OpenWeb Developers, supported by the BOW (Brillant OpenWeb) team, is a dedicated Web technology building group dedicated to the development of OpenWeb technology, and will update readers with W3C highlights from time to time.

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An overview of the

This report is a compilation of recent highlights of W3C’s work. It provides an overview of how the W3C is optimising, improving, innovating, incubating, researching and developing existing work, as well as a roadmap for 2018.

The W3C continues to expand the Web to meet new opportunities and challenges while implementing core innovations in technology and functionality. Significant advances in a number of areas demonstrate the great vitality of the W3C and the Web community. We can see the maturing and further development of new technologies on the Web:

  1. WOFF2 (The Open Font Format for the Web) has become an official W3C Recommendation.

  2. Merchants adopt simplified payment solutions on the Web (the Web payment specification has become a W3C Candidate Recommendation, or CR).

  3. Implement Virtual reality on the Web by exploring the work emanating from the W3C community group and building on recent technical workshops.

  4. Advancing WebAssembly to improve Web performance by allowing loaded pages to run compiled native code, the W3C released its First Public Working Draft (FPWD) in mid-February.

  5. Service Workers have been implemented across the platform.

The W3C plans to release an official WCAG 2.1 recommendation in early June 2018, the first major update to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) in a decade. WCAG has had a surprisingly wide impact, being adopted as a regulatory requirement by countries and widely used by commercial and non-governmental websites, and WCAG 2.1 is expected to do the same. In addition, the European Union intends to fully adopt WCAG 2.1 this summer in a revision of the EN 301 549 standard, which covers accessibility requirements for publicly procured ICT products and services in Europe.

Telecom’s opportunity for the Web. WebRTC is the cornerstone of today’s telecommunications industry, and the W3C is expanding it by adding features such as peer-to-peer data exchange, which it plans to complete this year. W3C organized Web5G technology seminar in May this year, hoping to explore the development opportunities brought by Web5G network deployment with higher bandwidth, lower latency and better coverage through Web5G plan.

Web authentication is a W3C candidate recommendation. It is recommended that most security problems on networks be solved by eliminating the dependency on passwords. Passwords can be stolen and are often used repeatedly on multiple sites. However, the Web Authentication API candidate recommendation released this spring (CR means that the interface is fully functional) uses a user-controlled authenticator with a site-specific certificate based on public key encryption, To provide non-phishing authentication.

Web test. The Web Platform Tests project, which has received considerable attention and resources from the W3C and its members, will continue to be active. The Web Platform Test Dashboard, first launched in 2017 after integrating automated test results, continues to provide a daily snapshot of the evolution of Web interoperability and will continue to improve. WebDriver, already a W3C Proposal Recommendation (PR) scheduled for release as an official W3C Recommendation by the end of May, will complement this project by adding additional automated testing of Web browsers to improve interoperability.

W3C works with WHATWG. Since the WHATWG recently adopted a similar working model to the W3C, the W3C has continued to explore mechanisms for effective collaboration with the WHATWG on HTML and DOM specifications.

  1. We can see positive elements in the WHATWG’s changes, in particular its adoption of patent policy, code of conduct and attribution license CC-BY. The W3C maintains an ongoing dialogue with the WHATWG, including decisions based on all stakeholders and nearly 500 members, to determine how we can work together in a way that preserves the W3C’s enduring social value.

  2. We have had several direct meetings with the WHATWG Steering Group since December, and while progress has been slower, the tone is still positive.

  3. The W3C is committed to ensuring that HTML development continues to take into account the needs of the global community and continues to improve accessibility, internationalization and privacy while providing greater interoperability, performance and security.

The Web standard of the future

The W3C actively listens to community voices about what might be good Web standards in the future through a variety of mechanisms, including discussions and interactions with members, other standards bodies, and thousands of participants from more than 300 community groups. The W3C strategy team has been sifting through ideas for promising topics and inviting public input.

