Welcome to the June 2006 newsletter from the Australian W3C Office. Your link to the latest Consortium news and events... 1. Events 2. Visions of Ubiquitous Web Shared at W3C Workshop 3. Working Draft: XML Binding Language (XBL) 2.0 4. Working Draft: XMLHttpRequest Object for AJAX 5. Working Draft: RDF/OWL Representation of WordNet 6. Working Draft: Primer for Web Services Choreography 7. Working Draft: Selectors API 8. Core XML Specifications: Proposed Edits 9. CSS3: Generated Content for Paged Media 10. Language Tags and Locale Identifiers: Updated Working Draft 11. XSLT 2.0, XML Query and XPath 2.0 Candidate Recommendations 12. Working Draft: XHTML Basic 1.1 13. Experts Share Perspectives on Web Standards at Fundamentos Web 2006 14. In Memoriam: Alan Kotok 15. W3C Launches Web Services Policy Working Group 16. W3C Names Ivan Herman Semantic Web Activity Lead 17. W3C Names Daniel Dardailler Head of W3C Offices 18. Web Services Addressing WSDL Binding Is a W3C Candidate Recommendation 19. W3C Welcomes Members at Advisory Committee Meeting 20. W3C to Participate in Advisory Board of Internet Governance Forum 21. W3C Launches WebCGM Working Group 22. Working Draft: Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0 23. W3C Workshop on a Device Description Repository 24. Last Call: Internationalization Tag Set 25. Last Call: WSDL RDF Mapping 26. Working Draft: Authorizing Read Access to XML Content 27. Working Draft: RDFa Primer 1. Events Web Directions presents Lars Rasmussen from Google Maps and Dean Jackson from the W3C, Sydney. 29 June 2006 Lars Rasmussen, a lead engineer of the team that created Google Maps, and Dean Jackson of the W3C, who is among many other things the technical lead for the W3C's Web APIs Working Group, will be talking about Web 2.0 and AJAX. Web Directions will provide fine finger food for the night, and there'll be a cash bar if you feel like a drink. The event is free, but places are limited, so please RSVP to info@webdirections.org. Details: 6.00pm for 6.30pm, Thursday 29 June 2006 Jam Hotel CBD Level 4, 52 King Street, Sydney AusWeb06, Noosa Lakes Resort, Noosa. 1-5 July 2006. The 12th Australasian World Wide Web Conference 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, W3C's new Sematic Web Activity lead and former W3C 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". Ross Ackland from the Australian W3C Office will facilitate a full-day Special Interest Group session on Web Research Standards on 5 July 2006. 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. http://ausweb.scu.edu.au http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/ W3C Talks Browse upcoming W3C appearances and events (also available as an RSS channel). http://www.w3.org/Talks/ 2. Visions of Ubiquitous Web Shared at W3C Workshop Attendees from countries including Austria, China, Finland, France, India, Japan, Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden and the USA presented thirty two position papers on 9-10 March in Tokyo at the W3C Workshop on the Ubiquitous Web. They proposed ways to standardize distributed applications that adapt to context: user preferences, device capabilities and environmental conditions. The Workshop report has been published. http://www.w3.org/2005/10/ubiweb-workshop-cfp.html http://www.w3.org/2006/03/ubiweb-workshop-summary http://www.w3.org/2006/01/ubiweb-pressrelease http://www.w3.org/2003/08/Workshops/ 3. Working Draft: XML Binding Language (XBL) 2.0 The Web Application Formats Working Group has released the First Public Working Draft of XML Binding Language (XBL) 2.0, a technology for extending the appearance and behavior of elements in Web formats such as HTML. This draft was produced from the XBL 2.0 specification developed by the Mozilla Foundation and has now moved to the W3C Recommendation Track. http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-xbl-20060619/ http://www.w3.org/2006/rwc/ 4. Working Draft: XMLHttpRequest Object for AJAX The Web API Working Group has released an updated Working Draft of The XMLHttpRequest Object. The draft documents features of the XMLHttpRequest object, the core component of AJAX. The interface allows scripts to perform HTTP client functions, such as submitting form data or loading data from a remote Web site. http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-XMLHttpRequest-20060619/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AJAX http://www.w3.org/2006/rwc/ 5. Working Draft: RDF/OWL Representation of WordNet The WordNet Task Force of the Semantic Web Best Practices and Deployment Working Group has released the First Public Working Draft of RDF/OWL Representation of WordNet. The draft proposes a conversion to RDF and OWL of WordNet, the machine-readable lexical reference system developed at Princeton University for the English language. The group describes how the conversion was made and how it may be queried for use in Semantic Web applications. http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-wordnet-rdf-20060619/ http://www.w3.org/RDF/ http://wordnet.princeton.edu/ http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/ 6. Working Draft: Primer for Web Services Choreography The Web Services Choreography Working Group has released the First Public Working Draft of Web Services Choreography Description