en W3C - Press releases Press releases about W3C work. Sat, 09 Nov 2024 11:30:46 +0000 Laminas_Feed_Writer 2 (https://getlaminas.org) https://www.w3.org/press-releases/ World Wide Web Consortium welcomes Sylvia Cadena as Chief Development Officer <![CDATA[This press release introduces W3C's inaugural Chief Development Officer and gives an overview of the position]]> Mon, 02 Sep 2024 12:31:00 +0000 https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2024/world-wide-web-consortium-welcomes-sylvia-cadena-as-chief-development-officer/ https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2024/world-wide-web-consortium-welcomes-sylvia-cadena-as-chief-development-officer/ <![CDATA[press-releases]]> <![CDATA[

Sylvia Cadena, W3C Chief Development Officer

https://www.w3.org/ – 2 September 2024 – The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the leader for the technical development of the World Wide Web, has concluded the search for the inaugural Chief Development Officer. Sylvia Cadena joins the Team full-time mid-September, working remotely from Brisbane, Australia.

Sylvia Cadena is deeply embedded in the Web and Internet community, coming to us from APNIC where she served the technical community for the last 16 years, the last eight supporting the establishment of the APNIC Foundation as the Head of Programs and Partnerships as well as Acting CEO during a transition period. For around 30 years she has led collaborative Internet industry initiatives across the Asia Pacific region and Latin America and brings extensive experience in fundraising, program design and management, operations, compliance and reporting, transition and change management.

My career started thanks to the opportunities that the Web opened. It empowered me to learn and grow, to see my culture, language and diversity represented online. I have been lucky to be part of how the Internet grew and developed, and I am still fascinated by the range of business ecosystems that the Web transforms. I am looking forward to joining a passionate team, fully committed to making it possible for humanity to experience all that the web has to offer, and to put my skills and experience to serve those that build the Web to really live up to the principles of accessibility, internationalization, privacy and security. If you’re passionate about this mission as well, please consider making a donation and get involved.

W3C became a public-interest incorporated not-for-profit organization in 2023, a pivotal evolution since our establishment in 1994 as a cooperation between four academic institutions, compelling us to adopt a new structure, diversify funding to be in a better position to succeed in our mission. Sylvia joins us at this decisive time to help us set direction and ensure the longevity of our organization by defining our vision for financial security and development, by planning and implementing strategies to secure donors, grants, and contributions in support of the organization, and by communicating effectively the organization’s philanthropic value proposition, thus accelerating growth and success of our development portfolio.

I am excited that Sylvia Cadena joins the W3C’s expert team, our international network of member organizations, and a broad community of contributors, to partner with me to help steward the World Wide Web Consortium into its future,” said Seth Dobbs, W3C President & CEO. “The Web Consortium found a leader it needed, who is passionate about the Web and its continuing potential to be a platform that addresses the challenges faced by society now and in the future. A leader who is resourceful, driven and creative to bolster the strength of our organization’s fundraising capabilities W3C has now for 30 years been at the heart of the technical standards that make the Web the open, shared, and critical infrastructure that has transformed the way billions of us live, work, and play and that the world relies on, and this appointment will help secure our future.

About the World Wide Web Consortium

The mission of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is to lead the Web to its full potential by creating technical standards and guidelines to ensure that the Web remains open, accessible, and interoperable for everyone around the globe. W3C well-known standards HTML and CSS are the foundational technologies upon which websites are built. W3C works on ensuring that all foundational Web technologies meet the needs of civil society, in areas such as accessibility, internationalization, security, and privacy. W3C also provides the standards that undergird the infrastructure for modern businesses leveraging the Web, in areas such as entertainment, communications, digital publishing, and financial services. That work is created in the open, provided for free and under the groundbreaking W3C Patent Policy.

W3C's vision for "One Web" brings together thousands of dedicated technologists representing hundreds of member organizations and dozens of industry sectors. W3C is a public-interest non-profit organization incorporated in the United States of America, led by a Board of Directors and employing a global staff across the globe. For more information see https://www.w3.org/

End Press Release

Media Contact

Amy van der Hiel, W3C Media Relations Coordinator <[email protected]
+1.617.453.8943 (US, Eastern Time)

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Enhanced Web of Things connects diverse IoT ecosystems <![CDATA[The Web of Things suite of documents reaches version 1.1, enhancing the standard with new functionalities and significant improvements.]]> Tue, 05 Dec 2023 13:21:00 +0000 https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2023/enhanced-web-of-things-connects-diverse-iot-ecosystems/ https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2023/enhanced-web-of-things-connects-diverse-iot-ecosystems/ <![CDATA[press-releases]]> <![CDATA[

Read testimonials from W3C Members and Liaison partners

https://www.w3.org/ – 5 December 2023 – The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) announced today that Web of Things (WoT) Architecture 1.1, Web of Things (WoT) Thing Description 1.1, and Web of Things (WoT) Discovery are now official W3C Recommendations. Without breaking compatibility with the first release in 2020, these new W3C Recommendations improve and expand the scope of the Web of Things and add significant new functionality. In addition, two supporting W3C Notes have been updated, the Web of Things (WoT) Binding Templates and the Web of Things (WoT) Scripting API.

WoT addresses the IoT fragmentation problem

Currently, Internet of Things (IoT) systems suffer from lack of interoperability and fragmentation. Customers want to be able to choose devices from multiple vendors without redesign. The Web of Things (WoT) extends the IoT with web technology to address this issue. In particular, the WoT recommendations provide a format for standardized descriptive information, the WoT Thing Description, to allow easy integration of IoT devices and services. This includes IoT systems that have already been released and use different IoT communication protocols and data standards. In short, the WoT uses web technology to harmonize access to diverse IoT devices and breaks silo walls. This allows WoT applications to be written on top of a single, portable interaction abstraction.

Significant improvements and functionality

These new Recommendations were revised to improve the usability of the previous release and address new use cases. Significant new features were also defined, including Thing Models and Discovery. Thing Models provide a way to describe classes of things, such as sensor devices or product lines from particular vendors, and support modularity by allowing a parameterized model to be built from reusable components.

 A Thing Model can be used to generate a Thing Description by providing the appropriate parameters. Discovery provides easy access to Thing Descriptions, while controlling access appropriately to preserve privacy. It does not replace other existing discovery mechanisms but builds upon and applies them to the distribution of Thing Descriptions. 

WoT Discovery can be applied both within a local-area network (LAN), and at scale across the entire internet. It can also be used for both self-describing IoT devices and externally described devices. A searchable Thing Description Directory service is defined supporting semantic search.

Widely adopted and supported

Many software packages and open-source projects now support WoT, including tools for Thing Description validation and construction as well as support for Thing runtimes and Thing Description directories supporting discovery.

