New version of the Roadmap of Web Applications on Mobile

24 April 2019

W3C has published a new version of its Roadmap of Web Applications on Mobile, an overview of the various technologies developed in W3C that increase the capabilities of Web applications, and how they apply more specifically to the mobile context.

The April 2019 snapshot introduces a few additional technologies under incubation in the Web Platform Incubator Community Group and refreshes the status of other specifications. See the Change history for details. New exploratory work since the December 2018 snapshot:

• Cookie Store API, described in Data Storage
• KV Storage, described in Data Storage
• JS Self-Profiling API, described in Performance and Tuning
• Trusted Types, described in Security and Privacy

A few specifications have also progressed along the standardization track, starting with Web Authentication published as a W3C Recommendation (see Security and Privacy), including Resize Observer (see Device Adaptation) and Feature Policy which have now been adopted by Working Groups (see Security and Privacy), as well as DeviceOrientation Event Specification whose development has now resumed in the Devices and Sensors Working Group (see Sensors and Local Interactions).

Browser support for some of the specifications mentioned in the roadmap has improved since publication of the latest version of the roadmap in December 2018. For instance, Streams shipped in Firefox desktop (see Network and Communications) and Subresource Integrity has now shipped on all main browsers (see Security and Privacy).

Sponsored by Beihang University, this project is part of a set of roadmaps under development in a GitHub repository to document existing standards, highlight ongoing standardization efforts, point out topics under incubation, and discuss technical gaps that may need to be addressed in the future. New versions will be published on a quarterly basis, or as needed depending on progress of key technologies of the Web platform. We encourage the community to review them and raise comments, or suggest new ones, in the repository’s issue tracker.

W3C Strategic Highlights, Spring 2019

23 April 2019

W3C released today its W3C Strategic Highlights – Spring 2019, a comprehensive survey of the essential work W3C conducts to achieve a Web for All, and select recent work in many areas where the Web can solve arising problems for real people.

To the pipeline of innovations to enable the Web to scale to meet the new challenges and opportunities, we are making recent additions:

• W3C chartered a Web Payment Security Interest Group to foster greater coordination and ultimately enhance the security and interoperability of Web payments.
• Web & Networks: what is needed for the Web to take advantage of 5G, QUIC, and Edge Computing changing the topology of network-based services? We have started to flesh out a group charter in the wake of the W3C Web5G workshop in May 2018.
As the Web evolves continuously, some groups are looking for ways for specifications to do so as well. So-called “evergreen recommendations” or “living standards” aim to track continuous development (and maintenance) of features, on a feature-by-feature basis, while getting review and patent commitments.
Continued progress in many areas demonstrates the vitality of the W3C and the Web community. We see the maturation and further development of an incredible number of new technologies coming to the Web.

W3C honored with a second Technology & Engineering Emmy® Award

8 April 2019

Last night in Las Vegas, as the NAB Show was kicked off by the 70th Annual Technology & Engineering Emmy® Awards ceremony, W3C representatives accepted our second Emmy® Award. The prestigious industry award recognizes our work to standardize a Full TV Experience on the Web.

Among the myriad web technologies that the Web Consortium develops, HTML5 has brought videos to the Web, ending the era of plug-ins for media playback. The standards at the core of all web media applications today have turned the Web into an unprecedented media platform, which mixes professional and user-generated content, available anywhere, anytime, on any device, and to anyone.

This marks the second Technology & Engineering Emmy® Award that W3C has received. In 2016 W3C was awarded a Technology & Engineering Emmy® Award for its work on the Timed Text Mark-up Language standard. W3C is grateful for our community and all those who work to build standards and technologies for the web. You can read more in the W3C Blog.

Pointer Events Level 2 is a W3C Recommendation

4 April 2019

The Pointer Events Working Group has published Pointer Events Level 2 as a W3C Recommendation. The features in this specification extend or modify those found in Pointer Events, a W3C Recommendation that describes events and related interfaces for handling hardware agnostic pointer input from devices including a mouse, pen, touchscreen, etc. For compatibility with existing mouse based content, this specification also describes a mapping to fire Mouse Events for other pointer device types. This new W3C Recommendation supersedes Pointer Events Level 1.

W3C Invites Implementations of WebVTT: The Web Video Text Tracks Format

4 April 2019

The Timed Text Working Group has published an updated Candidate Recommendation of WebVTT: The Web Video Text Tracks Format. This specification defines WebVTT, the Web Video Text Tracks format. Its main use is for marking up external text track resources in connection with the HTML <track> element. WebVTT files provide captions or subtitles for video content, and also text video descriptions [MAUR], chapters for content navigation, and more generally any form of metadata that is time-aligned with audio or video content.

This specification is based on the Draft Community Group Report of the Web Media Text Tracks Community Group.