Welcome to the July 2006 newsletter from the Australian W3C Office. Your link to the latest Consortium news and events... 1. Events 2. Ted Guild Named Head of Systems 3. XHTML 2.0: Working Draft 4. XHTML Role Attribute Module: Working Draft 5. Mobile Stakeholders Sketch Future of Device Description Repository 6. Privacy Policy and Enforcement Workshop: Call for Participation 7. Specifying Language in XHTML and HTML Content: Working Draft 8. SVG Tiny 1.2 Working Draft 9. WAI to Advise on 508 Standards Update 10. Emotional States Focus of Incubator Group 11. Efficient XML Interchange Measurements: Working Draft 12. XForms 1.1: Working Draft 13. W3C Names Yves Lafon Web Services Activity Lead 14. Semantic Web Activity Grows to include GRDDL, Deployment Working Groups 15. mobileOK Scheme: Working Draft 16. Advance Notice: Workshop on Requirements for XSL-FO 2.0 17. XML Query and XPath Data Model Updated 18. Rule Interchange Format Use Cases and Requirements Updated 19. Geospatial Properties of Web Resources Focus of Incubator Group 20. Last Call: XHTML Modularization 1.1 21. Last Call: XHTML Basic 1.1 22. Semantic Annotations for WSDL: Working Draft 23. W3C Renews CSS Working Group 24. W3C Launches Math Working Group for MathML 3.0 25. W3C Names Jérôme Chailloux Site Manager of W3C/ERCIM 26. Mobile Web Best Practices: Call for Implementations 1. Events AusWeb06, Noosa Lakes Resort, Noosa. 1-5 July 2006. The 12th Australasian World Wide Web Conference offered 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, including a full-day Web Research, Standards and Web Applications (W3C Update) SIG facilitated by Ross Ackland from the Australian W3C Office. Ivan Herman, W3C's new Sematic Web Activity lead and former W3C Head of Offices, delivered 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". AusWeb was an IW3C2 Endorsed Regional Conference. http://ausweb.scu.edu.au http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/ http://w3c.org.au/events/ausweb06_w3c_sig_day.html Web Accessibility Workshop, Canberra. 8 & 9 August 2006 This one-day workshop run by Vision Australia is targeted at Web development team leaders, corporate communications professionals and business managers, along with content authors, web programmers and designers and web contract managers. It provides a thorough overview of accessibility issues and how to address them. It covers the World Wide Web Consortium's Content Accessibility Guidelines and their implementation and a consideration of assessment tools and techniques. Details and registration: http://www.visionaustralia.org.au/ais/webworkshops/ Writing for the Web Workshop, Canberra. 23 August 2006 This practical workshop run by Vision Australia focuses on enhancing the usability and accessibility of your web content and will teach you how to communicate effectively with your readers. Details and registration: http://www.visionaustralia.org.au/info.aspx?page=685 Web Accessibility Workshop, Perth. 23 August 2006 Details and registration: http://www.visionaustralia.org.au/ais/webworkshops/ W3C Talks Browse upcoming W3C appearances and events (also available as an RSS channel). http://www.w3.org/Talks/ 2. Ted Guild Named Head of Systems W3C has named Ted Guild to Head of W3C Systems. Previously led by Alan Kotok, the Systems Team is responsible for the operation of W3C servers worldwide, development and deployment of software tools, and support for standards development, content development, collaboration, communication and archiving. Ted came to W3C in 2000 from corporate IT positions in financial, Internet, public utilities and marketing organizations. http://www.w3.org/People/Ted/ http://www.w3.org/People/domain?domain=Systems 3. XHTML 2.0: Working Draft The HTML Working Group has released the eighth public Working Draft of XHTML 2.0. A general purpose markup language without presentation elements, XHTML 2 is designed for representing documents for a wide range of purposes across the Web. See the introduction for the differences between XHTML versions 1 and 2. Much of XHTML 2 works in existing browsers. The draft includes an implementation in RELAX NG with DTD and XML Schema implementations to follow. http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-xhtml2-20060726/ http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-xhtml2-20060726/introduction.html#s_intro_differences http://relaxng.org/ http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/ 4. XHTML Role Attribute Module: Working Draft The HTML Working Group has released the First Public Working Draft of the XHTML Role Attribute Module to provide the ability to integrate the role attribute into any markup language based on XHTML Modularization 1.1. Developed in conjunction with the accessibility community and other groups, the document is the first of a series of XHTML modules designed to help extend the scope of XHTML-family markup languages into new environments. http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-xhtml-role-20060725/ http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-modularization/ http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/ 5. Mobile Stakeholders Sketch Future of Device Description Repository Participants in the International Workshop on the Implementation of a Device Description Repository have published their report. Mobile operators, manufacturers, service providers, and accessibility, content adaptation and device information providers met 12-13 July in Madrid, Spain, to discuss the creation of a repository of device information. W3C thanks Telefónica for hosting. Read about the W3C Mobile Web Initiative, a joint effort to make the Web interoperable and usable for users of mobile devices. http://www.w3.org/2005/MWI/DDWG/workshop2006/ http://www.w3.org/2005/MWI/DDWG/workshop2006/report.html http://www.w3.org/Mobile/ 6. Privacy Policy and Enforcement Workshop: Call for Participation W3C will hold a Workshop on Languages for Privacy Policy Negotiation and Semantics-Driven Enforcement on 17-18 October 2006 at the Joint Research Center (JRC) of the European Commission in Ispra, Italy. Vendors and researchers will meet to discuss privacy for personal data, automated policy negotiation in Web services, Web applications and identity management, and the use of Semantic Web technologies for privacy enforcement. Participation is open to Members and the public. http://www.w3.org/2006/07/privacy-ws/cfp.html http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Member/List http://www.w3.org/2003/08/Workshops/ http://www.w3.org/Privacy/Activity.html 7. Specifying Language in XHTML and HTML Content: Working Draft The Internationalization GEO (Guidelines, Education & Outreach) Working Group has published an updated Working Draft of Internationalization Best Practices: Specifying Language in XHTML & HTML Content. Part of a series designed for authors, the document is an aid to specifying the language of content for an international audience. http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-i18n-html-tech-lang-20060721/ http://www.w3.org/International/ 8. SVG Tiny 1.2 Working Draft In response to Last Call comments, the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Working Group has published a Working Draft of the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Tiny 1.2 Specification. The SVG language delivers vector graphics, text, and images to the Web in XML. SVG Tiny 1.2 is a complete language specification and is implementable on devices large and small, from cellphones and PDAs to desktop and laptop computers. http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-SVGMobile12-20060721/ http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/ 9. WAI to Advise on 508 Standards Update W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) has been appointed to the Advisory Committee for the revision of U.S. Section 255 guidelines and Section 508 standards, which include Web accessibility. WAI looks forward to continuing to coordinate with organizations around the world to develop harmonized standards for Web accessibility. Additional information is available in the U.S. Access Board article: Board Names Advisory Committee for 508 Standards Update. http://www.access-board.gov/ http://www.access-board.gov/telecomm/index.htm http://www.access-board.gov/508.htm http://www.w3.org/WAI/Policy/harmon http://www.access-board.gov/news/508committee.htm http://www.w3.org/WAI 10. Emotional States Focus of Incubator Group W3C is pleased to announce the creation of the Emotion Incubator Group to investigate a language to represent the emotional states of users and the emotional states simulated by user interfaces. The group is sponsored by W3C Members DFKI, Deutsche Telekom T-Com, University of Edinburgh, Chinese Academy of Sciences, EPFL, USC ISI, Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, and Fraunhofer Gesellschaft. http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/emotion/ http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Member/List http://www.w3.org/2004/01/pp-impl/39402/join http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/ 11. Efficient XML Interchange Measurements: Working Draft The Efficient XML Interchange Working Group has released the First Public Working Draft of the Efficient XML Interchange Measurements Note. An analysis of the expected performance characteristics of a potential Efficient XML Interchange (EXI) encoding format, the draft covers the "compactness" and "processing efficiency" properties and outlines plans for future updates. http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-exi-measurements-20060718/ http://www.w3.org/XML/ 12. XForms 1.1: Working Draft The XForms Working Group has released an updated Working Draft of XForms 1.1. Designed to refine and strengthen the XML processing platform introduced by XForms 1.0, version 1.1 adds several submission capabilities, a more powerful action processing facility, the ability to manipulate data arbitrarily and to access event context information, and