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The W3C Membership has elected the Advisory Board

5 June 2023 | Archive

Logo for the W3C Advisory BoardThe W3C Membership has elected the following people to fill six seats on the W3C Advisory Board starting 1 July 2023: Tantek Çelik (Mozilla Foundation), Elika J Etemad (Apple Inc.), Wendy Reid (Rakuten Group, Inc.), Avneesh Singh (DAISY Consortium), Chris Wilson (Google LLC) and Song XU (China Mobile) will join continuing participants Qing An (Alibaba Group), Wei Ding (Huawei), Tatsuya Igarashi (Sony), Florian Rivoal (W3C Invited Expert) and Tzviya Siegman (Wiley). Many thanks to the 8 candidates, and thanks for contributions to the AB to the departing participants, Heejin Chung (Samsung) and Charles Nevile (ConsenSys), whose terms end this month.

Created in March 1998, the Advisory Board provides ongoing guidance to the W3C Team on issues of strategy, management, legal matters, process, and conflict resolution. The Advisory Board manages the evolution of the Process Document. The elected Members of the Advisory Board participate as individual contributors and not representatives of their organizations. Advisory Board participants use their best judgment to find the best solutions for the Web, not just for any particular network, technology, vendor, or user. Read more about the Advisory Board and its work.

EPUB 3.3 becomes a W3C Recommendation

25 May 2023 | Archive

Composite showing the epub logo and a diagram of the various containers that constitute an epub file: content document such as xhtml and svg and other resources such as CSS, png, mp3, mov which constitute the publication resources, nested within what constitute the EPUB publication that is made of a package document and navigation document, and all of this is wrapped within the EPUB containerThe EPUB 3 Working Group has published EPUB 3.3, EPUB Reading Systems 3.3 and EPUB Accessibility 1.1 as W3C Recommendations, as part of the Digital Publishing activity.

EPUB defines a distribution and interchange format for digital publications and documents. The EPUB format provides a means of representing, packaging, and encoding structured and semantically enhanced web content — including HTML, CSS, SVG, and other resources — for distribution in a single-file container.

The content specification, which is what publishers, creators, or authors are really interested in, is now separate from the reading system specification that is of primary interest for implementers only. Editorial changes made the documents more readable.

Accessibility of EPUB publications was an essential part of the group’s activity. As a result, the EPUB Accessibility specification has been updated and, for the first time in the history of EPUB, is now an integral part of the EPUB Standard. Furthermore, the EPUB Accessibility specification is compatible with the European Accessibility Act whose influence will be significant on Digital Publishing in the years to come.

Finally, please note that this edition of EPUB is dedicated to Garth Conboy, who was one of the original designers of EPUB, and an initiator of the W3C Working Group which produced these new specifications. He is, and will remain, greatly missed.

Please read our Press Release to learn more about this achievement.

Web Share API is a W3C Recommendation

30 May 2023 | Archive

The Web Applications Working Group has published Web Share API as a W3C Recommendation. This specification defines an API for sharing text, links and other content to an arbitrary destination of the user’s choice. The available share targets are not specified here; they are provided by the user agent. They could, for example, be apps, websites or contacts.

Updated Candidate Recommendations: UI Events KeyboardEvent code and key Values

30 May 2023 | Archive

The Web Applications Working Group invites implementations of the following two updated Candidate Recommendation Snapshots:

First Public Working Draft: Verifiable Credentials JSON Schema Specification 2023

23 May 2023 | Archive

The Verifiable Credentials Working Group has published a First Public Working Draft of Verifiable Credentials JSON Schema Specification 2023. Among other things, the [VC-DATA-MODEL-2] specifies the models used for Verifiable Credentials, Verifiable Presentations, and explains the relationships between three parties: issuers, holders, and verifiers. Critical pieces of functionality referenced throughout the [VC-DATA-MODEL-2] are the that of verifiability, extensibility, and semantic interoperability. This specification provides a mechanism to make use of a Credential Schema in Verifiable Credential, leveraging the existing Data Schemas concept.

