NEWSLETTER W3C Benelux - 2009-06-26

NEWSLETTER W3C Kantoor Benelux - Bureau W3C Benelux - Benelux W3C Office

June - juin - juni 2009

Website: http://www.w3c.nl -- http://www.w3c-benelux.org

Steve Bratt to Assume Full-Time Role as Web Foundation CEO

2009-06-26: As of 30 June, Steven R. Bratt will step down from his role as W3C CEO in order to pursue full-time the role of CEO of the World Wide Web Foundation. The Web Foundation was announced in September 2008 with a mission to advance the Web, connect humanity, and empower people. Steve has been part-time CEO of the Web Foundation since then.

While W3C COO and then CEO, Steve was responsible for W3C's worldwide operations and outreach, including overall management of Member relations, the W3C Process, the staff, strategic planning, budget, legal matters, external liaisons and major events. His purposeful and thoughtful leadership at W3C was informed by previous experiences in research, industry, and government, where he served on scientific and arms control delegations among others.

While W3C seeks to fill the open position, Ralph Swick assumes Steve's leadership responsibilities. Thomas Roessler steps up in the interim to take on the role of Technology and Society Domain Lead.

The mission of the Web Foundation complements that of W3C, and the two organizations will continue to coordinate their efforts to make the Web useful and available to all. W3C looks forward to Steve's successful leadership of the Web Foundation.

noneW3C Invites Implementations of Widgets

1.0: Digital Signatures

2009-06-25: The Web Applications Working Group invites implementation of the Candidate Recommendation of Widgets 1.0: Digital Signatures. Widgets are full-fledged client-side applications that are authored using Web standards and packaged for distribution. This document defines a profile of the XML Signature Syntax and Processing 1.1 specification to allow a widget package to be digitally signed, helping to ensure continuity of authorship and distributorship. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

noneFirst Authorized Translation of WCAG 2.0

Published

2009-06-26: W3C announces the French Authorized Translation of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0, R�es pour l'accessibilit�es contenus Web (WCAG) 2.0. It is the first of several planned WCAG 2.0 Translations: Brazilian Portuguese, Catalan, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, German, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and other languages. Translations are listed on the WCAG 2.0 Translations page and announced via the WAI Interest Group mailing list and WAI RSS feed. Learn more about translating W3C documents, Policy for Authorized W3C Translations, WCAG 2.0, and the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).

noneW3C Workshop on Using Ink in Multimodal

Applications Canceled

2009-06-25: The Workshop on Using Ink in Multimodal Applications, which was planned for 10-11 July 2009 in Grand Bend, Ontario (Canada), has been canceled. The goal of the Workshop was to help the Multimodal Interaction Working Group integrate handwriting modality components (Ink Modality Components) into the MMI Architecture and clarify what should be added to the Multimodal specifications to enable applications to adapt to various modality combinations including Ink. The group is planning to meet face-to- face during W3C's TPAC 2009, and will continue to discuss possible extensions for InkML and how to integrate the specification into the architecture. Read about the Ink Markup Language (InkML) and W3C's Multimodal Interaction Activity.

noneW3C Launches Open Web Education Alliance

Incubator Group

2009-06-17: W3C is pleased to announce the creation of the Open Web Education Alliance Incubator Group, whose mission is to help enhance and standardize the architecture of the World Wide Web by facilitating the highest quality standards and best practice based education for future generations of Web professionals. The goal of this Incubator Group is to bring together interested individuals, companies, and organizations with a strong interest in the field of educating Web professionals, to explore the needs and issues around the topic of Web development education. The group will be chaired by John Allsopp. The following W3C Members have sponsored the charter for this group: Adobe Systems Inc.; Mitsue-Links Co., Ltd; and Opera Software. 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.