Market adoption of the Web of Things is gaining momentum, with notable products such as SayWoT! and Desigo CC from Siemens and the Building Communication System from Takenaka. Interesting products from startups are also appearing like MONAS and Agorà from VAIMEE for creating digital twins of cast-resin transformers, and in the agricultural domain for crops and terrains; and Krellian Cloud, which provides real-time data analytics for smart buildings. Additionally, the Web of Things has either been adopted or is under consideration for adoption by several standards organizations, including ECHONET, Conexxus, the OPC Foundation (OPC UA Web-of-Things Connectivity), IPA Digital Architecture Design Center, and Industrial Digital Twin Association (Asset Interfaces Description).

The growing WoT user community is supported by multiple WoT Community Groups, which hold regular meetings to share information on WoT and its applications in both English and Japanese.

About the World Wide Web Consortium

The mission of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is to lead the Web to its full potential by creating technical standards and guidelines to ensure that the Web remains open, accessible, and interoperable for everyone around the globe. W3C well-known standards HTML and CSS are the foundational technologies upon which websites are built. W3C works on ensuring that all foundational Web technologies meet the needs of civil society, in areas such as accessibility, internationalization, security, and privacy. W3C also provides the standards that undergird the infrastructure for modern businesses leveraging the Web, in areas such as entertainment, communications, digital publishing, and financial services. That work is created in the open, provided for free and under the groundbreaking W3C Patent Policy.

W3C's vision for "One Web" brings together thousands of dedicated technologists representing more than 400 Member organizations and dozens of industry sectors. W3C is a public-interest non-profit organization incorporated in the United States of America, led by a Board of Directors and employing a global staff across the globe. For more information see https://www.w3.org/.

End Press Release

Media Contact

Amy van der Hiel, W3C Media Relations Coordinator <[email protected]
+1.617.453.8943 (US, Eastern Time)

Testimonials

Testimonials from W3C Members

FujitsuHitachiIntelMicrosoftOracleSiemensVE3 (formerly "Banksly")

Fujitsu

"We are pleased to endorse the updated Web of Things (WoT) standard. This update has made the specifications more practical and applicable, and we committed to continuing our support. As an integrator, we aim to build out digital transformation (DX) solutions based on the global standards, driven by 5G and IoT technologies. Fujitsu believes that this approach will enable us to seamlessly connect to AI-powered solutions, thereby enhancing our ability to deliver innovative and efficient services to our clients."

Bun Kimura, Head of Strategic Planning Department, Product Planning Div., Mobile System Business Unit, Fujitsu Limited

Hitachi

"To feedback effective solutions from digital twins to real-world systems, it is essential that we are able to quickly find devices in the physical environment and understand their roles and the context of the data which they provide. The updated recommendations to which we contributed in part, include enhanced capabilities such as Thing Discovery that will facilitate this link between the physical and cyberspace. We're enthusiastic that these leaps in cyber-physical systems will stimulate progress across diverse sectors and contribute to the realization of a better society."

Itaru Nishizawa, Vice President and Executive Officer, Chief Technology Officer, Hitachi, Ltd.

Intel

"Intel congratulates the WoT WG for the updated WoT standard. This update solidifies support for the descriptive approach to IoT interoperability. IoT fragmentation remains a major barrier to greater IoT adoption. The WoT standard addresses a key challenge in the integration of IoT devices and services from different IoT ecosystems by providing a common format for describing data and interaction. This descriptive approach strongly differentiates it from other prescriptive approaches to IoT interoperability, and is designed to work with and enhance other standards, not compete with them."

Eric Siow, Director, Web Standards and Ecosystem Strategies, Intel Corporation

Microsoft

"We built a reference implementation that uses the new Web of Things (WoT) release with our Azure OpenAI service to demonstrate how to automatically onboard industrial assets and were pleased with how easy it was to generate WoT Thing Descriptions automatically. In addition, the open-source WoT tools available from the Eclipse Foundation made automatic validation of the generated Thing Description an easy value add."

Erich Barnstedt, Chief Architect Standards, Consortia and Industrial IoT, Azure Edge + Platform Team, Microsoft Corporation

Oracle

"The Web of Things set of specifications, including the updated version 1.1, serves as a unifying framework to address complex IoT use cases requiring interoperability across diverse ecosystems at massive scale. Oracle is pleased with the progression of this set of specifications to the Recommendation status and is proud to have been an active contributor, leader, and co-editor of this effort. We believe that this will benefit customers and users by enabling much-needed interoperability between different vendor solutions for IoT."

Jai Suri, Vice President, IoT and Blockchain Applications Development, Oracle

Siemens

"Addressing today's market challenges, such as energy optimization, requires technologies that facilitate easy heterogeneous system integration and optimization implementation. The Web of Things, which is one of the key technology building blocks, facilitates addressing such challenges by integrating efficient diverse data sources from a variety of device systems. Our in-house solution sayWoT! implements the latest WoT Thing Description 1.1 and is successfully used in various IoT projects by customers. One of the highlights is the usage of sayWoT! in the Wunsiedel Energy Park, Germany, to enable smart control to ensure green hydrogen production."

Thomas Kiessling, Chief Technology Officer at Smart Infrastructure, Siemens AG

VE3 (formerly "Banksly")

"The W3C's enhanced Web of Things (WoT) standards, including WoT Architecture 1.1, WoT Thing Description 1.1, and WoT Discovery, represent a significant leap in addressing the challenges of IoT interoperability and system fragmentation. The harmonization of IoT devices and services brought about by these standards resonates with our pursuit of seamless and integrated digital solutions. We particularly appreciate the advancements in Thing Models and Discovery, which align with our focus on scalable, modular, and privacy-conscious digital infrastructure. Through the implementation of these WoT standards, we envision an accelerated progression in developing intelligent, interconnected systems that are not only efficient but also accessible and secure. This aligns perfectly with our mission at VE3 to drive technological advancements that are both innovative and sustainable."

Manish Garg, Director, VE3

Testimonials from Liaison partners

OPC FoundationSIFIS-Home Consortium

OPC Foundation

"The OPC Foundation welcomes the new releases of the W3C Web of Things. Current OPC Foundation group activities are working on a solution how WoT Thing Descriptions can be used as a data model mapping service from non-OPC UA asset interfaces to OPC UA systems. This reduces the onboarding effort (e.g. of Modbus-based assets) and enables smooth use of asset data interfaces in the OPC UA address space. We see this as a big win for the manufacturing industry and another important step towards improving the interoperability of heterogeneous asset landscapes."

Stefan Hoppe, President, OPC Foundation

SIFIS-Home Consortium

"The SIFIS-Home consortium is looking forward to the new W3C Web of Things standards. The SIFIS-Home project focused on proving that it is possible to have more awareness on the risks and hazards related to the deployment of connected devices in the Home environment. The Thing Description model proved to be the ideal match to deliver the additional information."

