energy Industries; Part I to Focus on Oil and Gas

2008-07-31: W3C invites people to participate in a Workshop on Semantic Web in Energy Industries; Part I: Oil & Gas to be hosted by Chevron in Houston, Texas, USA on 9-10 December 2008. Participants will explore how Semantic Web technologies can play a role in the management and analysis of the huge amounts of data gathered from highly diverse sources in this sector of the energy industry. Position papers are due 19 September. W3C invites you to read more about the Workshop goals and learn about the W3C Semantic Web Activity. ( Permalink)

Stable Version of Compatibility Test for Mobile Browsers Released

2008-07-30: The Mobile Web Test Suites Working Group has released a new and stable version of its Web Compatibility Test for Mobile Browsers, featuring more technologies and several improvements over the previous version. Read more about the design of the test and learn more about the W3C Mobile Web Initiative. ( Permalink)

W3C Standards Make Mobile Web Experience More Inviting

Mobile Web Initiative 2008-07-29: W3C today announced new standards that will make it easier for people to browse the Web on mobile devices. Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0, published as a W3C Recommendation by the Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group, condenses the experience of many mobile Web stakeholders into practical advice on creating mobile-friendly content. These guidelines will help to improve the experience of people browsing the Web on a wide array of mobile handsets. W3C published a second standard today: XHTML Basic 1.1 Recommendation, the preferred format specification of the Best Practices. With this, there is now a full convergence in mobile markup languages, including those developed by the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA). The Working Group also published today the first draft of a next generation of guidelines, Mobile Web Application Best Practices, aimed at mobile Web applications. Read the press release and testimonials, try the W3C mobileOK checker (beta), and learn more about W3C's Mobile Web Initiative (MWI). ( Permalink)

Two Efficient XML Interchange (EXI) Drafts Published: Format 1.0; Evaluation

2008-07-28: The Efficient XML Interchange Working Group published two Working Drafts today: Efficient XML Interchange (EXI) Format 1.0 and Efficient XML Interchange Evaluation. The former specifies the Efficient XML Interchange (EXI) format. EXI is a very compact representation for the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Information Set that is intended to simultaneously optimize performance and the utilization of computational resources. The EXI format uses a hybrid approach drawn from the information and formal language theories, plus practical techniques verified by measurements, for entropy encoding XML information. Using a relatively simple algorithm, which is amenable to fast and compact implementation, and a small set of data types, it reliably produces efficient encodings of XML event streams. The latter document, a first public draft, is an evaluation of the Efficient XML Interchange (EXI) Format 1.0 with reference to the Properties identified by the (now closed) XML Binary Characterization (XBC) Working Group, relative to XML, gzipped XML and ASN.1 PER. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity. ( Permalink)

Last Call: Web Security Context: User Interface Guidelines

2008-07-24: The Web Security Context Working Group has published the 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. In order to achieve that goal, this specification includes recommendations on the presentation of identity information by Web user agents. It also includes recommendations on handling errors in security protocols. The error handling recommendations both minimize the trust decisions left to users, and represent known best practice in inducing users toward safe behavior where they have to make these decisions. Comments are welcome through 15 September. Learn more about the Security Activity. ( Permalink)