The W3C Strategy Funnel records team members’ exploration of potential work at various stages: through exploration and investigation, as well as incubation and evaluation, leading to the formation of a new group to operate under the constitution and standardization work. The right funnel view shows projects on GitHub. Each “card” represents a new domain issue, and the stack of cards represents the progress of the work from left to right. Most questions (cards) start at the exploration stage and then move into the standardization process or are eventually removed.

The public can be involved at any stage, especially for those that have already started incubation. This helps the W3C identify well-incubated efforts to ensure standardization progress, review the relevant ecosystems, express interest in participating, and then compile a group charter that accurately reflects the scope of standardization. Continuous feedback will speed up the entire standardization process.

The following W3C trends for each group since the last focus report:

Technical seminar

The W3C’s strategy team is planning a series of technical workshops on topics including: Permissions & Capabilities; Manga, Comics, Bandes Dessinees – Fixed Layout; Strong Identity; Evolving the Web Platform; Coupons; Improving Web Advertising.

Enhancing the Web core

CSS

The CSS Working Group’s recent focus is on flexible box and grid layouts, CSS for user interfaces, improved font support, and the release of the 2018 CSS Snapshot, a collection of definitions for all specifications that make up the current state of CSS.

The Houdini Task Force was developed by the CSS Working Group in collaboration with the W3C Technical Architecture Group (TAG) to develop features that can remove the “magic” of style and layout from the Web, Make it available for script extensions. Current highlights include:

  • Improved CSS layout model

  • Custom layout with painting

  • Worklets and animation

The CSS working group collects requests from two major user groups: the publishing industry and application developers. At the W3C, these groups are primarily distributed in the Publishing and Web Platform working groups. The former requires better paging support and advanced font handling, while the latter requires intelligent (and fast) scrolling and animation.

CSS as we know it is actually a collection of hundreds of specifications called modules. For a large working group like CSS, developing such a wide range of technologies requires constantly expanding resources, so we are looking for:

  • An expert resource on typography in countries with low current W3C membership, as well as new technologies such as variable fonts, color fonts, and hardware-accelerated rendering.

  • Quality control people, especially, isolate all assertions in the CSS module, make sure they’re tested and check that they’re accurate.

  • Teams that are well supported by traditional implementers, such as browser makers; In addition, we are always looking for implementors of other types of software

SVG

The SVG Working Group updated its charter last summer with a focus on improving the stability and accessibility of deployed features and some new testing. The group discusses routine work through regular teleconferences. Browser vendors and other implementers are working to improve interoperability.

HTML

HTML 5.3 has improved the integration with Referrer Policy, CSP 3, and the Payment Request API (e.g. “AllowPaymentRequest” in < IFrame >) specifications. The Custom Elements APIs, which allow authors to define and use new DOM Elements in their documents, have been incorporated into HTML 5.3. The W3C plans to publish an HTML 5.3 candidate recommendation this summer, with further solicitations for technical implementations.


test

Browser testing has played an important role in the evolution of the Web in the following ways:

  • Improve the reliability of Web technology definitions

  • Improve technology implementation quality by helping vendors detect bugs in their products

  • Improve available data on known Web technology errors and defects by publishing test results

W3C has been working on a coordinated open source effort since 2014 to build a cross-browser test suite for the Web Platform: Web-platform-tests. Web-platform Tests have been adopted by W3C, WHATWG, and all major browsers. The project is under discussion for a Revert Policy and is in the process of migrating to the New GitHub Organization.

After the integration automatically generated test results, the project released the Web-platform-Tests dashboard, making it easier to identify and resolve interoperability issues and providing a daily view of Web interoperability. The W3C is still working on improvements to the dashboard.

A key part of test automation is the ability to programmatically “run the browser” without manual interaction. The W3C Browser Testing and Tools Working Group released recommendations for Web Driver proposals this spring. It will allow additional automated testing of Web browsers to improve interoperability.

performance

WebAssembly

WebAssembly improves Web performance and functionality by enabling load pages to run native (compiled) code.

Since the WebAssembly Working Group was formed in the summer of 2017, The first public working draft of the Core Specification, JavaScript Interface, and Web API specifications has been released.