Luca Barbato, SIFIS-Home Consortium Member and Andrea Saracino, SIFIS-Home Project Coordinator

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World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) welcomes Seth Dobbs as new Chief Executive Officer <![CDATA[The W3C Board of Directors has appointed Seth Dobbs for the role of W3C Chief Executive Officer, to commence on 13 November 2023.]]> Mon, 02 Oct 2023 13:53:00 +0000 https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2023/w3c-welcomes-seth-dobbs-as-new-ceo/ https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2023/w3c-welcomes-seth-dobbs-as-new-ceo/ <![CDATA[press-releases]]> <![CDATA[
Portrait of a smiling white man against a background of a blurry city

Seth Dobbs

https://www.w3.org/ – 2 October 2023 – The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the leader for the technical development of the World Wide Web, has concluded our search for our next Chief Executive Officer. Seth Dobbs, appointed by the W3C Board of Directors, will commence in his new role working remotely from Colorado, USA on November 13, 2023.

Seth Dobbs, Chief Technology Officer at a web professional services firm that he joined in 2004 as the fourth employee, will bring a broad and robust experience working with a global team and partners from all over the world, expertise in leadership and management of a motivated team in a highly matrixed organization, as well as two decades of growing business through client relationship building, strategy for growth and development, budgeting, strategic vision planning and execution.

"I'm honored and thrilled to be joining W3C as CEO," said Seth Dobbs. "I started writing code as a pre-teen and have been part of the technology industry as a student, enthusiast, and professional ever since. In all my time I'm not sure there is any development that has had a more profound and durable impact on our world than the Web. I've spent the better part of my career working with teams around the world to leverage the Web for clients to support connecting people with family, governments, and doctors, and to power commerce, entertainment, and operations. Ultimately, most of my private sector experience has been about unleashing the power of the Web as well as W3C standards and guidelines around accessibility, payment APIs, internationalization, and more. With this experience, I've gained insight as to what businesses and other stakeholders might need in the future. I look forward to joining the W3C community to help steward us into the next chapter."

As W3C CEO, Seth Dobbs will report to the Board of Directors and take responsibility for the fiscal integrity, financial stability and revenue generation of the organization. He will also oversee shaping and running W3C in line with our mission: to lead the Web to its full potential. W3C began 2023 by forming a new public-interest incorporated not-for-profit organization. At this exciting and key time since our establishment in 1994, a fundamental role for our CEO to undertake will be leading the change management and integration efforts for W3C to create new offerings, seek broader financial support opportunities, and succeed as a public-interest not-for-profit with global partners.

"Seth brings outstanding leadership skills and a remarkable profile," said Ralph Swick, W3C Interim CEO, Chief Operating Officer, and Architecture and Technology Lead. "An advocate for W3C's principles, in his previous role Seth has promoted W3C standards internally and to clients and speaks with experience of the positive impact of those standards. I am very pleased to have someone with Seth's global cultural perspective and enthusiasm about the role of the Web and of W3C at the helm of our new organization and I very much look forward to his leadership and to working with him."

About the World Wide Web Consortium

The mission of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is to lead the Web to its full potential by creating technical standards and guidelines to ensure that the Web remains open, accessible, and interoperable for everyone around the globe. W3C well-known standards HTML and CSS are the foundational technologies upon which websites are built. W3C works on ensuring that all foundational Web technologies meet the needs of civil society, in areas such as accessibility, internationalization, security, and privacy. W3C also provides the standards that undergird the infrastructure for modern businesses leveraging the Web, in areas such as entertainment, communications, digital publishing, and financial services. That work is created in the open, provided for free and under the groundbreaking W3C Patent Policy.

W3C's vision for "One Web" brings together thousands of dedicated technologists representing more than 400 Member organizations and dozens of industry sectors. W3C is a public-interest non-profit organization incorporated in the United States of America, led by a Board of Directors and employing a global staff across the globe. For more information see https://www.w3.org/.

End Press Release

Media Contact

For media inquiries or more information, please contact us after October 31, 2023:

Amy van der Hiel, W3C Media Relations Coordinator <[email protected]
+1.617.453.8943 (US, Eastern Time)

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W3C advances technology to streamline payment authentication <![CDATA[Secure Payment Confirmation (SPC), published as W3C Candidate Recommendation, is feature-complete and ready for further implementations.]]> Thu, 15 Jun 2023 12:42:00 +0000 https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2023/spc-cr/ https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2023/spc-cr/ <![CDATA[press-releases]]> <![CDATA[

Secure Payment Confirmation (SPC) published as a Candidate Recommendation

Read testimonials from W3C Members and Liaisons

https://www.w3.org/ — 15 June 2023 — The World Wide Web Consortium today announced a standardization milestone for a new browser capability that helps to streamline user authentication and enhance payment security during Web checkout. Secure Payment Confirmation (SPC) enables merchants, banks, payment service providers, card networks, and others to lower the friction of strong customer authentication (SCA), and produce cryptographic evidence of user consent, both important aspects of regulatory requirements such as the Payment Services Directive (PSD2) in Europe.

Screenshot of SPC transaction dialog in Chrome

Publication of Secure Payment Confirmation as a Candidate Recommendation indicates that the feature set is stable and has received wide review. W3C will seek additional implementation experience prior to advancing this version of Secure Payment Confirmation to Recommendation.

Designed to meet growing demand for strong customer authentication

For the past 15 years, e-commerce has increased as a percentage of all retail sales. The COVID pandemic appears to have slightly accelerated this trend. Improvements to in-person payment security and other factors have led to ongoing increases in online payment fraud.

To combat online payment fraud growth, Europe and other jurisdictions have begun to mandate multifactor authentication for some types of payments. Though multifactor authentication reduces fraud, it also tends to increase checkout friction, which can lead to cart abandonment (cf. for example, Microsoft merchant experiences with SCA under PSD2).

In 2019 the Web Payments Working Group began work on Secure Payment Confirmation to help fulfill Strong Customer Authentication requirements with low checkout friction. Stripe conducted a pilot with an early implementation of SPC and, in March 2020 reported that, compared to one-time passcodes (OTP), SPC authentication led to an 8% increase in conversions at the same time checkout was 3 times faster.

W3C continues to receive feedback about Secure Payment Confirmation through pilot programs, including a second experiment by Stripe. The Web Payments Working Group anticipates more experimental data will be available by September 2023.

SPC benefits from industry collaboration

In the Web Payment Security Interest Group, W3C, the FIDO Alliance, and EMVCo pursue improvements to online payment security through the development of interoperable technical specifications. Secure Payment Confirmation reflects this collaboration: it is built atop Web Authentication and is supported by both EMV® 3-D  Secure (version 2.3) and EMV® Secure Remote Commerce (version 1.3); see the Web Payment Security Interest Group's publication How EMVCo, FIDO, and W3C Technologies Relate for more details.

Secure Payment Confirmation is not just for card payments. The Web Payments Working Group regularly discusses how SPC might be integrated into other payment ecosystems such as Open Banking, PIX (in Brazil), as well as in proprietary payment flows.