noneW3C Celebrates Semantic Web Progress at

SemTech 2009

Semantic Web2009-06-15: W3C technical staff and more than 30 W3C Member organizations will present at the Semantic Technology Conference (SemTech) this week in San Jose, California. Sessions led by W3C staff and Member organizations highlight the accelerating rate of adoption and deployment of Semantic Web technologies in the past year. "We have gathered a growing number of Semantic Web use cases and case studies in the past 12 months," said Ivan Herman, Semantic Web Activity Lead for W3C and one of the presenters. "What thrills me is the diversity of application areas for the Semantic Web, including more software, services and tools, as well as successful deployment in business and industry." Read the full press release and learn more about the Semantic Web Activity.

noneCall for Review: SKOS Reference Proposed

Recommendation

2009-06-15: The Semantic Web Deployment Working Group has published the Proposed Recommendation of SKOS Simple Knowledge Organization System Reference. SKOS provides a common data model for sharing and linking knowledge organization systems via the Web. SKOS is a vocabulary for expressing the basic structure and content of concept schemes such as thesauri, classification schemes, subject heading schemes, taxonomies, folksonomies, and other similar types of controlled vocabulary. As an application of the Resource Description Framework (RDF), SKOS allows concepts to be composed and published on the World Wide Web, linked with data on the Web and integrated into other concept schemes. Along with this publication of the SKOS Reference Proposed Recommendation the Working Group has published an updated SKOS Primer Working Draft. Comments are welcome through 15 July. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity.

noneW3C Invites Implementation of OWL 2

2009-06-15: The OWL Working Group invites implementation of its OWL 2 Web Ontology Language. OWL 2 is a compatible extension to OWL 1, providing additional features for people using ontologies. An ontology is a structured set of terms that a particular community uses for organizing data, such as "title", "author", and "ISBN" for data about books. The OWL 2 document set contains 9 technical specifications and 4 instructional documents. The Recommendation-track specifications are now Candidate Recommendations, indicating that the Working Group and the W3C Director believe this is a good time for systems to begin adopting OWL 2 features on an experimental basis. The group maintains a list of implementations and encourages new information about implementations and other feedback to be sent to it comments address. The 4 instructional documents, which provide an introduction to OWL 2, are now at Last Call: overview, primer, new features and rationale, and quick reference. Finally, a new datatype used within both OWL and RIF, called rdf:PlainLiteral (formerly called rdf:text) is also a Candidate Recommendation. Learn more about the Semantic Web.

noneCall for Prior Art Related to US Patent

5,764,992

2009-06-12: This is a public call for prior art. On 5 March 2009, pursuant to its rights under W3C's Patent Policy, Apple, Inc. disclosed US patent 5,764,992 and claimed that it applies to the Widgets 1.0: Updates specification. Apple excluded all claims from the W3C Royalty-Free License commitment of the W3C Patent Policy given by Participants of the Web Applications Working Group. In accordance with the exception procedures of the Patent Policy, W3C launched a Patent Advisory Group (PAG) to determine possible solutions. The PAG has advised W3C to issue this call for prior art. The PAG seeks information about software update systems available before June 1995 that offer a viable solution that may apply to the use of updates in Widgets. People who wish to provide feedback should refer to the call for prior art for more information.

noneCall for Review: POWDER Suite is a

Proposed Recommendation

2009-06-04: The Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER) Working Group has published three Proposed Recommendations: Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER): Grouping of Resources, Description Resources, and Formal Semantics. The Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER) suite facilitates the publication of descriptions of multiple resources such as all those available from a Web site (see POWDER use cases). The first of these three documents 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. The second details the creation and lifecycle of Description Resources (DRs), which encapsulate POWDER metadata. The third describes the formal semantics of the formalism. Comments are welcome through 05 July. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity.