First Public Working Draft: BBS Cryptosuite v2023

18 May 2023 | Archive

The Verifiable Credentials Working Group has published a First Public Working Draft of BBS Cryptosuite v2023. This specification describes the BBS+ Signature Suite created in 2023 for the Data Integrity specification. The Signature Suite utilizes BBS+ signatures to provide the capability of zero knowledge proof disclosures.

First Public Working Drafts: Update of the RDF and SPARQL families of specification towards version 1.2

16 May 2023 | Archive

The RDF-star Working Group has published the following 16 First Public Working Drafts, which represent the first milestone in the update of the RDF and SPARQL families of specification towards version 1.2:

  1. RDF 1.2 Concepts and Abstract Syntax defines an abstract syntax (a data model) for the Resource Description Framework (RDF), which serves to link all RDF-based languages and specifications.
  2. RDF 1.2 XML Syntax defines an XML syntax for RDF called RDF/XML in terms of Namespaces in XML, the XML Information Set and XML Base.
  3. RDF 1.2 Turtle defines a textual syntax for RDF called Turtle that allows an RDF graph to be completely written in a compact and natural text form, with abbreviations for common usage patterns and datatypes.
  4. RDF 1.2 N-Triples defines a line-based, plain text format for encoding an RDF graph.
  5. RDF 1.2 N-Quads defines is a line-based, plain text format for encoding an RDF dataset.
  6. RDF 1.2 TriG defines a textual syntax for RDF called TriG that allows an RDF dataset to be completely written in a compact and natural text form, with abbreviations for common usage patterns and datatypes. TriG is an extension of the Turtle format.
  7. RDF 1.2 Schema defines a data-modelling vocabulary for RDF data. RDF Schema is an extension of the basic RDF vocabulary.
  8. SPARQL 1.2 Query Language defines the syntax and semantics of the SPARQL query language for RDF. SPARQL can be used to express queries across diverse data sources, whether the data is stored natively as RDF or viewed as RDF via middleware.
  9. SPARQL 1.2 Update describes SPARQL 1.2 Update, an update language for RDF graphs. It uses a syntax derived from the SPARQL Query Language for RDF.
  10. SPARQL 1.2 Protocol specifies the SPARQL Protocol; it describes a means for conveying SPARQL queries and updates to a SPARQL processing service and returning the results via HTTP to the entity that requested them.
  11. SPARQL 1.2 Query Results XML Format describes an XML format for the variable binding and boolean results formats provided by the SPARQL query language for RDF.
  12. SPARQL 1.2 Query Results JSON Format describes the representation of SELECT and ASK query results using JSON.
  13. SPARQL 1.2 Query Results CSV and TSV Formats describes the use of the formats CSV [RFC4180] (comma separated values) and TSV [IANA-TSV] (tab separated values) for expressing SPARQL query results from SELECT queries.
  14. SPARQL 1.2 Service Description describes SPARQL service description, a method for discovering, and vocabulary for describing SPARQL services made available via the SPARQL 1.2 Protocol.
  15. SPARQL 1.2 Federated Query defines the syntax and semantics of SPARQL 1.1 Federated Query extension for executing queries distributed over different SPARQL endpoints.
  16. SPARQL 1.2 Graph Store Protocol describes the use of HTTP operations for the purpose of managing a collection of RDF graphs. This interface is an alternative to SPARQL 1.2 Protocol.

W3C welcomes feedback on the beta of its new website

27 February 2023 | Archive

Screenshot of the beta version of the homepage of the redesigned W3C websiteW3C invites public feedback on a beta release of the W3C website redesign. The new site features a cleaner and more modern look, a simplified information architecture, improved accessibility, and more integration throughout the site. Once the beta of the English site has concluded, we will offer sites in Japanese and Chinese.

The scope of the redesign is limited to most of our public pages, but we will gradually work to include the rest of the site.

You can read a bit more on the beta and its context in the W3C blog post, and about the redesign work and process in Studio 24’s blog post. We look forward to your feedback.

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