The fact that all major browsers, such as Chrome, Edge, Firefox and WebKit, implement the specification reflects both community interest and the feasibility of the specification. The work is distributed in the Community Group composed of 969 members and the Working Group composed of 41 members. The community group cultivates functional priorities and technologies; The working group develops test products and standardized documents.

Web performance

The Web Performance Working Group continues to produce deliverables, continue discussions around the Web application life cycle, improve Performance timelines and refine information that can be used to evaluate the Performance of Web applications.

The Server Timing specification is beginning to be implemented to allow the Web Server to deliver performance Timing information to the browser via HTTP headers. This API allows developers to schedule background tasks when the Web browser is idle.

The Beacon specification has also been implemented across the platform, allowing scheduling of asynchronous and non-blocking deliverable data.

Meltdown and Spectre issues affect the accuracy of high-resolution timers provided by performance objects. The Working Group will continue to assess the situation to provide appropriate guidance.

Data on the Web

One of the challenges organizations face is the integration of information systems, given the need to respond quickly to changing needs and the ever-increasing volume of diverse data. The task of the W3C Data Standards Initiative is to overcome deficiencies in data models and common vocabularies by providing standardized data exchange formats, models, tools, and guidance, potentially facilitating web-scale data integration and processing. This builds on the W3C’s previous work on RDF and interconnected data, as well as the corresponding suite of W3C recommendations, such as RDF, OWL, and SPARQL.

In the context of the Web of Things, the W3C is seeking to define an abstraction layer standard for object models that goes beyond existing IoT standards by using programming languages to describe Things and their relationships independently.

The W3C has made significant progress in this area:

  • The Dataset Exchange Working Group has just released the first public Working draft of the Revised Data Catalog Vocabulary (DCAT) – Revised Edition specification.

  • In light of the progress made by the JSON-LD community group, the W3C’s Advisory Committee reviewed the JSON-LD Working Group proposal in the spring to update the JSON-LD 1.0 specification.

  • The W3C recently published a study on tools and timing for Web Data standardization, and we thank the Open Data Institute for its support. Next, we discuss how to further leverage the W3C’s important role as a community development standards venue.

  • A collaboration between the Spatial Data on the Web Interest Group and the Open Geospatial Consortium, or OGC, has begun to develop more best practices, And evaluate technical proposals that could improve the publication and use of Web spatial data (see ongoing projects within the group)

  • W3C/ERCIM participates in eu projects

    • “Boost 4.0” : Working on big data in Industry 4.0, where we are responsible for standardization, data governance and certification. The project will launch 10 leaders and 3 replication pilots among Manufacturers in Europe and accelerate the transition to Industry 4.0.

    • “SPECIAL” focuses on the role of linked data applicable to data privacy controls, such as the requirements of the GDPR, new European regulations on the handling of personal data, etc.

  • Building on 20 years of experience with RDF and linked data, the W3C is planning a technical Workshop to identify the potential of this new project, For example, relationships with property graphs, digital signature associated data graphs, data context-specific mappings across vocabularies with overlapping semantics, and support for enterprise knowledge graphs related to data governance.

  • Following the successful publication of ODRL Vocabulary & Expression and its Information Model recommendations, the W3C recently closed the Permission and Obligation Expression Working Group.

Meet industry needs

Digital publishing

Web is a universal publishing platform, and its influence on publishing is also expanding.

Publishing@W3C focuses specifically on topics such as typography and layout, accessibility, availability, portability, distribution, archiving, offline access, printing on demand, and reliable cross-referencing.

Significant progress in the above areas:

  • Last winter, the Publishing Working Group published its first set of public Working drafts, Includes Packaged Web Publications, Packaged Web Publications, and Web Annotation Extensions for Web Publications Publications) three documents. The working group is currently focusing on Web Packaging in relation to Web Application Manifests. And focus on determining the “availability” specific to UA publications.

  • The Publishing Business Group has recently updated its Charter and operating model, setting up a number of task forces to deal with accessibility, EPUB 3 deployment issues and its relationship to ISO standardization activities; The Commercial Group is working on a mechanism to support all parties to contribute to EpubCheck’s continued development.