"Making it easy for people to pay for things online while improving security has been the vision of our working group since we started in 2015," said Working Group co-Chair Nick Telford-Reed. "Secure Payment Confirmation means that for the first time, there will be a common way of authenticating shoppers across payment methods, platforms, devices and browsers, and builds on the success of W3C's Payment Request and the work of both the FIDO Alliance and EMVCo."

Secure Payment Confirmation shipping today

Secure Payment Confirmation adds a "user consent layer" above Web Authentication. At transaction time, Secure Payment Confirmation prompts the user to consent to the terms of a payment through a "transaction dialog" that is governed by the browser; the Chrome implementation of the transaction dialog is shown above. The transaction details are signed by the user's FIDO authenticator, and the bank or other party can validate the authentication results cryptographically, and thus that the user has consented to the terms of the payment (a requirement under PSD2 called "dynamic linking"). EMV® 3-D Secure and other protocols can be used to communicate the authentication results to banks or other parties for this validation.

SPC is currently available in Chrome and Edge on MacOS, Windows, and Android. During the Candidate Recommendation period the Web Payments Working Group will seek implementation in other browsers and environments.

About the World Wide Web Consortium

The mission of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is to lead the Web to its full potential by creating technical standards and guidelines to ensure that the Web remains open, accessible, and interoperable for everyone around the globe. W3C well-known standards HTML and CSS are the foundational technologies upon which websites are built. W3C works on ensuring that all foundational Web technologies meet the needs of civil society, in areas such as accessibility, internationalization, security, and privacy. W3C also provides the standards that undergird the infrastructure for modern businesses leveraging the Web, in areas such as entertainment, communications, digital publishing, and financial services. That work is created in the open, provided for free and under the groundbreaking W3C Patent Policy.

W3C's vision for "One Web" brings together thousands of dedicated technologists representing more than 400 Member organizations and dozens of industry sectors. W3C is a public-interest non-profit organization incorporated in the United States of America, led by a Board of Directors and employing a global staff across the globe. For more information see https://www.w3.org/.

End Press Release

Media Contact

Amy van der Hiel, W3C Media Relations Coordinator <[email protected]>  
+1.617.453.8943 (US, Eastern Time)

EMV® is a registered trademark in the U.S. and other countries and an unregistered trademark elsewhere. The EMV trademark is owned by EMVCo, LLC.

Testimonials from W3C members and Liaisons

EMVCoEntersektFimeMastercardNok NokWorldline

EMVCo

"Fighting checkout friction is key to businesses delivering a convenient digital shopping experience. Our work initiative with W3C and FIDO Alliance continually seeks to streamline customer authentication and aligns with our broader commitment to support evolving payment habits without compromising security. Collaborative industry work to enhance the interoperability of technologies, such as the Web Payment Security Interest Group, are crucial in delivering smoother, safer checkout experiences for consumers."

Arman Aygen, Director of Technology, EMVCo

Entersekt

"At Entersekt, we are excited to see Secure Payment Confirmation (SPC) advancing to Candidate Recommendation, and the very real advancements it brings to our common goal of keeping global organisations safer, without compromising user experience. W3C and the FIDO Alliance have done tremendous work to promote and mature WebAuthentication. Google, Apple and Microsoft have rolled out support for passkeys to make this available on a global scale. Payments makes up a critical part of a banking customer's journey and SPC now provides for it. EMVCo has already included support for Secure Payment Confirmation in its EMV® 3-D Secure 2.3.1 specification, to enable secure and compliant card payments. We look forward to roll out Secure Payment Confirmation to all our FIDO clients in the banking sector, as a seamless part of our industry leading Context Aware Authentication platform. As one of the Web Payment Working Group chairs, I'm also eager to see how we use the SPC foundation as a stepping stone to further build out other payment and banking related use-cases."

Gerhard Oosthuizen, CTO, Entersekt

Fime

"For online payment transaction, the consumer is highly solicited, increasing the risk of abandonment. In parallel, laws across the world are imposing stronger authentication of the user during a transaction to strengthen security. SPC technology is an effective solution to this dilemma, providing a robust authentication method for browser, without degrading the user experience. At Fime, we are thrilled to see the industry benefit from such a technological breakthrough."

Raphael Guilley, CTO, Fime

Mastercard

"Mastercard is committed to ensuring security and trust across the payments ecosystem, while also providing an exceptional consumer experience. As e-commerce continues to reach new heights around the world, we welcome the introduction of the World Wide Web Consortium’s SPC standardization to support streamlined authentication of consumers across merchants and payment use cases. It’s more important than ever that the online checkout experience is seamless and safe, and this standard is a positive and productive step in scaling our innovative technology that supports this space."

Pablo Fourez, Executive Vice President, Network and Digital Payment Services, Mastercard

Nok Nok

"In times of rising card-not-present fraud and users' expectations for more convenient payment approvals, Nok Nok is pleased to collaborate with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) on the new Secure Payment Confirmation (SPC) solution that addresses both of these challenges. Nok Nok already supports the new SPC solution and passkeys that streamline user authentication and enhance payment security in the latest release of the Nok Nok S3 Suite announced in April 2023."

Dr. Rolf Lindemann, Vice President, Products, Nok Nok

Worldline

"Worldline’s R&D team has always supported the W3C payments workgroup mission to combine frictionless UX with clear and strong controls. As such the Secure Payment Confirmation is a major leap forward to create an open standard that brings a clear consent to the user, a frictionless conversion rate to Merchants and continued Strong Customer Authentication control for the user's bank that remains responsible for the applied SCA. 
I'm proud that my team is an active contributor to this new proposed standard which allows to support our customers to quickly adopt these payment innovations."

Stephan Blachier, Head of Worldline Labs

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EPUB 3.3 becomes a W3C Recommendation <![CDATA[EPUB 3.3 becomes a W3C Recommendation.]]> Thu, 25 May 2023 12:38:00 +0000 https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2023/epub33-rec/ https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2023/epub33-rec/ <![CDATA[press-releases]]> <![CDATA[

https://www.w3.org/ — 25 May 2023 — W3C has just published the newest version of EPUB, EPUB 3.3, as a W3C Recommendation (an international Web Standard) as part of the Digital Publishing activity (established with the merger of IDPF and W3C in 2017).

Composite showing the epub logo and a diagram of the various containers that constitute an epub file: content document such as xhtml and svg and other resources such as CSS, png, mp3, mov which constitute the publication resources, nested within what constitute the EPUB publication that is made of a package document and navigation document, and all of this is wrapped within the EPUB container

EPUB defines a distribution and interchange format for digital publications and documents. The EPUB format provides a means of representing, packaging, and encoding structured and semantically enhanced web content — including HTML, CSS, SVG, and other resources — for distribution in a single-file container.

EPUB 3.3 is backward compatible with the previous version, EPUB 3.2, insofar as any EPUB 3.2 document is also valid EPUB 3.3. In other words, moving from EPUB 3.2 to EPUB 3.3 does not require any changes to current publication workflows.