noneW3C Invites Implementations of SOAP over

Java Message Service 1.0

2009-06-04: The SOAP-JMS Binding Working Group invites implementation of the Candidate Recommendation of SOAP over Java Message Service 1.0. The work described in this and related documents is aimed at a set of standards for the transport of SOAP messages over JMS [Java Message Service]. The main purpose is to ensure interoperability between the implementations of different Web services vendors. It should also enable customers to implement their own Web services for part of their infrastructure, and to have this interoperate with vendor provided Web services. The main audience will be implementers of Web services stacks; in particular people who wish to extend a Web services stack with an implementation of SOAP/JMS. This document specifies how SOAP should bind to a messaging system that supports the Java Message Service (JMS). Learn more about the Web Services Activity.

noneRegistration Open: Live Training

Sessions On Mobile Web Design

2009-06-04: Today, the W3C Mobile Web Initiative opens registration for its first ever live training day. Training will take place Thursday, 2 July 2009, in Cambridge, UK. Students will attend a full day of lectures and hands on sessions on the W3C Mobile Web Best Practices standard, and more generally on mobile Web design. This training event is part of the MobiWeb 2.0 project supported by the European Union's 7th Research Framework Programme (FP7). Read the full announcement and learn more about the W3C Mobile Web Initiative.

noneW3C Invites Implementations of XQuery

Update Facility 1.0

2009-06-10: The XML Query Working Group has published a minor update to 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 draft reflects changes made in response to comments received so far during the Candidate Recommendation period. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity.

UK Government Moves to Put Data on the Web

2009-06-10: Today the Office of the Prime Minister in the UK announced that Tim Berners-Lee will "help drive opening of access to Government data on the web over the coming months." The announcement is an important step in helping to fulfill the vision for a Web of Linked Open Data built on W3C's open Semantic Web standards, espoused by Berners-Lee in his TED 2009 talk. "Government data the people's data is an important component to the larger Linked Open Data movement," said Berners-Lee. "I look forward to working with multiple government agencies and local enthusiasts to help early adopters bring their data to the bigger picture." In April, Berners-Lee engaged similarly with the US government offering to help them join the "rapidly growing Linked Open Data cloud, to which US recovery data will be a welcome addition." W3C's own eGovernment Interest Group has also been actively building an international network of support to work with governments on issues of transparency, accountability, and efficiency through open data. Learn more about W3C's eGovernment and Semantic Web Activities.

noneW3C Invites Implementations of SOAP over

Java Message Service 1.0

2009-06-04: The SOAP-JMS Binding Working Group invites implementation of the Candidate Recommendation of SOAP over Java Message Service 1.0. The work described in this and related documents is aimed at a set of standards for the transport of SOAP messages over JMS [Java Message Service]. The main purpose is to ensure interoperability between the implementations of different Web services vendors. It should also enable customers to implement their own Web services for part of their infrastructure, and to have this interoperate with vendor provided Web services. The main audience will be implementers of Web services stacks; in particular people who wish to extend a Web services stack with an implementation of SOAP/JMS. This document specifies how SOAP should bind to a messaging system that supports the Java Message Service (JMS). Learn more about the Web Services Activity.

noneRegistration Open: Live Training

Sessions On Mobile Web Design

2009-06-04: Today, the W3C Mobile Web Initiative opens registration for its first ever live training day. Training will take place Thursday, 2 July 2009, in Cambridge, UK. Students will attend a full day of lectures and hands on sessions on the W3C Mobile Web Best Practices standard, and more generally on mobile Web design. This training event is part of the MobiWeb 2.0 project supported by the European Union's 7th Research Framework Programme (FP7). Read the full announcement and learn more about the W3C Mobile Web Initiative.

noneW3C Advisory Committee Elects Advisory

Board

2009-06-02: The W3C Advisory Committee has filled four 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, the nine Advisory Board participants are Jean-François Abramatic (IBM), Ann Bassetti (The Boeing Company), Jim Bell (HP), Don Deutsch (Oracle), Eduardo Gutentag (Sun Microsystems), Ora Lassila (Nokia), Charles McCathieNevile (Opera Software), Takeshi Natsuno (Keio University), and Arun Ranganathan (Mozilla). Steve Zilles continues as interim Advisory Board Chair. Read more about the Advisory Board.