w3c

The Web is the next vanguard for 3D graphics, but programmers who want to embrace the new dimension next year will have to place a bet on one of two competing technologies: Flash or WebGL.

For years, Adobe Systems' Flash software has been the way to bring graphical games like Crush the Castle, Bloons, Desktop Tower Defense, or Stunt Bike Pro to the Web.

But at the same time, Web standards advocates have toiled to build such technology into the Web itself and not rely on the proprietary and sometimes insecure Flash Player plug-in. That work following in Adobe's … Read more

An attempt to endow Web-based applications with a means of storing data on the browser's computer is at an end--at least as far as standardizing the technology is concerned.

The technology, called Web SQL Database, built the SQLite database into the browser, letting programmers use the common SQL technology to read and write data. That's useful for a variety of things, but the most notable probably is caching information so it can be retrieved when a computer isn't connected to the network. That's a big problem for many Web apps today.

But yesterday, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) … Read more

The Web, ever more sophisticated, is feeble as a publication medium when it's compared to what can be done with layout software such as Adobe Systems' InDesign. But that's beginning to change.

The change is significant: digital publishing is moving to the Web, but the array of new devices such as iPads and Kindles pose a challenge. Should those overseeing the designs create native applications for those devices or Web pages that will work on just about any device? For the latter to be a competitive option, the Web has to match up better.

A foundation for change was built with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), a standard for Web page formatting that's now growing in significance and power. One big element here is support for the @font-face technology and the related Web Open Font Format, which together are letting Web developers specify downloadable fonts and use online font repositories such as TypeKit for a more polished, customized look.

A new phase is under way now, though. Firefox browser developer Mozilla has begun work on CSS features to permit higher-end font controls, Mozilla developer John Daggett said yesterday in a blog post.

Among the controls are the following:

• Ligatures, which can replace combinations of letters with fancier or more readable replacements, a classic example being a specific glyph for "fi" to keep the top of the f from bumping into the dot of the i. … Read more

The World Wide Web Consortium is griping about this week's premature judgments regarding which browser best complies with the HTML5 standard and is asking for help to improve its tests.

Philippe Le Hegaret, who oversees HTML5 and other standards at the W3C, today chastised those who concluded from tests done so far that Internet Explorer 9 is leading the race to support the new Web page technology. The W3C has added 135 new HTML5 compliance checks in the last month, bringing the total to 232, but that's nowhere near enough, he said.

"It seems that people are … Read more

Is HTML5, the next version of the standard used to describe Web pages, ready for real-world use now or isn't it?

One of its biggest allies, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) that's working hard to create the standard, thinks not. But Facebook, one of the world's most popular Web sites, begs to differ. Indeed, on Tuesday, David Recordon, Facebook's senior open programs manager, published a description of how Facebook is using HTML5 right now.

The ruckus began with an InfoWorld interview last week. In it, Philippe Le Hegaret, who oversees HTML5 standardization, was quoted as saying, "The problem we're facing right now is there is already a lot of excitement for HTML5, but it's a little too early to deploy it because we're running into interoperability issues." In other words, what a programmer writes won't show up the same on different browsers.

Le Hegaret's words triggered derision from some quarters. HTML5 book co-author Remy Sharp ranted about Le Hegaret's position, and Palm director of developer relations Dion Almaer added, "I utterly disagree with Philippe, and instead implore you to think about what your site or app can be in 2010 with the new capabilities." … Read more

For all those who believe the computing industry is populated by people who are out of touch with the world of emotion, it's time to think again.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which standardizes many Web technologies, is working on formalizing emotional states in a way that computers can handle. The name of the specification, which in July reached second-draft status, is Emotion Markup Language.

That might sound alien to the cold calculating ways of a computer. Let's face it, compared with most computer interaction, HAL 9000 sounded positively genial in "2001: A Space Odyssey" … Read more

Listening to marketing messages from companies such as Apple and Google, one might think HTML5, the next-generation Web page standard, is ready to take the Net by storm.

But the words of those producing the specification show an HTML governance process that can be stormy, fractious, and far from settled down. The World Wide Web Consortium's return to HTML standardization after years of absence has produced tensions with the more informal Web Hypertext Application Working Group (WHATWG) that shouldered the HTML burden during that absence.

Some examples of language that's cropped up this month on the W3C's HTML Working Group mailing list: "childish," "intolerable," "ridiculous," "shenanigans." And there's a concrete manifestation of the divisiveness: The WHATWG and W3C versions of the HTML5 specification, though both stemming from the same source material, have diverged in some areas.

Some of the differences are relatively minor, and there are strong incentives to converge the two drafts of the HTML5 specification so that browser makers and Web developers aren't faced with the prospect of incompatibilities. In the meantime, though, the overseers of the Web are clashing during a time when their important new standard is just arriving in the spotlight.

"It's not an ideal situation. You want as much energy devoted to improving the spec and as little lost to the friction costs," said Mike Shaver, Mozilla's vice president of engineering. In the long run, though, Shaver said, it's like writing software, where improvements cause temporary disruptions: "Sometimes you add something new, you have stability problems, you clean them up before they ship." … Read more

Microsoft has re-engaged with others in the computing industry in the area of Web standards--but its return is not without friction.

A number of allies--notably Mozilla, Opera, Apple, and Google--have been working for years to refashion Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and a host of associated technologies to make the Web a more powerful foundation for applications and more sophisticated sites. Microsoft now has joined in the effort, but it doesn't always see eye to eye when hashing out details of the upcoming HTML5 with Mozilla and a central individual in the standards process.

One point of debate is the … Read more

Microsoft released a second "platform preview" version of Internet Explorer 9 on Wednesday with faster JavaScript and better Web standards compliance--plus an argument for how future Web technology should develop.

Central to the second IE9 preview (download) is progress toward matching rivals in SunSpider, a speed test of Web-based JavaScript programs, and Acid3, a test of adherence to some Web technologies. On the first, Microsoft improved from 590 to 473 milliseconds; on the second, from 55 to 68 out of a possible 100. But there's more to the story than benchmarks.

The new platform preview, arriving seven … Read more