  • The EPUB 3 Community Group continues to develop and maintain the current version of EPUB 3.

In order to alleviate the problems caused by backward compatibility, the specification writers recommended that some changes in EPUB 3.1 be reversed. The updated specification is called EPUB 3.2. The team has begun to work towards a clear goal of compatibility with all existing EPUB 3.0.1 files while preserving the best features in EPUB 3.1.

For an overview of the ebook ecosystem, the rationale behind EPUB 3.2 and the recruitment of the EPUB 3 Community Group, Read Dave Cramer’s W3C Blog post. Most of the discussion on technical issues is done on GitHub, which is free of charge and is not limited to W3C members. Your ideas are welcome.

Web payment

All major browsers are now implementing the Payment Request API to simplify checkout operations.

We continue to improve payment security (for example, through tokenization) and support for Web-based payment applications. A task force under the Web Payments Working Group is discussing ways to improve payment security, including exploring encryption, tokenization, and 3D secure flow through payment request apis. A task force is also studying bank transfers, particularly under the European Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD 2).

In March 2018, the working group began operating under the revised charter. After a face-to-face meeting in Singapore in April 2018, the co-chairs of the Working Group updated their priorities for the coming year:

  • Close payment request apis and payment method identifiers, complete the test suite, demonstrate interoperability of various implementations, upgrade the specification to a recommendation and promote merchant adoption.

  • Continue to improve the Payment Handler API and the Payment Method Manifest, and push browsers to provide more implementations. Identify and work with distributors of web-based payment applications.

  • Collaborate with EMVCo and FIDO Alliance to build consensus on the future use of strongly authenticated Web payments. Determine how to support 3DS2 streams in conjunction with payment requests.

  • To encourage the industry to use the token card payment method in Web-based payment processors by optimizing the token card payment method specification through experiments.

  • Achieve PSD 2 compliant results in push payments (especially bank transfers or direct debits) around strong authentication and open banking apis. This may require us to strengthen our liaison with Open apis in Europe. European Open platforms include Open Banking UK and the Berlin Group.

Building on the implementation experience of Google, Microsoft, Samsung, Mozilla, Opera, Facebook, American Express, mastercard, Shopify, Stripe, Worldpay and others, we are constantly improving the payment request API and accompanying specifications.

Several companies that provide services to merchants (such as Stripe, Braintree, Shopify, BlueSnap, Payone, and WePay) now provide support for payment request apis in the SDK.

Chrome is working on implementing the Payment Handler API (see the planned Google Blink version), and Mozilla has plans to implement it as well. This specification adds a Web-based Payment processor to the Payment Request ecosystem.

Google has implemented the Payment Method Manifest Specification. The specification enables payment method owners to license software from different domains to implement payment methods. This is an important security factor in the payment application ecosystem.


Media and Entertainment

The Media and Entertainment Interest Group, as the W3C’s steering committee on Media and Entertainment activities, Review TV Control API, Second Screen, Media Capabilities, 360 Videos, media-timed Events and other hot topics. The group maintains the Media and Entertainment Road-Map. The goals in one to two years are as follows:

  • Strengthen core media technologies:

    • Subtitle profiles and other formats used to represent text are synchronized with other sequential media (audio and video) (TTML2, WebVTT)

    • Stream of media events (data clues in HTML)

    • Live Linear Content Support (MSE)

  • Reduce debris:

    • The Web Media API (in partnership with CTA WAVE) aims to define a common HTML5 baseline for Web media applications and corresponding devices (TVS, set-top boxes, game consoles, mobile devices), helping the industry reduce the cost of producing content across multiple devices.

    • Media capability check: supported codec capabilities, supported configuration files, and display functions.

    • Second screen support (through demo API and remote playback API support). The Second Screen Community Group advanced discussions on the Open Screen Protocol to improve interoperability between screens in different implementations. After the AC meeting, the group held a face-to-face meeting in Berlin to discuss the topic.

    • Capability detection of encrypted content (EME) : HDCP detection and encryption scheme capability detection.