The W3C process of standardization entails a thorough review of the specifications by Member experts, including checking the specification’s impact on implementations for internationalization, security, privacy, accessibility, and conformity to other Web standards. These reviews led to a number of small but important technical changes such as additional features to address bidirectional text, and more precise specification of security related details for scripts. The standard also includes detailed guidelines for implementers on the possible privacy and security problems.

The Working Group has also created a comprehensive test suite that systematically tests all normative features of the specification. This was done in strong cooperation with the developers of EPUBCheck. As a result, the latest version of epubcheck (version 5.0.1 has just been released) is fully compatible with EPUB 3.3; publishers may use it immediately.

The EPUB 3.3 documents have also undergone significant improvement with editorial changes and reorganizations. The content specification, which is what publishers, creators, or authors are really interested in, is now separate from the reading system specification that is of primary interest for implementers only. Editorial changes made the documents more readable. Finally, features that had little adoption (such as multiple rendition) have been removed from the standard text and have been published separately.

Accessibility of EPUB publications was an essential part of the group’s activity. As a result, the EPUB Accessibility specification has been updated and, for the first time in the history of EPUB, is now an integral part of the EPUB Standard. Furthermore, the EPUB Accessibility specification is compatible with the European Accessibility Act whose influence will be significant on Digital Publishing in the years to come.

W3C is committed to maintain the EPUB specification beyond this milestone. A planned dedicated Maintenance Working Group will consider issues such as a possible submission of EPUB 3.3 to ISO to update the current ISO version that is based on EPUB 3.0.1, or to consider features that were postponed (e.g., standardization of industry practices to use EPUB as a standard format for webtoons). No major technical changes are envisioned at this time, though.

Finally, please note that this edition of EPUB is dedicated to Garth Conboy, who was one of the original designers of EPUB, and an initiator of the W3C Working Group which produced these new specifications. He is, and will remain, greatly missed.

About the World Wide Web Consortium

The mission of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is to lead the Web to its full potential by creating technical standards and guidelines to ensure that the Web remains open, accessible, and interoperable for everyone around the globe. W3C well-known standards HTML and CSS are the foundational technologies upon which websites are built. W3C works on ensuring that all foundational Web technologies meet the needs of civil society, in areas such as accessibility, internationalization, security, and privacy. W3C also provides the standards that undergird the infrastructure for modern businesses leveraging the Web, in areas such as entertainment, communications, digital publishing, and financial services. That work is created in the open, provided for free and under the groundbreaking W3C Patent Policy.

W3C's vision for "One Web" brings together thousands of dedicated technologists representing more than 400 Member organizations and dozens of industry sectors. W3C is a public-interest non-profit organization incorporated in the United States of America, led by a Board of Directors and employing a global staff across the globe. For more information see https://www.w3.org/.

End Press Release

Media Contact

Amy van der Hiel, W3C Media Relations Coordinator <[email protected]>
+1.617.253.5628 (US, Eastern Time)

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World Wide Web Consortium seeking next CEO <![CDATA[World Wide Web Consortium seeking next CEO]]> Fri, 21 Apr 2023 12:22:00 +0000 https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2023/w3c-ceo-search/ https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2023/w3c-ceo-search/ <![CDATA[press-releases]]> <![CDATA[

https://www.w3.org/ — 21 April 2023 — The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is working with leading international executive search firm Perrett Laver to find qualified candidates from around the world to be our CEO.

A unique organization

W3C began 2023 by forming a new public-interest incorporated not-for-profit organization. We are now seeking our next leader at this exciting time in our evolution.

The new organization preserves the core process and mission of the Web Consortium to shepherd the Web, by developing open web standards as a single global organization with contributions from W3C Members, staff, and the international community. The new W3C entity preserves our member-driven approach and existing worldwide outreach and cooperation.  

Searching for a new leader

W3C is a unique organization at a crucial transition point in its existence. Reporting to the newly formed Board of Directors, the CEO will be responsible for the success of W3C in line with our mission. The CEO must be an experienced and collaborative leader who appreciates the strong assets of W3C —its expert staff, engaged members, committed Board and fantastic reputation— and has the capacity to effectively leverage these to transform the organization and ensure a bright future and further impact.

The next CEO of W3C will be a strategic, collaborative, and motivating leader. They will have a global mindset and the ability to effectively engage with a diverse range of stakeholders. They will be a person of integrity who is forward thinking and supportive of staff. Most importantly, they will have an affinity for, and understanding of, the work, mission, and values of W3C.

W3C invites applications from qualified CEO candidates from across several continents. Please refer to the W3C CEO vacancy on the Perrett Laver site. The deadline for applications is Friday, May 12th, 2023.

About the World Wide Web Consortium

The mission of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is to lead the Web to its full potential by creating technical standards and guidelines to ensure that the Web remains open, accessible, and interoperable for everyone around the globe. W3C well-known standards HTML and CSS are the foundational technologies upon which websites are built. W3C works on ensuring that all foundational Web technologies meet the needs of civil society, in areas such as accessibility, internationalization, security, and privacy. W3C also provides the standards that undergird the infrastructure for modern businesses leveraging the Web, in areas such as entertainment, communications, digital publishing, and financial services. That work is created in the open, provided for free and under the groundbreaking W3C Patent Policy.

W3C's vision for "One Web" brings together thousands of dedicated technologists representing more than 400 Member organizations and dozens of industry sectors. W3C is a public-interest non-profit organization incorporated in the United States of America, led by a Board of Directors and employing a global staff across the globe. For more information see https://www.w3.org/.

End Press Release

Media Contact

Amy van der Hiel, W3C Media Relations Coordinator <[email protected]>
+1.617.453.8943 (US, Eastern Time)

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W3C re-launched as a public-interest non-profit organization <![CDATA[W3C re-launched as a public-interest non-profit organization]]> Tue, 31 Jan 2023 13:18:00 +0000 https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2023/w3c-le-launched/ https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2023/w3c-le-launched/ <![CDATA[press-releases]]> <![CDATA[

Read testimonials from W3C Members

https://www.w3.org/ — 31 January 2023 — The World Wide Web Consortium began the year 2023 by forming a new public-interest non-profit organization. The new entity preserves our member-driven approach, existing worldwide outreach and cooperation while allowing for additional partners around the world beyond Europe and Asia. The new organization also preserves the core process and mission of the Consortium to shepherd the web, by developing open web standards as a single global organization with contributions from W3C Members, staff, and the international community.

The Web Consortium builds on 28 years of expertise

Since its founding almost three decades ago by Web Inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has developed the foundational technical standards upon which the web has flourished.

