Reminder: Position Papers for W3C Workshop on Web Payments due 8 February

28 January 2014

W3C invites the financial technology community to attend its Workshop Web Payments: How do you want to pay?, on March 24-25 in Paris, France. W3C Member and non-Member participants will include banks, credit card companies, governments, mobile network operators, payment solution providers, technology companies, retailers, and content creators. W3C’s Workshop goal is to leverage the power of the Web to improve consumer payment choice and satisfaction, while easing the work of web developers to support all current and future payment solutions and empowering payment providers to easily reach across different solutions, devices and platforms. There is no Workshop fee, but interested parties should submit a presentation proposal or statement of interest to the Workshop Program Committee by 8 February. Read the media advisory and more information on participation.

Updated Drafts of Tracking Preference Expression (DNT), and Tracking Compliance and Scope

28 January 2014

The Tracking Protection Working Group has published two documents today.

• A Working Draft Tracking Preference Expression (DNT). This specification defines the DNT request header field as an HTTP mechanism for expressing the user’s preference regarding tracking, an HTML DOM property to make that expression readable by scripts, and APIs that allow scripts to register site-specific exceptions granted by the user. It also defines mechanisms for sites to communicate whether and how they honor a received preference through use of the Tk response header field and well-known resources that provide a machine-readable tracking status.
• A Working Draft of Tracking Compliance and Scope. This specification defines the meaning of a Do Not Track (DNT) preference and sets out practices for websites to comply with this preference.

Learn more about the Privacy Activity.

CSS Grid Layout Module Level 1 Working Draft Updated

23 January 2014

The CSS Working Group has published an updated Working Draft of CSS Grid Layout Module Level 1. This CSS module defines a two-dimensional grid-based layout system, optimized for user interface design. In the grid layout model, the children of a grid container can be positioned into arbitrary slots in a flexible or fixed predefined layout grid. CSS is a language for describing the rendering of structured documents (such as HTML and XML) on screen, on paper, in speech, etc. Learn more about the Style Activity.

Web NFC API is a First Public Working Draft

14 January 2014

The NFC Working Group has published a First Public Working Draft of Web NFC API. Near Field Communication (NFC) is an international standard (ISO/IEC 18092) that specifies an interface and protocol for simple wireless interconnection of closely coupled devices operating at 13.56 MHz. NFC enables wireless communication between two devices at close proximity, usually less than a few centimeters, according to three groups of scenarios; holding a device close to a wireless tag to exchange some digital information or data, holding two devices close to each other in order to exchange some information or data between them, making payments by holding mobile phones close to point of sales terminals instead of swiping smart cards. Learn more about the Ubiquitous Web Applications Activity.

Learn how to program Web applications with W3C’s Mobile Web 2 online course

8 January 2014

Registration is open for W3C’s online course Mobile Web 2: Programming Applications. The course starts 13 January 2014 and runs through 23 February. This course covers all techniques for programming successful mobile Web applications that can ship both online and in application stores. Participants have access to high quality content material and step-by-step instruction from expert Niall Roche. Learn more about W3DevCampus, W3C’s online training for Web developers.

Introduction to Model-Based User Interfaces and MBUI Glossary Published as Group Notes

7 January 2014

The MBUI Working Group has published two Working Group Notes.

• Introduction to Model-Based User Interfaces, as an introduction to Model-Based User Interfaces covering the benefits and shortcomings of the model-based approach, a collection of use cases, and terminology.
• MBUI – Glossary, a glossary of terms recurrent in the Model-based User Interfaces domain. It is intended to capture a common, coherent terminology for specifications of the MBUI Working Group and to provide a concise reference of domain terms for interested audience.

Learn more about the Ubiquitous Web Applications Activity.

Last Call: Compositing and Blending Level 1

7 January 2014

The CSS Working Group and the SVG Working Group have published a Last Call Working Draft of Compositing and Blending Level 1. Compositing describes how shapes of different elements are combined into a single image. Previous versions of SVG and CSS used Simple Alpha Compositing. In this model, each element is rendered into its own buffer and is then merged with its backdrop using the Porter Duff source-over operator. This specification defines a new compositing model that expands upon the Simple Alpha Compositing model by offering additional Porter Duff compositing operators; advanced blending modes which allow control of how colors mix in the areas where shapes overlap; and compositing groups. In addition, this specification defines CSS properties for blending and group isolation, and defines the ‘globalcompositeoperation’ as specified in HTML Canvas 2D Context, Level 2. Comments are welcome by 28 January 2014. Learn more about the Style Activity and the Graphics Activity.