Language: Primer. The primer is intended as an easy to understand tutorial on the uses and the features of the WS-CDL specification. WS-CDL describes peer-to-peer collaborations between Web service participants by defining their behavior from a global viewpoint. Ordered message exchanges thus accomplish a common business goal. http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-ws-cdl-10-primer-20060619/ http://www.w3.org/TR/ws-cdl-10/ http://www.w3.org/2002/ws/ 7. Working Draft: Selectors API On 25 May, the Web APIs Working Group released the First Public Working Draft of Selectors API. The draft defines methods for identifying elements in a document for the purpose of performing script or Document Object Model (DOM) operations on them. Selectors defined in the CSS3 Selectors specification are used to identify the elements. http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-selectors-api-20060525/ http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-selectors http://www.w3.org/2006/webapi/ 8. Core XML Specifications: Proposed Edits The XML Core Working Group has released four Proposed Edited Recommendations for core XML specifications: the fourth edition of Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 and second editions of Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.1, Namespaces in XML 1.0 and Namespaces in XML 1.1. Proposed for the convenience of readers, the publications correct all errors reported to date and are not new versions. The test suites have been updated. For XML, markup for RFC 2119 key words has been improved. Comments are welcome through 12 July. http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/PER-xml-20060614/ http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/PER-xml11-20060614/ http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/PER-xml-names-20060614/ http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/PER-xml-names11-20060614/ http://www.w3.org/XML/ 9. CSS3: Generated Content for Paged Media The CSS Working Group has released the First Public Working Draft of CSS3 module: Generated Content for Paged Media. The draft describes features used in printed publications: named strings, leaders, cross-references, footnotes, endnotes, running headers and footers, named flows, ad hoc counter styles, paged-based floats, hyphenation, change bars, and named page and generated lists. It is a companion to the CSS3 modules for multicolumn layout and paged media. http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-css3-gcpm-20060612/ http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-multicol/ http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-page/ http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/ 10. Language Tags and Locale Identifiers: Updated Working Draft The Internationalization Core Working Group has published an updated Working Draft of Language Tags and Locale Identifiers for the World Wide Web. 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. http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-ltli-20060612/ http://www.w3.org/International/ 11. XSLT 2.0, XML Query and XPath 2.0 Candidate Recommendations The XML Query and XSL Working Groups have released updated Candidate Recommendations of XML Query 1.0, XSLT 2.0, XPath 2.0 and supporting documents. The XQuery use cases are also updated. Today's drafts incorporate comments received at Candidate Recommendation and move the xdt:* types to the XML Schema xs namespace, a change made in conjunction with the XML Schema Working Group. XSLT transforms documents into different markup or formats. Important for databases, search engines and object repositories, XML Query can perform searches, queries and joins over collections of documents. Both XSLT 2 and XQuery use XPath expressions and operate on XPath Data Model instances. http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-xquery-use-cases-20060608/ http://www.w3.org/XML/ * XSL Transformations (XSLT) Version 2.0: Transforms data model instances (XML and non-XML) into other documents including into XSL-FO for printing http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/CR-xslt20-20060608/ * XQuery 1.0: An XML Query Language: An XML-aware syntax for querying collections of structured and semi-structured data both locally and over the Web http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/CR-xquery-20060608/ * XML Path Language (XPath) 2.0: Expression syntax for referring to parts of XML documents http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/CR-xpath20-20060608/ * XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Functions and Operators: The functions you can call in XPath expressions and the operations you can perform on XPath 2.0 data types http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/CR-xpath-functions-20060608/ * XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Data Model (XDM): Representation and access for both XML and non-XML sources http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/CR-xpath-datamodel-20060608/ * XSLT 2.0 and XQuery 1.0 Serialization: How to output the results of XSLT 2.0 and XML Query evaluation in XML, HTML or as text http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/CR-xslt-xquery-serialization-20060608/ * XML Syntax for XQuery 