The Web Consortium has a track record of delivering globally recognized standards, including HTML and CSS upon which the web is built. W3C and its Members have made advances of important social and economic value: nearly five hundred open standards have powered the creation of 2 billion websites. The Consortium has also been fundamental in the emergence of transformative phenomena like social media, e-commerce, video on the web, video conferencing, which have transformed all our lives. W3C’s work empowers people with disabilities to access the web, supports websites in languages and cultures all around the world, and improves web security through strong authentication. These successes are possible because W3C standards may be used by anyone, and at no cost thanks to the royalty-free W3C Patent Policy.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s Consortium

"In 1994, the decision to form the World Wide Web Consortium came at the urging of many companies investing increasing resources into the web. I started leading the essential work of the Web Consortium team to foster a consistent architecture accommodating the rapid pace of progress in web standards for building websites, browsers, devices to experience all that the web has to offer. Today, I am proud of the profound impact W3C has had, its many achievements accomplished with our Members and the public, and I look forward to the continued empowering enhancements W3C enables as it launches its own public-interest non-profit organization, building on 28 years of experience."

Sir Tim Berners-Lee

Sir Tim Berners-Lee has long promoted the Consortium as a neutral forum where organizations around the world come together to create the technologies to most fully realize the potential of the web.

When the Consortium was established and running well Sir Tim was able to put his focus elsewhere and founded other organizations like the World Wide Web Foundation, the Open Data Institute London and his newest layer of the web, the Solid Protocol, and the company Inrupt bringing it to fruition. Sir Tim has gradually stepped away from being directly involved with most W3C decisions. Today, to ensure that Sir Tim’s vision continues, he retains a permanent seat on the Board of Directors and has been actively advocating and supporting the evolution of the organization he founded.

Greater means, stronger governance are fueling the need for change

Going beyond the incremental changes that over the years enabled the Web Consortium to keep pace with the web's evolving technologies and uses, the newly adopted structure affords increased transparency and accountability, and greater responsiveness to fast moving changes.

The new structure will allow continuity as well as further development of the Consortium. It also puts governance at the fore. A Board of Directors with W3C Member majority will guide the operations and strategic direction, aiming for clearer reporting, greater transparency and continued global cooperation, including with new international Partners from the former Hosts.

As required of all 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations, our bylaws and a number of documents will be public, such as tax documents as well as specific financial statements disclosing our operating activities, balance sheets, statement of cash flows, and income statement. Our financial statements will be annually audited by an independent external auditor.

Preserving our world-class standards development process

We will continue to use our proven standards development process.

W3C processes promote fairness and enable progress. Our standards work will still be accomplished in the open, under the W3C Process Document and royalty-free W3C Patent Policy, with input from the broader community. Decisions will still be taken by consensus. Technical direction and Recommendations will continue to require review by W3C Members – large and small. The Advisory Board will still guide the community-driven Process Document enhancement. The Technical Architecture Group will continue as the highest authority on technical matters.

Vision for the future

Our vision for the future is a web that is truly a force for good. A World Wide Web that is truly international and more inclusive, more respectful of its users. A web that supports truth better than falsehood, people more than profits, humanity rather than hate. A web that works for everyone, because of everyone.

About the World Wide Web Consortium

The mission of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is to lead the Web to its full potential by creating technical standards and guidelines to ensure that the Web remains open, accessible, and interoperable for everyone around the globe. W3C well-known standards HTML and CSS are the foundational technologies upon which websites are built. W3C works on ensuring that all foundational Web technologies meet the needs of civil society, in areas such as accessibility, internationalization, security, and privacy. W3C also provides the standards that undergird the infrastructure for modern businesses leveraging the Web, in areas such as entertainment, communications, digital publishing, and financial services. That work is created in the open, provided for free and under the groundbreaking W3C Patent Policy.

W3C's vision for "One Web" brings together thousands of dedicated technologists representing more than 400 Member organizations and dozens of industry sectors. W3C is a public-interest non-profit organization incorporated in the United States of America, led by a Board of Directors and employing a global staff across the globe. For more information see https://www.w3.org/.

End Press Release

Media Contact

Amy van der Hiel, W3C Media Relations Coordinator <[email protected]>
+1.617.453.8943 (US, Eastern Time)

Testimonials from W3C members

Accessibility FoundationCenter for Democracy & TechnologyConsenSysDeque Systems, Inc.eyeoFondazione LIAHuawei Corporationkoodos labsLawrence Berkeley National LaboratoryMinistry of Digital Affairs, TaiwanOracleTetralogicalTPGi

Accessibility Foundation

"Accessibility Foundation, member of W3C since 2001, congratulates W3C Inc with the successful transition from a hosted model to a public-interest non-profit organization. Our Foundation will continue to support W3C and W3C/WAI activities with regards to digital inclusion for persons with disabilities. W3C has a crucial role in the harmonization of accessibility in web standards, supporting materials and tools. Accessibility Foundation uses the W3C/WAI accessibility resources in their daily work and actively works together on new and revised WAI resources that support the European Accessibility Act."

Eric Velleman, Founder, Accessibility Foundation

Center for Democracy & Technology

"As a long-time civil society member of the World Wide Web Consortium, CDT is encouraged by the successful transition of W3C to a public-interest non-profit organization. Internet governance is most effective and legitimate when it is genuinely multistakeholder. To that end, CDT is committed to participating in the development of Web standards, advocating for technical designs that support privacy and other human rights, and including more of the community in the standard-setting process. There is much work to be done, by the new W3C Inc. and by the wider community, to make standard-setting inclusive and to fulfill the potential of the Web."

Alexandra Reeve Givens, President & CEO, Center for Democracy & Technology

ConsenSys

"W3C has led the evolution of the basic Web platform for almost three decades. It pioneered some of the principles of decentralisation that are central to our own vision, enabling multiple stakeholders to support and participate in the governance of a critical technology that is a public good. An early decision of ConsenSys was to be a member and participate in shaping the web as part of W3C. We are committed to extending the Internet with new mechanisms for trust, a fairer model of ownership, and more transparent and democratic economic rewards to build the digital economy of tomorrow. We welcome the transition of W3C to an independent organisation founded on strong values to continue its leadership of an open technology platform that will remain fundamental to the transformation we are working to see."

Charles Nevile, Lead Standards Architect, ConsenSys

Deque Systems, Inc.

"We're excited to see W3C evolve and continue to drive vitally important web standards forward. Myself and my colleagues at Deque have been working with W3C for 16 years on WCAG in an effort to drive digital equality across the web. As the web changes and grows, we're excited to defend the W3C vision together, building a web that works for everyone."

Glenda Sims, Chief Information Accessibility Officer, Deque Systems, Inc.

eyeo

"Eyeo is delighted to witness the establishment of W3C Inc. as a new legal entity with non-profit status. As the web needs to continuously evolve, we are facing big challenges and require sustainable standards to keep the web open, accessible and secure for everyone. eyeo will continue to actively participate in various working groups to keep the web balanced for users, content creators and advertisers."