  • Foundation for the future:

    • WebXR / 360 video

    • Web GPU

Web and telecommunications

The Web became the open platform for mobile. Telecom service providers and network equipment providers have long played a key role in exposing the widespread use of Web technologies. The convergence of the Web and mobile industries was fully rolled out in March, driven by the convergence of underlying technologies and IP-based systems. Increasingly sophisticated Web platforms offer richer capabilities to service providers, enabling them to extend existing services to meet the needs of new users and devices, while offering new and innovative services to subscribers. The April 2018 edition of the Mobile Web Applications Roadmap explores technologies developed by the W3C. These technologies enhance the capabilities of Web applications in mobile scenarios.

Now that the IT and telecommunications industries have converged, this calls for more coordination and cooperation. Where will telecommunications on the Web go?

  • Follow-up to Web5G Workshop (Interest group, business group?) ;

  • Release the Web Real-time communication 1.0 standard and introduce new 2.0 features to the market;

  • Support telecom operators to become identity providers and payment providers;

  • Improved Web stack for 5G use cases: VR/AR, automotive, Internet of Things, 4K/8K media.

Virtual/Mixed/Augmented Reality → Mixed Reality (XR)

Several important milestones were reached in the last year in terms of improving the VR experience on the Web: WebVR 1.1 is now available by default in some browsers (especially firefox versions after 2005) and as an experimental feature in many more browsers (including Chrome and Microsoft Edge). Along with the development and adoption of WebVR 1.1, a major revision of WebVR was initiated, taking into account some of the design issues that had emerged.

There were also a number of announcements in 2017 supporting the industry’s deep adoption of AUGMENTED reality (especially ARCore and ARKit on mobile operating systems), and the WebVR community eagerly tried out these new features to see how the Web could become the primary platform for augmented reality.

Revising the WebVR specification and addressing the needs of augmented and mixed reality prompted the WebVR Community Group to change its name to the Immersive Web Community Group to match its new scope of work, It includes not only virtual reality, but also augmented and mixed reality. Similarly, what was once called WebVR 2 is now the WebXR device API.

The October 2016 Web & VR workshop was followed by the December 2017 Authoring Content with WebVR. The report of the symposium is still being compiled and will be released later.

The W3C is in discussions with community groups on how to translate these efforts into W3C recommendations.

Web5G

The planned deployment of 5G, a fifth generation network, over the next few years presents a number of challenges and opportunities for Web platforms to adapt to these new network capabilities: higher bandwidth, lower latency and better coverage than today’s networks — the W3C expects Web5G solutions to address this need:

  • Important application-layer innovations: XR, Internet of Things, automotive, 4K&8K video;

  • Multiple network and transport layer innovations: 5G, NFV, SDN, MEC, QUIC;

  • The impact of ARTIFICIAL intelligence and machine learning on multiple layers.

Are they cooperative or antagonistic?

The W3C organized a Web5G workshop in May 2018 to gather recommendations from telecom operators, network equipment vendors, platform and application developers, and browser vendor representatives to address the network layer-application crossover area.

Real-time Communication (WebRTC)

By turning any connected device into a potential communication endpoint, WebRTC brings audio and video communications to every corner and network, greatly expanding the ability of carriers to reach customers. WebRTC 1.0 became a candidate recommendation last November, indicating that the specification is stable enough that it is now the basis for many online communication and collaboration services.

The WebRTC Working Group and W3C members have been instrumental in WebRTC’s future development by evaluating new charters, completing existing work, considering new use cases, and expanding to fit existing technology deployment needs.

Universal Internet of Things

(WoT)

Iot creates huge opportunities through interconnected sensors and actuators, big data, machine learning, and Web-scale service integration. However, fragmentation limits iot to its full potential. The increasing number of iot platforms and technologies, but limited interoperability, are holding back some investments and making it difficult for iot to reach critical mass.