1.0 (XQueryX): A precise representation in XML of the XML Query language, suitable for machine processing and introspection http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/CR-xqueryx-20060608/ * XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Formal Semantics: The type system used in XQuery and XSLT 2 via XPath defined precisely for implementers http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/CR-xquery-semantics-20060608/ 12. Working Draft: XHTML Basic 1.1 The HTML Working Group has released the First Public 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. http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-xhtml-basic-20060607/ http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-xhtml-basic-20001219/ http://www.openmobilealliance.org/ http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/ 13. Experts Share Perspectives on Web Standards at Fundamentos Web 2006 The W3C Spanish Office is pleased to present Vinton Cerf and noted Web Standards experts at the second edition of Fundamentos Web 2006 (Web Foundations 2006) on 3-5 October in Oviedo, Asturias, Spain. Daniel Appelquist, Andy Clarke, Enrique Dans, Ben Hammersley, Bernardo Hernández, Molly Holzschlag, Richard Ishida, Dean Jackson, Gumerinsdo Lafuente, Bob Regan, Dave Shea, Juan Varela, Luis Villa, Chris Wilson and Kevin Yank will present. Registration for the conference, which sold out last year, is open and offers discounts for W3C Members. http://www.w3c.es/ http://www.fundamentosweb.org/2006/Ponentes/ http://www.fundamentosweb.org/2006/ http://www.fundamentosweb.org/2006/Inscripcion/ http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Member/List 14. In Memoriam: Alan Kotok Alan Kotok, W3C Associate Chair, MIT site manager and head of the W3C Systems Team, passed away last week in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. He was 64. Before his many contributions to W3C, Alan held senior engineering positions at DEC. A member of the MIT Tech Model Railroad Club, he helped to build the legendary computer game Spacewar. He appears in the Origins of Computer Chess and in Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution. We are grateful to have worked with him and will miss his great kindness, humor, intellect and dedication. Remembrances may be sent to the public-memoria@w3.org public mailing list. http://www.computerhistory.org/chess/main.php?sec=thm-42b86c2029762&sel=thm-42b86c7bdbaf1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackers:_Heroes_of_the_Computer_Revolution http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-memoria/ 15. W3C Launches Web Services Policy Working Group W3C is pleased to announce the launch of the Web Services Policy Working Group. Paul Cotton (Microsoft) and Chris Ferris (IBM) will co-Chair. The group is chartered through 31 December 2007 to standardize a general policy framework for expressing Web service capabilities and requirements. W3C Members may use this form to join the Working Group. http://www.w3.org/2002/ws/policy/ http://www.w3.org/2006/04/ws-policy-charter.html http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Member/List http://www.w3.org/2004/01/pp-impl/39293/join http://www.w3.org/2002/ws/ 16. W3C Names Ivan Herman Semantic Web Activity Lead W3C has named Ivan Herman to the position of Semantic Web Activity Lead effective 1 June. Previously led by Eric Miller, the Semantic Web Activity includes development of the standards for RDF, OWL, SPARQL and rules languages. W3C wishes to thank Eric for his contributions as he moves to Semantic Web deployment. Based at CWI, site of the W3C Benelux Office, Ivan served as W3C Head of Offices and on the Semantic Web Coordination Group. http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/ http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/ 17. W3C Names Daniel Dardailler Head of W3C Offices W3C has named Daniel Dardailler to the position of Head of W3C Offices effective 1 June. Daniel will continue his roles as W3C Associate Chair for Europe, liaison for international standards bodies, and in efforts such as UN organizations, ISOC, ISO, and ICANN. W3C Offices assist with promotion efforts in local languages, broaden W3C's geographical base, and encourage international participation in W3C Activities. http://www.w3.org/People/danield/ http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Offices/ 18. Web Services Addressing WSDL Binding Is a W3C Candidate Recommendation W3C is pleased to announce the advancement of Web Services Addressing 1.0 - WSDL Binding to Candidate Recommendation. Comments are welcome through 7 July. The document defines how the properties in Web Services Addressing 1.0 - Core are described in the Web Services Description Language (WSDL). Web Services Addressing provides transport-neutral mechanisms and is designed to work with both WSDL versions 1.1 and 2.0. http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/CR-ws-addr-wsdl-20060529/ http://www.w3.org/TR/ws-addr-core/ http://www.w3.org/TR/wsdl20/ http://www.w3.org/2002/ws/ 19. W3C Welcomes Members at Advisory Committee Meeting W3C held its semiannual Advisory Committee Meeting on 21-22 May in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. W3C Member organizations participated in two days of discussions and strategic