Gertrud Kolb, Chief Technology and Product Officer (CTPO), eyeo

Fondazione LIA

“As a European organization, we fully support W3C and their efforts to create a more open, interoperable and accessible digital world. The new version of the EPUB Accessibility specification is an important step towards meeting the requirements of the European Accessibility Act for publishers. It is essential for different voices from different regions to be represented in this process and we demonstrate that organizations of all sizes can contribute to this cause. Accessibility is a critical and rapidly growing issue: we will continue to support W3C and their efforts to make the digital world more accessible for all.”

Cristina Mussinelli, Secretary General, Fondazione LIA

Huawei Corporation

"We applaud W3C successfully transformation as an independent, non-profit and member-driven legal entity after three decades of diligent operations leading to the thriving of global Web technologies, and we strongly believe W3C will take the great opportunity to continue championing standardization principles such as openness, fairness and transparency, serving W3C’s outstanding vision of ‘Web for All’. We look forward to W3C leveraging this crucial chance to unify more members, talents and sponsors, effectively addressing standards challenges triggered by emerging technologies, with the support of the Web infrastructure, as the mature, credible and evolving foundation.”

Thomas Li, President of Corporate Standards, Huawei Corporation

Koodos Labs

"For nearly three decades, W3C has stood at the forefront of the web's evolution, promoting standards and guidelines that have helped shape the internet as we know it today. At koodos labs, we're excited to be on the frontlines supporting the W3C's tireless efforts to advance the web and ensure its accessibility, interoperability, and neutrality. As the web enters an important juncture, we have no doubt that W3C Inc. will remain a key player in shaping its future."

Jad Esber, Co-founder, CEO, Koodos Labs

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

"Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory congratulates W3C on the creation of W3C Inc. as an independent legal entity. We gratefully acknowledge the work of the host institutions to manage the consortium over the past several decades. Those years have been crucial to the development of scientific data sharing and knowledge dissemination. With the Consortium's guidance, the Web has become an indispensable tool for research, not only in publishing results but also in making data findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable. Web standards also enable tools for scientific computing, analysis, and collaboration, all fundamental aspects of modern scientific research. We look forward to addressing the challenges of the present day and building a still brighter future."

Wahid Bhimji, Data Department Head, National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Ministry of Digital Affairs, Taiwan

"As a new member to W3C, we are committed to work with all stakeholders, especially around decentralized identifiers, accessibility, privacy and security standards. We look forward to engaging in inclusive co-creation that leads to digital resilience for all — overcoming online harms through digital competence."

Audrey Tang, Minister of Digital Affairs, Ministry of Digital Affairs, Taiwan

Oracle

"W3C provides a unique and valuable opportunity for W3C members, staff, and the international community to collaborate on creating open standards in a transparent manner. As W3C transitions from a hosted model to a member-driven non-profit organization, we are excited for the potential to be more agile and accountable while adhering to the same standards processes and licenses that have been successful over the past 28 years. As a member of W3C since 1995, Oracle has been privileged to have helped in W3C’s mission to lead the web to its full potential by creating open standards. Oracle will continue its contributions and participation in W3C including its leadership in the Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (AGWG). Oracle values the benefits that the W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) have provided to improve access to the Web by anyone, regardless of their abilities, to everyone around the world."

Luke Kowalski, VP, Corporate Architecture Group, Oracle

Tetralogical

"TetraLogical welcomes this new era of the World Wide Web Consortium. The web platform has evolved and changed since W3C was first established, and now more than ever, there is a need for the community to come together to work on open and royalty-free web standards that uphold the principles of accessibility, security, privacy, and internationalisation. We are excited by the possibilities and look forward to our continuing involvement."

Léonie Watson, Founder and Director, Tetralogical

TPGi

"W3C has a long tradition of working to provide a web that supports participation by disabled people. This extends to participation by disabled people within W3C to develop the specifications and guidelines which improve accessibility. TPGi have been actively engaged for the past 15 years as Specification Editors, Working Group participants and Chairs, and we are committed and excited to actively participate in the W3C of the future."

Steve Faulkner, Chief Accessibility Officer, TPGi
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Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) v1.0 becomes a W3C Recommendation <![CDATA[A new tool to empower everyone on the web with privacy-respecting online identity and consent-based data sharing]]> Tue, 19 Jul 2022 14:03:00 +0000 https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2022/did-rec/ https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2022/did-rec/ <![CDATA[press-releases]]> <![CDATA[

A new tool to empower everyone on the web with privacy-respecting online identity and consent-based data sharing

Read testimonials from W3C Members and the industry

 

https://www.w3.org/ — 19 July 2022 — The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has announced that Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) v1.0 is now an official Web standard. This new type of verifiable identifier, which does not require a centralized registry, will enable both individuals and organizations to take greater control of their online information and relationships while also providing greater security and privacy.

There is a historical analog to this announcement in the evolution of mobile phone numbers. Originally these were owned by the mobile carrier and "rented" to the individual. This required individuals to change numbers if they changed carriers. With the adoption of mobile phone number portability, individuals could now "take their numbers with them" when switching carriers.

The same is true of most email addresses and social network addresses today—they are not “owned” by individuals and must be changed if the individual changes providers. By contrast, W3C Decentralized Identifiers can be controlled by the individuals or organizations that create them, are portable between service providers, and can last for as long as their controller wants to continue using them.

Whatsmore, DIDs have the unique property of enabling the controller to verify ownership of the DID using cryptography. This can enable any controller of a DID—an individual, an organization, an online community, a government, an IoT device—to engage in more trustworthy transactions online. For individuals in particular, DIDs can put them back in control of their personal data and consent, and also enable more respectful bi-directional trust relationships where forgery is prevented, privacy is honored, and usability is enhanced.

Fundamentally, Decentralized Identifiers are a new type of globally unambiguous identifier that can be used to identify any subject (e.g., a person, an organization, a device, a product, a location, even an abstract entity or a concept). Each DID resolves to a DID document that contains the cryptographic material and other metadata for controlling the DID. The foundational pillars of the DID specification are: 1) DIDs do not require a central issuing agency (decentralized), 2) DIDs do not require the continued operation of an underlying organization (persistent), 3) Control of DIDs, and the information they are associated with, can be proven cryptographically (verifiable), and 4) DID metadata can be discovered (resolvable).

Markets adopting DIDs

W3C Decentralized Identifiers, coupled with W3C Verifiable Credentials, are being used across a number of markets where identification and data authenticity is a concern:

  • Governments – The US, Canada, and the EU, are exploring the use of DIDs to provide privacy-protecting digital identity documentation for their businesses and residents, which enable those entities to choose how and when their data is shared.
  • Retailers – convenience stores, grocery stores, restaurants, bars, and consumer goods companies in the US are utilizing DIDs for new digital age verification programs to increase privacy, checkout speed, and combat the use of fraudulent identity documents when purchasing age-gated products.
  • Supply chain stakeholders — global government regulators, trade standards institutions, vendors, shippers, and retailers—are using DIDs to explore next generation systems that more accurately verify the origin and destination of products and services, which will streamline and enable the reporting designed to apply correct tariffs, prevent dumping, and monitor transshipment.
  • Workforce – universities, job training programs, and education standards organizations are adopting DIDs in order to issue digital learning credentials that are controlled and shared by the graduate when applying for higher education or workforce positions.