The W3C’s Work on the Web of Things aims to connect different technology stacks so that devices can work together independently of the underlying technology stack to achieve scale. First, it provides a mechanism for formally describing iot interfaces, enabling iot devices and services to communicate across multiple network protocols. Second, it provides a standard approach to defining and planning iot behavior. The W3C focuses on standards for interfaces between applications and application platforms, as well as standards needed to support an open market at the scale of the Web. In contrast, OCF, oneM2M, Bluetooth, and OPC focus on specific iot platforms.

The Web of Things Working Group collaborates with organizations to develop cross-domain standards for object descriptions, apis, and integration with iot platforms, soliciting advice from industry experts on use cases, API design, security, and semantic modeling, and listening to people involved in iot platform standards.

Significant progress in the above areas:

  • The updated working draft involves using JSON-LD as a scripting API for things description, Iot architecture, iot application platform. It is expected to become a W3C candidate recommendation by the end of 2018.

  • More recently, the group has begun experimenting with simpler ways to describe things using JSON, with a focus on appealing to Web developers interested in smart home applications.

The car

The Automotive Working Group is Working to develop service specifications for reading vehicle signals (fuel levels, speeds, engine temperatures, etc.).

  • The Vehicle Information Services Specification (VISS) has been upgraded to a candidate recommendation, and an implementation and test suite are available.

  • The Working group published the Vehicle Information API Specification (VIAS) as a working group note, encouraging open source Javascript library implementations.

This service approach has many advantages over previous WebIDL-based approaches, such as being available to both QT and HTML5 developers, and being able to run headless applications on vehicles. This is similar to how others in the automotive industry deal with publicly available car signals. The Volkswagen Group joined the W3C and submitted a similar approach (ViWi) as a W3C member.

The working group is working on a charter adjustment to complete VISS. They are working to integrate the ViWi submitted by the public, while providing more service interfaces.

Current open standards work in the automotive industry helps standardize vehicle signals for consistent data collection, edge computing, and data sampling across mixed fleets with security and privacy requirements before being sent to the cloud for processing.

We have formed a Task Force with the W3C Web Commerce Interest Group and the Automotive Web Payments Task Force to focus on Specific vehicle requirements that represent the vehicle handling fuel/charging, usage, parking, and other types of transactions. Other areas of interest have yet to be explored, including the standardization of traffic and weather data, work on which has not yet begun.

As an incubator for future standards work, the Automotive and Web Platform Business Group has set up the following task forces:

  • The Location-based Services Task Force started with a report submitted by Alibaba and PSA, which is the basis for future standards work.

  • The Media Tuning Task Force has worked with the TV Control Working Group to discuss car-centric use cases. Since vw submitted the report, it has included service-based solutions that are consistent with our vehicle signal and other service processing (telematics) and are already being used in production vehicles.

  • A Privacy and Security Task Force has been set up, as the connected vehicles will always interact with the outside world and issues raised by this and the Business groups need to be reviewed. We will work with the Genivi Security Expert Group to review our automotive standards work, build attack trees and design ways to mitigate the concerns raised.

Everyone’s Web

Security, privacy, identity

Authentication on the Web is simpler and stronger

Recently, Web Identity Authentication (WebAuthn) was promoted to a W3C candidate recommendation – which major browser vendors are committed to implementing – to complete the standardization of FIDO2, making it easy for users to log in to online services with fraud protection using desktop or mobile devices.

As a standard Web API, WebAuthn gives users a new way to implement security authentication across sites and devices. WebAuthn is a standard jointly developed by the Web Authentication Working Group and FIDO Alliance. It is a core component of FIDO2 project along with FIDO clients of the Certifier Protocol (CTAP) specification. Support for using external authenticators (such as security keys or mobile phones) to transfer strong authentication credentials to the user’s computer or tablet locally via USB, Bluetooth, or NFC.

Privacy andGDPR

Users are increasingly concerned about privacy. The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation came into force on May 25, authorizing the protection of data privacy for all EU citizens. The W3C’s Tracking Preference Expression (DNT) is a potential part of this solution.