planning about W3C Activities and future work. Learn How to Become a W3C Member and join W3C at the next Advisory Committee Meeting on 29-30 November in Tokyo, Japan. http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Member/List http://www.w3.org/Consortium/activities http://www.w3.org/Consortium/join 20. W3C to Participate in Advisory Board of Internet Governance Forum In a 17 May 2006 press release, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan established "an Advisory Group to assist him in convening the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), a new forum for a multi-stakeholder dialogue on Internet governance." Daniel Dardailler, W3C's Associate Chair for Europe, will represent W3C on the new Advisory Board. W3C looks forward to sharing its experience in distributed consensus-building within this new international environment for standardization. http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs//2006/sga1006.doc.htm 21. W3C Launches WebCGM Working Group W3C is pleased to announce the launch of the Web CGM Working Group. Lofton Henderson will Chair this Working Group, which is chartered through 31 May 2007 to produce a W3C Recommendation for version 2.0 of the WebCGM 1.0 Recommendation. http://www.w3.org/Graphics/WebCGM/WG/ http://www.w3.org/2006/03/webcgm-charter.html http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-WebCGM http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Member/List http://www.w3.org/2004/01/pp-impl/39256/join http://www.w3.org/Graphics/WebCGM/WG/ 22. Working Draft: Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0 The Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group has published an updated Working Draft of Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0 that incorporates comments from their 18 April 2006 Last Call Working Draft. This document aims to improve user experience by describing how to produce Web content and Web sites intended for delivery to mobile and small-screen devices. http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-mobile-bp-20060518/ http://www.w3.org/2005/MWI/BPWG/ 23. W3C Workshop on a Device Description Repository W3C holds the International Workshop on the Implementation of a Device Description Repository on 12-13 July 2006, in Madrid, Spain. Application and database developers and others are invited to discuss the design, implementation and use of a repository of device information for content and service providers. Position papers are due 31 May. http://www.w3.org/2005/MWI/DDWG/workshop2006/ http://www.w3.org/2006/05/ddrworkshop-pressrelease http://www.w3.org/2003/08/Workshops/ http://www.w3.org/Mobile/ 24. Last Call: Internationalization Tag Set The Internationalization Tag Set Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of the Internationalization Tag Set (ITS) Version 1.0, a First Public Working Draft of Best Practices for XML Internationalization, and updated requirements. Organized by data categories, the ITS 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. Last Call comments are welcome through 30 June. http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-its-20060518/ http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-xml-i18n-bp-20060518/ http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-itsreq-20060518/ http://www.w3.org/International/ 25. Last Call: WSDL RDF Mapping The Web Services Description Working Group has released a Last Call Working Draft of Web Services Description Language (WSDL) Version 2.0: RDF Mapping. Comments are welcome through 17 July. WSDL 2.0 models and describes modular Web services and is used to document distributed systems and to automate communication between applications. The draft describes WSDL in RDF and OWL, and a mapping procedure for transforming WSDL descriptions into RDF form. http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-wsdl20-rdf-20060518/ http://www.w3.org/RDF/ http://www.w3.org/2004/OWL/ http://www.w3.org/2002/ws/ 26. Working Draft: Authorizing Read Access to XML Content The Voice Browser, Web API and Web Application Formats (WAF) Working Groups jointly released a Working Draft of Authorizing Read Access to XML Content Using the Processing Instruction 1.0. The draft describes a mechanism in use by voice browser vendors that allows content providers to specify the access policy of that content. Implementors should perform their own security analysis. http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-access-control-20060517/ http://www.w3.org/2006/rwc/ 27. Working Draft: RDFa Primer The HTML Working Group and the Semantic Web Best Practices and Deployment Working Group jointly have published an updated Working Draft of the RDFa Primer 1.0. RDFa expresses metadata in XHTML-compatible constructs and extensions, enabling a new world of user functionality. Produced by the groups' RDF in XHTML Task Force, the draft is a companion to the XHTML 2.0 specification. http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-xhtml-rdfa-primer-20060516/ http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml2/ http://www.w3.org/Markup/ http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/ ________________________________________________________________________ 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