Welcome to the April 2006 newsletter from the Australian W3C Office. Your link to the latest Consortium news and events... 1. Events 2. Incubator Group on Multimedia Content to Show Benefits of the Semantic Web 3. Browser Vendors, Finance Communities Convene to Address Pressing Web Security Issues 4. Working Draft: Language Tags and Locale Identifiers 5. Note: Multimodal Developer Feedback 6. Working Draft: Multimodal Architecture and Interfaces 7. Working Draft: Internationalization Tag Set 8. Working Draft: DOM Level 3 Events 9. Note: Defining N-ary Relations on the Semantic Web 10. Last Call: Mobile Web Best Practices 11. Working Draft for XML Processing Model 12. Working Draft: CSS 2.1 13. Working Draft for Device Description Repository 14. Working Draft: Window Object 15. SPARQL Specifications Are W3C Candidate Recommendations 16. Working Draft: XMLHttpRequest Object for AJAX 17. W3C Launches China Office 1. Events CeBIT Australia 2006, 9-11 May 2006 Australia's leading ICT event[1] for the business marketplace is on again at the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre at Darling Harbour. The Australian W3C Office will be colocated with the CSIRO ICT Centre at Stand G12 so please drop by and pay us a visit. [1] http://www.cebit.com.au/ WWW2006 Scotland. 22-26 May 2006. The Fifteenth International World Wide Web Conference[2] will be held in Edinburgh, Scotland on 22-26 May 2006. The conference is one of the leading forums for both academics and industries to present, demonstrate, and discuss the latest ideas and developments about the Web. [2] http://www2006.org/ Seminar: "The second coming of WSDL - what's new in WSDL 2.0", CSIRO ICT Centre, Canberra. 1 June 2006 Tony Rogers from CA will present an Australian W3C Office-hosted seminar on the impending new WSDL standard, WSDL 2.0, at the CSIRO ICT Centre at ANU. Tony is co-chair of the W3C Web Services Description Working Group and co-chair of the UDDI Technical Committee at OASIS. To express your interest in attending the seminar, email us at w3c-australia@w3.org. AusWeb06, Noosa Lakes Resort, Noosa. 1-5 July 2006. The 12th Australasian World Wide Web Conference[3] will again offer a program of pre-conference tutorials and workshops, a core program of national and international keynotes, refereed papers, a poster session and several post conference Special Interest Group (SIG) sessions. Ivan Herman[4], W3C's Head of Offices, will deliver a keynote presentation on behalf of the Australian W3C Office entitled "Why Web Standards Are Important: An overview of W3C, its operation and current technical directions". The Australian W3C Office will facilitate one of the SIG sessions. AusWeb is an IW3C2 Endorsed Regional Conference. If you are interested in becoming a sponsor of AusWeb06, contact the Conference Chair, Allan Ellis, at aellis@scu.edu.au. [3] http://ausweb.scu.edu.au [4] http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/ 2. Incubator Group on Multimedia Content to Show Benefits of the Semantic Web W3C is pleased to announce the creation of the Multimedia Semantics Incubator Group[5], chartered to show how metadata interoperability can be achieved by using the Semantic Web technologies to integrate existing multimedia metadata standards. The group is sponsored by W3C Members IVML-NTUA (Image, Video and Multimedia Systems Laboratory, National Technical University of Athens), CWI (Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica), University of Aberdeen, University of Maryland and DFKI (German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence). Read about the Incubator Activity[6], a new initiative to foster development of emerging Web-related technologies. [5] http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/mmsem/ [6] http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/ 3. Browser Vendors, Finance Communities Convene to Address Pressing Web Security Issues Google, HP, IBM, KDE, Microsoft, Mozilla, Nokia, Opera, Sun Microsystems, VeriSign, Yahoo! and many other W3C Members and research organizations gathered with leaders of the online finance community in New York City, USA, to address pressing Web security issues at the March 2006 W3C Workshop on "Usability and Transparency of Web Authentication." The Workshop report[7], including suggested next steps, is now available. W3C thanks Citigroup for hosting and Cisco for network services. More information is available in the press release[8]. Read about W3C Workshops[9]. [7] http://www.w3.org/2005/Security/usability-ws/report [8] http://www.w3.org/2005/12/security-pressrelease [9] http://www.w3.org/2003/08/Workshops/ 4. Working Draft: Language Tags and Locale Identifiers The Internationalization Core Working Group has released the First Public Working Draft of Language Tags and Locale Identifiers for the World Wide Web[10]. The draft includes mechanisms for