Welcome to the March 2008 newsletter from the Australian W3C Office. Your link to the latest Consortium news and events... 1. Events 2. W3C Invites Community Discussion at WWW2008 Track 3. Last Call: Cool URIs for the Semantic Web 4. Last Call: Element Traversal Specification 5. Call for Review: XML Base (Second Edition) Proposed Edited Recommendation 6. User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG) 2.0: Comments Welcome on First Public Working Draft 7. Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) 2.0: Working Draft 8. Note: Web Security Experience, Indicators and Trust: Scope and Use Cases 9. RDB2RDF Incubator Group to Study Mapping Relational Data into RDF 10.Mobile Technologies for Sustaining Development Focus of Workshop 11.Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) Version 1.1 12.RDFa Primer 13.Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER): Description Resources 14.SVG Open 2008 Conference and Exhibition 15.W3C Invites Implementations of XQuery Update Facility 1.0 (Candidate Recommendation) 1. Events - AusWeb08 5th-9th April 2008 The 14th Australasian World Wide Conference will be held at the Ballina Beach Resort, 5th-9th April 2008. We seek contributions via way of refereed papers, posters and short edited papers as well as suggestions for workshops, tutorials and special interest group sessions. AusWeb is the longest running regional Web conference in the world and seeks to provide reporting of research and projects and create discussion about all aspects of the Web development and Web applications. Conference Web site http://ausweb.scu.edu.au - Web Directions Government: Canberra When: May 19 and 20 2008 Where: Old Parliament House, Canberra Web Directions Government is a full day two track conference, plus an optional extra day of workshops, focussing on the concepts, technologies and techniques for meeting the challenges of eGovernment: interaction design and user experience, web standards, usability and accessibility, Government 2.0, Ajax and Javascript, knowledge management, social media. Speakers include W3C eGovernment Lead JosŽ Manuel Alonso, User Experience expert Robert Hoekman Jr, Jason Ryan of NZ State Services Commission, Lisa Herrod, Cameron Adams, Sebastian Chan and many more. Web Site http://gov08.webdirections.org/ - Web Directions User Experience: Melbourne When: May 15 and 16 2008 Where: Melbourne Town Hall Web Directions User Experience is a one day two track conference, plus optional extra day of workshops, focussing on the concepts, technologies and techniques for building great user experiences on the web: interaction design, usability and testing, user research and ethnography, Ajax and Javascript, content, designing for email and mobile and more. Web Site http://ux08.webdirections.org/ 2. W3C Invites Community Discussion at WWW2008 Track W3C invites WWW2008 conference attendees to discuss pressing Web issues at the W3C Track in Beijing, China, on 23-24 April. Chaired by Marie-Claire Forgue, W3C track will present nearly 25 topics, some of them are related to the Internet use in China; read the press release. In addition to the W3C Track, Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director and inventor of the Web, will give a keynote titled "The Future of Web Applications" on Thursday, 24 April. A press conference with Tim Berners-Lee is scheduled on Wednesday 23 April at the Beijing International Convention Center; more details will be available on the W3C track page. http://www2008.org/ http://www2008.org/ http://www.w3.org/2008/04/w3c-track http://www.w3.org/2008/03/www2008-pressrelease http://www.bicc.com.cn/english/index.asp http://www.w3.org/2008/04/w3c-track.html#Press 3. Last Call: Cool URIs for the Semantic Web The Semantic Web Education and Outreach (SWEO) Interest Group has published the Last Call Working Draft of "Cool URIs for the Semantic Web." The Resource Description Framework (RDF) allows users to describe both Web documents and concepts from the real world Ñ people, organizations, topics, things Ñ in a computer-processable way. Publishing such descriptions on the Web creates the Semantic Web. URIs (Uniform Resource Identifiers) are very important to the Semantic Web, providing both the core of the framework itself and the link between RDF and the Web. This document presents guidelines for the effective use of URIs in the context of the Semantic Web. Comments are welcome through 28 March. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity. http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/sweo/ http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-cooluris-20080321/ http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/ 4. Last Call: Element Traversal Specification The Web API Working Group has published the Last Call Working Draft of "Element Traversal Specification." This specification defines the ElementTraversal interface, which allows script navigation of the elements of a DOM tree, excluding all other nodes in the DOM, such as text nodes. It is intended to provide a more convenient alternative to existing DOM navigation interfaces, with a low implementation footprint. Comments are welcome through 3 April. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity. http://www.w3.org/2006/webapi/ http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-ElementTraversal-20080303/ http://www.w3.org/2006/rwc/ 5. Call for Review: XML Base (Second Edition) Proposed Edited Recommendation The XML Core Working Group has published the Proposed Edited Recommendation of "XML Base (Second Edition)." This document describes a facility, similar to that of HTML BASE, for defining base URIs for parts of XML documents. All changes to the document are recorded in the XML Base Errata document. Comments are welcome through 30 June. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity. http://www.w3.org/XML/Core/ http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/PER-xmlbase-20080320/ http://www.w3.org/2001/06/xmlbase-errata http://www.w3.org/XML/ 6. User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG) 2.0: Comments Welcome on First Public Working Draft The User Agent Accessibility Guidelines Working Group has published a first public Working Draft of the "User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG) 2.0." UAAG 2.0 addresses accessibility of browsers and media players and their interoperability with assistive technologies. It will cover more advanced Web technologies than "UAAG 1.0." Read the invitation to review the UAAG 2.0 Working Draft and about the Web Accessibility Initiative. http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/ http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-UAAG20-20080312/ http://www.w3.org/TR/UAAG10/ http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ig/2008JanMar/0062 http://www.w3.org/WAI/ 7. Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) 2.0: Working Draft The Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines Working Group published updated Working Drafts of "Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 2.0" and "Implementation Techniques for ATAG 2.0." ATAG helps developers design tools that are accessible so that people with disabilities can use the tools, and so that the tools help produce accessible Web content. Read the invitation to review the updated ATAG 2.0 Working Drafts and learn more about the Web Accessibility Initiative. http://www.w3.org/WAI/AU/ http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-ATAG20-20080310/ http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-ATAG20-TECHS-20080310/ http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ig/2008JanMar/0058 http://www.w3.org/WAI/ 8. Note: Web Security Experience, Indicators and Trust: Scope and Use Cases The Web Security Context Working Group has published the Group Note "Web Security Experience, Indicators and Trust: Scope and Use Cases". The Working Group is chartered to recommend user interfaces that help users make trust decisions on the Web. This Note explains the group's technical aims (complementing the group charter), what technologies may be used to achieve the group's mission, and how proposals will be evaluated. This Note also includes an initial collection of use cases that the group expects will drive its technical work. Learn more about the Security Activity. http://www.w3.org/2006/WSC/ http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/NOTE-wsc-usecases-20080306/ http://www.w3.org/2005/Security/wsc-charter http://www.w3.org/Security/ 9. RDB2RDF Incubator Group to Study Mapping Relational Data into RDF W3C is pleased to announce the creation of the RDB2RDF Incubator Group, sponsored by W3C Members Oracle, HP, PartnersHealthcare, and OpenLink Software. The mission of this Incubator Group is twofold: (1) to examine and classify existing approaches to mapping relational data into RDF and assess whether standardization is possible and/or necessary in this area, and (2) to examine and classify existing approaches to mapping OWL classes to Relational data, or, more accurately, SQL queries, moving towards the goal of defining a standard in this area. See the charter for more information. Read more about the Incubator Activity, an initiative to foster development of emerging Web-related technologies. http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/rdb2rdf http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/rdb2rdf/charter-20080304 http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/ 10.Mobile Technologies for Sustaining Development Focus of Workshop W3C invites people to participate in a Workshop on the Role of Mobile Technologies in Fostering Social Development in S‹o Paulo, Brazil, on 2-3 June 2008. W3C intends for this public Workshop to be a multidisciplinary forum where mobile and Web technology experts, NGO specialists, and egovernment representatives gather to learn more about the specific needs, expectations, and challenges of deploying services for underprivileged populations. Position papers are due 20 April. Read the press release and learn more about the W3C Mobile Web Initiative (MWI) and the Digital World Forum project. http://www.w3.org/2008/02/MS4D_WS/ http://www.w3.org/2008/02/MS4D_WS/ http://www.w3.org/2008/03/mw4d-pressrelease http://www.w3.org/Mobile/ http://digitalworld.ercim.org/ 11.Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) Version 1.1 The Voice Browser Working Group has published an updated Working Draft of "Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) Version 1.1," part of the W3C framework for enabling access to the Web using spoken interaction. SSML provides a rich, XML-based markup language for assisting the generation of synthetic speech in Web and other applications. It provides a standard way to control aspects of speech such as pronunciation, volume, pitch, rate, etc. across different synthesis-capable platforms. See the "list of changes" in this draft and learn more about W3C's Voice Browser Activity. http://www.w3.org/Voice/ http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-speech-synthesis11-20080317/ http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-speech-synthesis11-20080317/#AppG http://www.w3.org/Voice/ 12.RDFa Primer The Semantic Web Deployment Working Group and the XHTML2 Working Group have jointly published an updated Working Draft of the "RDFa Primer 1.0." The primer is an introduction to "RDFa," a method for embedding structured data in XHTML. "Changes" in this draft align it with the the interpretation of the @src attribute as specified in the "21 February 2008 RDFa Syntax Last Call Working Draft." Visit the XHTML2 and Semantic Web home pages. http://www.w3.org/2006/07/SWD/ http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/ http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-xhtml-rdfa-primer-20071026/ http://www.w3.org/TR/rdfa-syntax/ http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-xhtml-rdfa-primer-20080317/#changes http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-rdfa-syntax-20080221 http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/ http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/ 13.Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER): Description Resources The Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER) Working Group published an updated Working Draft of "Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER): Description Resources." The purpose of the "Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER)" is to provide a means to describe a group of resources through the publication of machine-readable metadata, as motivated by the "POWDER Use Cases." The current document sets out how Description Resources (DRs) can be created and published, whether individually or as bulk data, how to link to DRs from other online resources, and, crucially, how DRs may be authenticated and trusted. The aim is to provide a platform through which opinions, claims and assertions about online resources can be expressed by people and exchanged by machines. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity. http://www.w3.org/2007/powder/ http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-powder-dr-20080317/ http://www.w3.org/TR/powder-grouping/ http://www.w3.org/TR/powder-use-cases/ http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/ 14.SVG Open 2008 Conference and Exhibition SVG Open 2008, the 6th International Conference on Scalable Vector Graphics, will be held at the Maritim Hotel conference center in Nuremberg, Germany on 26-28 August 2008, with additional workshops on 29 August. Co-sponsored by W3C, the SVG Open conference series is the premier forum for SVG designers, developers, and implementors to share ideas, experiences, products, and strategies. The W3C SVG Working Group and W3C staff members Chris Lilley and Doug Schepers will participate. Proposals for presentation abstracts and course outlines are welcome through 31 March. Early-bird registration is now open, with a 25% discount for W3C Members. Learn more about the W3C Graphics Activity http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/ http://www.svgopen.org/ http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/ http://www.svgopen.org/2008/index.php?section=participate_presenters http://www.svgopen.org/2008/index.php?section=participate_workshops https://www.svgopen.org/2008/index.php?section=participate_registrat ion http://www.w3.org/Graphics/ 15.W3C Invites Implementations of XQuery Update Facility 1.0 (Candidate Recommendation) 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 (including node insertion, deletion, modification, and creation) to instances of the XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Data Model. The Working Group also published today two additional documents that will become Working Group notes: " XQuery Update Facility 1.0 Requirements" and "XQuery Update Facility 1.0 Use Cases." Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity. http://www.w3.org/XML/Query/ http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/CR-xquery-update-10-20080314/ http://www.w3.org/TR/xquery/ http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/CR-xquery-update-10-requirements-20080314/ http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/CR-xquery-update-10-use-cases-20080314/ http://www.w3.org/XML/ ________________________________________________________________________ ____ 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 ----------- Unsubscribe ----------- To unsubscribe send an email to w3c-news-request@w3c.org.au with the following command in the body of the email unsubscribe w3c-news your.email@address.org Replace the your.email@adddress.org with your real e-mail address. 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