Web application security

The Web Application Security Working Group has produced many effective specifications aimed at improving network Security, These include CSP3, authentication management, permissions API, mixed content, inbound policies, security context, raw page restriction tags, and clearing site data. Many are completed or near completion and will benefit from interoperability testing. Mike West (Google) joined the working group as co-chair with Dan Veditz (Mozilla). We thank Brad Hill (Facebook) for his past contributions to the group.

Revise the work of safety review

Horizontal reviews of privacy and security are being conducted in two ways that we would like to involve more security and/or privacy experts:

  • The Privacy Interest Group (PING) conducts privacy reviews during monthly conference calls. The authors of the specification and the chair of the working group were invited to present their work and discuss privacy issues during a conference call.

  • To expand participation in safety reviews, the W3C is experimenting with a new model: publishing results to a large group of volunteer reviewers several times a year. We hope more volunteers will join us.

Verifiable declaration

From educational records to payment accounts, next-generation Web applications can authorize various entities to perform operations based on multiple credentials published by trusted parties. Decisions involving humans and machines in job applications, account access, collaboration and professional development rely on sifting through and analyzing ever-growing data. It is important that the data be verifiable.

The Verifiable Claims Working Group (VCWG) published Data models and Representations of Verifiable Claims and Verifiable Claims Use Cases is used to deal with truly “verifiable credentials” — encrypted information, such as “This person is over 18 years old,” or, “This person attends xyz university.” A third party user in possession of this information can publish this information in accordance with the user’s explicit request to a particular party, using distributed identity identifiers to indicate which information to publish.

Internationalization (i18n)

Only a quarter of Web users currently use English online. If the Web is to be truly “global,” it must meet the needs of global users to use content in a variety of languages. The growth of electronic publishing (EPublishing) requires the Web to offer new features and improve font design. At the same time, make sure the changes are in line with the needs of the local community.

W3C internationalization activities step toward this goal by gathering user requirements, providing support, education, and outreach services to developers. For an overview of the current project, visit Internationalization (I18N) Radar.

Recently, the W3C’s internationalization efforts have advanced in a number of areas:

  • Language Matrix The LANGUAGE Matrix has been developed by the W3C as a tool to detect the usability of languages on the Web and to locate problems that need improvement. Prioritize the impact of the problem area by using a simple ranking system.

  • Gap Analysis For all task forces currently writing requirements documentation for a given script, the W3C has been encouraging them to conduct a gap analysis of the development language covered and use the results of the analysis to drive their requirements documentation (see Setting up the Gap Analysis Project).

  • Layout Task Force Recently formed a task force to document layout requirements in Hebrew. CSS, digital publications, and other similar technologies need to be considered if Hebrew documents are to be adequately addressed. Ongoing special task forces include Arabic, Chinese and Ethiopian (ED). Other task forces for the preparations include Tibetan and Mongolian languages, and the India International Program. The project aims to conduct a gap analysis of Indian languages and develop demand to connect with emerging digital publishing efforts in India.

  • Two documents are nearing completion. Character patterns: String matching provides a common reference for string identity matching on the World Wide Web to improve interoperability. The Requirements for Language and Direction Metadata in Data Formats raise questions and discuss potential solutions for transmitting information in JSON or other Data Formats. The Internationalization Working Group has been discussing this issue with the Technology Architecture Group (TAG).

  • Specification review. The Internationalization Working Group has been proactively reviewing the specification and making recommendations to other WHATWG and W3C working groups such as CSS, HTML, Webplatform, sequential text, Web accessibility, etc. In addition, the group reviewed and made additional comments on the Unicode consortium document, including the proposed UTF#53.

  • In addition to support for W3C EdX courses, major advances in education include:

    • HTML inline tags and bidirectional text have been significantly modified to reflect the latest technological changes and simplify guidance for content creators.

    • Updated the use of character escapes in notations and CSS.

  • The MDN Contact Internationalization Working Group is also in discussions with MDN to add a link to the W3C internationalization article on the relevant page on the MDN website.

The Web needs your help

For the Web to truly serve stakeholders around the world, language experts, Web site designers, developers, and vendors need to work together to actively drive the Web forward. To ensure rapid response to the growth of the Web, the W3C wants to gather the resources of organizations and experts concerned with these issues and enlist their help in strengthening support for Web internationalization.

