w3c

BARCELONA, Spain--Jeff Jaffe's job requires both patience and impatience.

Patience, because the World Wide Web Consortium--of which he's been chief executive for nearly a year--is an unwieldy standards group trying to encompass the disparate agendas of dozens of companies.

And impatience, because if the W3C doesn't move fast enough, the Web will move on without it.

It was clear from an interview with CNET that Jaffe is trying to strike the right balance. The W3C is tackling a range Web standards from the newer idea of augmented reality to the politically charged overhaul of HTML, the … Read more

Adobe Systems has proposed a standard that could make it easier to create Web pages with fancy layouts seen more often in magazines.

The company proposed a technology it calls CSS Regions (PDF) yesterday to the World Wide Web Consortium, which standardizes the Cascading Style Sheets technology widely used to control formatting on Web pages. Adobe also described the technology at a CSS Working Group meeting in Silicon Valley.

"This proposal is intended to support sophisticated, magazine-style layouts using CSS," said Arno Gourdol, director of engineering for runtime foundation at Adobe, in a mailing list posting.

The proposal … Read more

The World Wide Web Consortium has approved and published a new browser privacy feature from Microsoft, according to a new IE blog post, opening up for discussion and debate whether the feature should become a Web standard.

Found in the recent release candidate of Internet Explorer 9, Microsoft's new Tracking Protection Lists offer IE users a type of "do not track" feature to help them block advertisers and Web sites from tracking and capturing certain data. The feature works via lists of Web site domains that are downloaded to the browser. If a domain name is on … Read more

It's been a work in progress for years, but there are a few more years to go yet before the next version of Hypertext Markup Language is finalized.

Specifically, the World Wide Web Consortium's HTML Working Group is set to announce today that it expects to anoint HTML5 as an officially recommended standard in the second quarter of 2014. That drawn-out schedule contrasts with another effort to make HTML a more fluidly updated "living standard."

"We started working [on HTML5] in 2007," Philippe Le Hegaret, the HTML activity leader for the W3C, told CNET. &… Read more

In the competition between native applications for mobile phones vs. Web applications, hardware support often makes native apps an obvious choice for programmers. But the World Wide Web Consortium is tackling one area, touch-screen support, in an effort that could help Web apps catch up.

The W3C published an editor's draft of a new touch-screen standard for Web apps today. The draft specification is designed also for devices such as drawing tablets that don't have a screen, but today's hot market for smartphones makes touch screens the more important focus.

A standard--if designed well and adopted--would make … Read more

The World Wide Web Consortium, faced with derision that its new HTML5 logo represented a broader set of Web technologies, has pared down the logo's scope.

"Since the main logo was intended to represent HTML5, the cornerstone of modern Web applications, I have updated the FAQ to state this more clearly. I trust that the updated language better aligns with community expectations," W3C spokesman Ian Jacobs said Friday in a blog post.

Indeed, the HTML5 logo FAQ now states in no uncertain terms: "This logo represents HTML5, the cornerstone for modern Web applications." Those who … Read more

It's not your regular Buzz Outloud today. From New York City, Wilson G. Tang, Jeff Bakalar, Dan Ackerman and Rex Brian (AKA Scott Stein) take over, and needless to say it's a very different BOL. In this topsy-turvy world, Google's Dr. Eric Schmidt is forced out as CEO. HP joins the fray by rearranging its board of directors with four new members, including former California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman. Verizon files suit against the FCC for rules they proposed, and no, the iPad 2 won't be getting the Retina Display--much to our dismay.

Two days after the World Wide Web Consortium debuted a flashy new HTML5 badge, none other than the editor of the Hypertext Markup Language standard has dumped the hot tech buzzword.

"HTML is the new HTML5," Ian Hickson, who edits the specification, said in a blog post yesterday. The announcement embodies a more continuous development process that he's planned for more than a year, but Hickson told CNET today that the W3C's HTML5 badge--which controversially stands for a number of Web technologies beyond HTML--hastened a change that had been planned for later in 2011.

"Now … Read more

Underscoring the confluence of technology, politics, and marketing, the World Wide Web Consortium today unveiled a new logo for HTML5.

With the logo, the W3C wants to promote the new Web technology--and itself. The Web is growing far beyond its roots of housing static Web sites and is transforming into a vehicle for entertainment and a foundation for online applications.

The W3C hopes the logo--T-shirts and stickers with it already are on sale--will fuel excitement and interest in the refurbished Web. "In addition to work on the specification, test suites, and useful materials for developers, we seek to raise … Read more