adds numerous helpful data types, utility functions, user interface improvements, and action event handlers. http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-xforms11-20060714/ http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/REC-xforms-20031014/ http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Forms/ 13. W3C Names Yves Lafon Web Services Activity Lead W3C has named Yves Lafon to the position of Web Services Activity Lead. The Web Services Activity includes Working Groups for semantic annotations, addressing, choreography, description and policy as well as XML protocol and databinding. Yves joined W3C in 1995 to work on the experimental browser Arena. He led development of Jigsaw, W3C's Java based server, and served as Activity Lead for the Protocols Activity and the XML Protocol Activity. and as Team Contact for the XML Protocol Working Group, the XML Schema Patterns for Databinding Working Group and the Web Services Choreography Working Group. W3C wishes to thank Hugo Haas who previously led the Activity. http://www.w3.org/People/Lafon/ http://www.w3.org/2002/ws/ 14. Semantic Web Activity Grows to include GRDDL, Deployment Working Groups W3C is pleased to announce the renewal of the Semantic Web Activity. "W3C continues to support the advancement of universal sharing and automatic processing of data in the World Wide Web," said Ivan Herman (W3C). Semantic Web technologies allow data to be shared and reused across applications, enterprises, and communities. The W3C Advisory Committee approved the continuing work in RDF data access, rules interchange, and health care and life sciences. Three new groups are chartered for work on Semantic Web deployment, extracting RDF from XML (e.g., to process microformats), and education and outreach. http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/ http://www.w3.org/Consortium/join http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/ 15. mobileOK Scheme: Working Draft The Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group has released the First Public Working Draft of the W3C mobileOK Scheme 1.0. mobileOK labels indicate that content and its delivery pass tests based on the Mobile Web Best Practices and are designed to create an effective user experience. Read about the W3C Mobile Web Initiative, a joint effort by authoring tool vendors, content providers, handset manufacturers, browser vendors and mobile operators. http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-mobileOK-20060712/ http://www.w3.org/TR/mobile-bp/ http://www.w3.org/Mobile/ 16. Advance Notice: Workshop on Requirements for XSL-FO 2.0 W3C plans a Workshop on Gathering Requirements for Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) 2.0 on 18 October in Heidelberg, Germany, hosted by Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG. The Workshop will be held in conjunction with a symposium on Web Printing at the same location. Participants will discuss the requirements, features and design of a future version of the formatting part of the Extensible Stylesheet Language also called XSL-FO. A Call for Participation for this Workshop is expected in August. http://www.w3.org/TR/xsl/ http://www.w3.org/2003/08/Workshops/ http://www.w3.org/XML/ 17. XML Query and XPath Data Model Updated The XML Query and XSL Working Groups have released an updated Candidate Recommendation of XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Data Model (XDM). Both XSLT 2 and XQuery use XPath expressions and operate on XDM instances such as documents and databases. The group also released an updated Working Draft of the XQuery Update Facility which provides expressions to create, modify and delete nodes. http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/CR-xpath-datamodel-20060711/ http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-xqupdate-20060711/ http://www.w3.org/XML/ 18. Rule Interchange Format Use Cases and Requirements Updated The Rule Interchange Format (RIF) Working Group has published an updated Working Draft of RIF Use Cases and Requirements. Synthesized from nearly fifty use cases, the document specifies use cases and requirements for a format that allows rules to be translated between rule languages and thus transferred between rule systems. The group invites comments through 8 September. http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-rif-ucr-20060710/ http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/ 19. Geospatial Properties of Web Resources Focus of Incubator Group W3C is pleased to announce the creation of the Geospatial Incubator Group, whose mission is to begin addressing issues of location and geographical properties of resources for the Web of today and tomorrow. The group is sponsored by W3C Members the Open Geospatial Consortium, Oracle Corporation, SRI International, Stanford University, and the University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute (USC ISI). W3C Members may use this form to join the