The W3C hopes to supplement its core funding from the W3C membership fees it receives and increase internal resources to focus on this work and accelerate the development of the field. The “like” program in the Internationalization Initiative aims to provide personnel and funding to handle three major aspects of the Internationalization continuum:

  • Provide language capabilities to stakeholders who use languages.

  • Provides support for developers in technology companies building global Web infrastructure and supporting W3C standards and groups.

  • Support for individuals who create Web content in their own languages and corporate authors who build or localize multilingual websites.

Web accessibility

According to the World Disability Report, there are one billion disabled people in the world – one in seven. By helping to build codes, guidelines, assessments, and educational materials that support accessibility, help ensure that your organization improves the way people with disabilities access the Web.

Accessibility activities support the mission of W3C Web for All. The Web Accessibility Program (WAI) continues to help ensure that accessibility activities are coordinated and cohesive across W3C groups and domains. Notable developments include:

  • Major Updates to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines The Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (AG WG) has been refining the internationally recognized Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to a tight schedule. The Web Content Accessibility Guide (WCAG) 2.1 deals more with accessibility requirements for people with cognitive and learning disabilities, people with poor vision and mobility. The W3C recommendation will be published in June.

  • Coordination and unification of international standards

    • The WAI team is actively involved in the international coordination and harmonization of Web accessibility standards. With that help, In this summer’s EN 301 549, Accessibility Requirements Suitable for Public Procurement of ICT products and Services in Europe Services in Europe) directive, the EU plans to adopt WAIWCAG 2.1 in full.

    • China is also coordinating WCAG 2.1.

  • ARIA 1.1 has become a recommended standard. In December 2017, the Accessible Rich Internet Applications Working Group published wai-ARIA 1.1 as a completed W3C recommendation. Wai-aria defines roles and properties that make Web applications and rich Web content more accessible. This revision adds features, uses assistive technologies to improve interoperability, and constructs a more consistent accessibility model for HTML5 and SVG2. Wai-aria Development Practices (WAI-ARIA Authoring Practices) 1.1 was released as a workgroup note to provide more comprehensive implementation guidance for ARIA developers. The ARIA Working Group continues to explore barrier-free API mapping for a number of technologies, including WAI-ARIA, HTML, graphics and SVG, and digital publishing, or incubates such work in other groups. Join ARIA WG to develop ARIA 2.0.

  • Updated materials support adoption and implementation of accessibility standards.

    • The Accessibility Conformance Testing Task Force develops and applies the ACT rule format 1.0. When evaluating web content for compliance with WCAG 2.0 and eventually 2.1, ACT documents ways to test web content to improve rater confidence. The ACT Rules Format candidate recommendation phase is planned to be completed in 2018, enabling different entities to make public contributions with ACT Rules.

    • The Education and Outreach Working Group (EOWG) redesigned the WAI website from the ground up to make it easier for people to find and use information to improve Web accessibility. The site is currently in beta. The new site improves usability, readability, and discoverability. Much of it has been revised, with more updates planned in the coming months. EOWG’s updated resources also include an introduction (focusing on the redesign of the WAI Web site from scratch), an introduction to Web accessibility, a handy check – the first review of Web accessibility, and the content and role of Web accessibility laws and policies.

  • Horizontal Review of W3C Working Groups and Support for Accessibility Platform Architecture (APA) Working groups continue to review all W3C specifications and track the need to remove barriers to accessibility with various W3C groups. APA supports accessibility strategies for CSS and payments, and brings longer-term issues to the Research Issues Task Force (RQTF). The task force will explore issues such as authentication, personalization, captcha, virtual reality, automobiles and the Internet of Things.

Brilliant Open Web 

The BOW (Brilliant Open Web) team is a dedicated Web technology building group dedicated to promoting Open Web technology and bringing the Web back to the forefront of developers.

BOW focuses on the front end, on the Web; Analyze technology and share practice; Talk about learning. Talk about management.

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Technology connects the world, openness wins the future