identifying or selecting the language of content or locale preferences used to process information using Web technologies. It describes how document formats, specifications, and implementations should handle language tags, as well as data structures for describing international preferences. Visit the Internationalization home page[11]. [10] http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-ltli-20060419/ [11] http://www.w3.org/International/ 5. Note: Multimodal Developer Feedback The Multimodal Interaction Working Group has released Multimodal Application Developer Feedback[12] as a Working Group Note. The Note documents feedback for the W3C Multimodal Interaction and Voice Browser Working Groups to consider when specifying future multimodal and voice authoring capabilities. It includes features developers liked about their development environments as well as features they thought were lacking. Visit the Multimodal Interaction home page[13]. [12] http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/NOTE-mmi-dev-feedback-20060414/ [13] http://www.w3.org/2002/mmi/ 6. Working Draft: Multimodal Architecture and Interfaces The Multimodal Interaction Working Group has released an updated Working Draft of Multimodal Architecture and Interfaces[14]. The draft is a framework and platform for the creation and development of user interfaces that allow multiple ways to interact with the Web. With multimodal interaction[15] users choose the way or "mode" of access that suits their current needs. Developers can provide user interfaces and output for each mode, including displays, tactile mechanisms, speech and audio. [14] http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-mmi-arch-20060414/ [15] http://www.w3.org/2002/mmi/ 7. Working Draft: Internationalization Tag Set The Internationalization Tag Set Working Group has published an updated Working Draft of the Internationalization Tag Set (ITS)[16]. Organized by data categories, this set of elements and attributes supports the internationalization and localization of schemas and documents. Implementations are provided for DTDs, XML Schema and Relax NG, and for existing vocabularies like XHTML, DocBook and OpenDocument. Visit the Internationalization home page[17]. [16] http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-its-20060414/ [17] http://www.w3.org/International/ 8. Working Draft: DOM Level 3 Events The Web API Working Group has released a Working Draft of Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Events[18]. Language and platform neutral, the system allows registration of event handlers, describes event flow through a tree structure, and provides context for each event. The previous version of this document was a Working Group Note from the Document Object Model (DOM) Working Group. Read about the Rich Web Clients Activity[19]. [18] http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-DOM-Level-3-Events-20060413/ [19] http://www.w3.org/2006/rwc/ 9. Note: Defining N-ary Relations on the Semantic Web The Semantic Web Best Practices and Deployment (SWBPD) Working Group has published Defining N-ary Relations on the Semantic Web[20] as a Working Group Note. In Semantic Web languages like RDF[21] and OWL[22], a property links two individuals or an individual and a value. The Note presents patterns and considerations for representing relations between more than two individuals or values. Visit the Semantic Web home page[23]. [20] http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/NOTE-swbp-n-aryRelations-20060412/ [21] http://www.w3.org/RDF/ [22] http://www.w3.org/2004/OWL/ [23] http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/ 10. Last Call: Mobile Web Best Practices The Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group has released a second Last Call Working Draft of Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0[24]. The draft describes how to produce Web content and Web sites intended for delivery to mobile and small-screen devices. Written for all participants in the mobile value chain, the document is designed to improve user experience. Comments are welcome through 3 May. Read about the W3C Mobile Web Initiative[25], a joint effort by authoring tool vendors, content providers, handset manufacturers, browser vendors and mobile operators. [24] http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-mobile-bp-20060412/ [25] http://www.w3.org/Mobile/ 11. Working Draft for XML Processing Model The XML Processing Model Working Group has released the First Public Working Draft of XML Processing Model Requirements and Use Cases[26]. The draft describes the conceptual model of XML process interactions, the XML Pipeline Language to describe these interactions, and the inputs and outputs of the overall process. The group is chartered to standardize the order, parameters, and expected results for transformations for