group. http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/geo/ http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Member/List http://www.w3.org/2004/01/pp-impl/39363/join http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/ 20. Last Call: XHTML Modularization 1.1 The HTML Working Group has released a Last Call Working Draft of XHTML Modularization 1.1. This modularization allows the subsets and extensions to XHTML needed for emerging platforms. This document is based on Modularization of XHTML in XML Schema and the Modularization of XHTML W3C Recommendation. Comments are welcome through 4 August. http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-xhtml-modularization-20060705/ http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/WD-xhtml-m12n-schema-20031003/ http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/REC-xhtml-modularization-20010410/ http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/ 21. Last Call: XHTML Basic 1.1 The HTML Working Group has released a Last Call Working Draft of XHTML Basic 1.1. The draft adds four new features for small devices which are the language's primary users. Version 1.1 is intended to be the convergence of the XHTML Basic 1.0 W3C Recommendation for mobile devices, released in coordination with the WAP Forum in 2000, and the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) XHTML Mobile profile. Comments are welcome through 4 August. http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-xhtml-basic-20060705/ http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-xhtml-basic-20001219/ http://www.openmobilealliance.org/ http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/ 22. Semantic Annotations for WSDL: Working Draft The Semantic Annotations for Web Services Description Language (SAWSDL) Working Group has released the First Public Working Draft of Semantic Annotations for WSDL. The attributes defined in this draft are references from elements within Web Services Description Language (WSDL) or XML Schema documents to concepts in ontologies outside the documents. http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-sawsdl-20060630/ http://www.w3.org/2002/ws/ 23. W3C Renews CSS Working Group W3C is pleased to announce the renewal of the Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group. Bert Bos (W3C) is Chair. The group is chartered through 1 July 2008 to develop and maintain CSS specifications, profiles and test suites. CSS is the most common style sheet language for HTML documents and can be used with textual XML documents. http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/ http://www.w3.org/Style/2004/css-charter-long http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Member/List http://www.w3.org/2004/01/pp-impl/32061/join http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/ 24. W3C Launches Math Working Group for MathML 3.0 W3C is pleased to announce the launch of a new Math Working Group to replace the Math Interest Group. Patrick Ion (Invited Expert, representing the American Mathematical Society) and Robert Miner (Design Science) will co-Chair. The group is chartered through 29 February 2008 to produce a new MathML 3.0 Recommendation, to improve and expand MathML in the areas of internationalization, accessibility, and mathematical richness. http://www.w3.org/Math/Documents/Charter2006.html http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Member/List http://www.w3.org/2004/01/pp-impl/35549/join http://www.w3.org/Math/ 25. W3C Names Jérôme Chailloux Site Manager of W3C/ERCIM Jérôme Chailloux has joined the W3C staff and management team as the new Site Manager for W3C/ERCIM. Based in France, Jérôme brings a wealth of experience to W3C in both technology development and management. Jérôme was the main inventor and developer of the programming language Le-Lisp. He served on an information technology committee for the French National Ministry for Education, Research and Technology. Jérôme also held the position of Chief Information Officer of the genomics company GENSET. Please join us in welcoming Jérôme to W3C. http://www.w3.org/People/all#jerome http://www.w3.org/People/domain?domain=Management 26. Mobile Web Best Practices: Call for Implementations W3C is pleased to announce the advancement of Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0 to Candidate Recommendation. Written for designers of Web sites and content management systems, these guidelines describe how to author Web content that works well on mobile devices. Thirty organizations participating in the Mobile Web Initiative achieved consensus and encourage adoption and implementation of these guidelines to improve user experience and to achieve the goal of "One Web." http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/CR-mobile-bp-20060627/ http://www.w3.org/Mobile/ http://www.w3.org/2006/06/mwbp-pressrelease http://www.w3.org/2006/06/mwbp-testimonial ________________________________________________________________________ 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