the large group of specifications such as XSLT, XML Schema, XInclude and XML Canonicalization that operate on and produce XML documents. Visit the XML home page[27]. [26] http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-xproc-requirements-20060411/ [27] http://www.w3.org/XML/ 12. Working Draft: CSS 2.1 Addressing many of the comments received during Last Call, the CSS Working Group has published a Working Draft of Cascading Style Sheets, level 2 revision 1 (CSS 2.1)[28]. CSS 2.1 is derived from and is intended to replace CSS2. A snapshot of CSS language usage, the specification adds a few highly requested features, fixes errata and brings CSS2 in line with implementations. Visit the CSS home page[29]. [28] http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-CSS21-20060411/ [29] http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/ 13. Working Draft for Device Description Repository The Device Description Working Group has released the First Public Working Draft of Device Description Repository Requirements 1.0[30]. This draft contains requirements for storing and giving access to device descriptions. Topics include extensibility and capacity; query, access and management mechanisms, availability and resilience; extensibility; format and storage; and validation and accuracy. Read about the W3C Mobile Web Initiative[31], a joint effort by authoring tool vendors, content providers, handset manufacturers, browser vendors and mobile operators. [30] http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-DDR-requirements-20060410/ [31] http://www.w3.org/Mobile/ 14. Working Draft: Window Object The Web API Working Group has released the First Public Working Draft of Window Object 1.0[32]. This draft defines the Window object, a long-standing de facto standard. Window provides the global namespace for Web scripting languages, access to other documents in a compound document by reference, timers and navigation to other locations. Read about the Rich Web Clients Activity[33]. [32] http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-Window-20060407/ [33] http://www.w3.org/2006/rwc/ 15. SPARQL Specifications Are W3C Candidate Recommendations W3C is pleased to announce the advancement of the SPARQL specifications to Candidate Recommendations. With SPARQL (pronounced "sparkle"), developers and end users can write and consume search results across a wide range of information such as personal data, social networks and metadata about digital artifacts like music and images. SPARQL Query Language for RDF[34] specifies syntax for authoring, matching and testing. SPARQL Protocol for RDF[35] describes remote data access and transmission of queries from clients to processors. The SPARQL Query Results XML Format[36] is provided for search results. Visit the Semantic Web home page[37]. [34] http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/CR-rdf-sparql-query-20060406/ [35] http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/CR-rdf-sparql-protocol-20060406/ [36] http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/CR-rdf-sparql-XMLres-20060406/ [37] http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/ 16. Working Draft: XMLHttpRequest Object for AJAX The Web API Working Group has released the First Public Working Draft of The XMLHttpRequest Object[38]. The draft documents features of the XMLHttpRequest object, the core component of AJAX[39]. The interface allows scripts to perform HTTP client functions, such as submitting form data or loading data from a remote Web site. Read about the Rich Web Clients Activity[40]. [38] http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-XMLHttpRequest-20060405/ [39] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AJAX [40] http://www.w3.org/2006/rwc/ 17. W3C Launches China Office W3C is pleased to announce the opening of the W3C China Office[41]. The Office is hosted at the School of Computer Science & Engineering of Beihang University[42] in Beijing, China. Jinpeng Huai[43] is Office Manager. Kazuyuki Ashimura, Steve Bratt, Marie-Claire Forgue, Ivan Herman, Richard Ishida, and Dean Jackson are among those attending the opening ceremonies on 27-28 April. Read the press release[44] and about W3C Offices[45]. [41] http://www.chinaw3c.org/ [42] http://scse.buaa.edu.cn/english/index.html [43] http://www.act.buaa.edu.cn/www2008/introductiontohuai.htm [44] http://www.w3.org/2006/04/chinaoffice-pressrelease [45] http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Offices ________________________________________________________________________ For previous newsletters from the Australian W3C Office please visit http://w3c.org.au/newsletters/ If you are a W3C Member and would like to contribute relevant news please email us at w3c-australia@w3.org If you know of others who would like to receive this newsletter please direct them to http://w3.org.au