The Work Continues at W3C

W3C, composed of over 450 organizations, has made the investment in W3C Decentralized Identifiers and W3C Verifiable Credentials to ensure a more decentralized, privacy-respecting, and consent-based data sharing ecosystem. Official standards work will continue on these technologies through the newly re-chartered W3C Verifiable Credentials 2.0 Working Group, which will focus on expanding functionality based on market feedback. Further incubation on future privacy-respecting technologies will occur through the W3C Credentials Community Group, which is open to participation by the general public.

About the World Wide Web Consortium

The mission of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is to lead the Web to its full potential by creating technical standards and guidelines to ensure that the Web remains open, accessible, and interoperable for everyone around the globe. W3C well-known standards HTML and CSS are the foundational technologies upon which websites are built. W3C works on ensuring that all foundational Web technologies meet the needs of civil society, in areas such as accessibility, internationalization, security, and privacy. W3C also provides the standards that undergird the infrastructure for modern businesses leveraging the Web, in areas such as entertainment, communications, digital publishing, and financial services. That work is created in the open, provided for free and under the groundbreaking W3C Patent Policy.

W3C's vision for "One Web" brings together thousands of dedicated technologists representing more than 400 Member organizations and dozens of industry sectors. W3C is jointly hosted by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL) in the United States, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) headquartered in France, Keio University in Japan and Beihang University in China. For more information see https://www.w3.org/.

End Press Release

Media Contact

Amy van der Hiel, W3C Media Relations Coordinator <[email protected]>
+1.617.253.5628 (US, Eastern Time)

Testimonials from W3C members

AvastBlock Inc.China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT)ConexxusConsenSysDanube TechDigital BazaarElectronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI)Fundacion CTIC Centro TecnológicoGS1Identity.comIntel CorporationJolocom GmbHMavennet Systems Inc.MIT Open LearningMesur.ioOlogy Newswire, Inc.PassiveBolt IncSpruce Systems, Inc.Transmute51Degrees

Avast

"Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) are critical to ensuring a safer Web and the type of empowered consumer experiences we’re enabling at Avast. We are incredibly proud of our colleagues who have contributed so much to making this specification a reality, notably Drummond Reed (who served as a co-author and co-editor) and Brent Zundel (who co-chaired the W3C’s DID Working Group)."

Charles Walton, SVP & GM Digital Trust Services Business, Avast Software s.r.o.

Block, Inc.

"At Block, we are excited to leverage the Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) specification to help build a standards-based decentralized identity layer for the Web. We believe DIDs, and associated technologies being developed in the Decentralized Identity community, will be critical in bringing about an evolution of the Web platform that equips individuals to own and control their identifiers, personal data, and every facet of their digital interactions. Block is actively developing open source packages, products, and services that incorporate DIDs in many areas to create new value and experiences for individuals and business customers."

Daniel Buchner, Head of Decentralized Identity, Block, Inc.

China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT)

"We are excited to witness this historical moment on the Decentralized Identifiers specification. We believe that the self-sovereign identity, or the decentralized digital identity is the future of the Web, and it will induce tremendous impacts not only on the way people behave on the Internet, but also on the digital economy development worldwide. In China, CAICT and our partners have been putting great effort in creating this decentralized identity ecological community for many years. We have launched the DID-oriented Blockchain infrastructure called Xinghuo BIF since 2020, and we will publish the Chinese version self-sovereign identity-decentralized digital identity and verifiable credentials book this year so that people from all industries can realize the potential power of the new technology. We wish to build more partnerships with communities from all over the world, and we are happy to share our story with the world. The new generation of the web is coming."

Jian Jin, General Director of Institute for Industry and Internet of Things, CAICT

Conexxus

"W3C Decentralized identifiers represent a huge step forward in being able to create privacy preserving systems. Coupled with W3C Verifiable Credentials, Decentralized Identifiers have enabled design and standardization of an Age Verification system that meets regulatory requirements while protecting private information. Creating systems that can do both things has formerly been a challenging task, made easier with Decentralized Identifiers and Verifiable Credentials. Conexxus is a long term W3C member, and is the standards body for the convenience retail sector representing 152,000 retail outlets. W3C Decentralized Identifiers have helped create an important privacy preserving standard for the TruAge program."

Gray Taylor, Executive Director, Conexxus

ConsenSys

"ConsenSys are pleased that W3C has endorsed the DID 1.0 specification as a W3C Recommendation. This is an important step toward empowering individuals to control their own identity and how it is used. 

The DID framework enables an interoperable approach to identity that can be based on different platforms, providing cross-network interoperability. We value this approach, and the ability of W3C to produce such standards to underpin the highly hetergeneous web of today, and of the future. 

At ConsenSys we have been working half a decade with this approach in the Ethereum technology stack. This can provide an ideal basis for the implementation of secure and scalable DID methods, that frees the world from relying only on very large scale providers to manage people's identity. 

We look forward to this work, along with Verifiable Credentials and other connected standards, forming an underpinning for the new future we are building where decentralised identity management and reputation systems give people more control of their online identity."

Charles "chaals" Nevile, Lead Standards Architect, ConsenSys

Danube Tech

"Like many other companies, we welcome the decision to advance DID Core 1.0 to W3C Recommendation. For Danube Tech, DIDs are more than just a technical building block and a prerequisite for other functionality such as Verifiable Credentials or DID-based authentication. For us, DIDs are a symbol of empowerment and independence. They lie at the heart of a vision that relates physical to digital identities, in a way where human rights and democratic principles are "built-into" the technical architectures. We believe DIDs are a foundation for a better Web, and we look forward to contributing to their success with our DID-based products and customer projects around the world."

Markus Sabadello, CEO, Danube Tech

Digital Bazaar

"Our work with various governments, education institutions, banks, supply chain, and the retail sector utilize W3C Decentralized Identifiers and W3C Verifiable Credentials to build next generation privacy-enhancing digital credential issuance, verification, and encrypted storage services. All of our products support W3C Verifiable Credentials and W3C Decentralized Identifiers and help reassure our customers that they are investing in a broad, competitive ecosystem of software vendors that all support these interoperable Web standards. 

From an individual's perspective, DIDs enable a simpler, safer way to store, share, update, and verify personal data using privacy-respecting identifiers under their personal control. From an enterprise perspective, decentralized technology has the potential to reverse the trends of data breaches and data theft. Companies will no longer need to spend a fortune in the expensive collection–and protection–of data that can quickly become out-of-date, incomplete, or inaccurate. Furthermore, organizations can know with greater certainty that they are interacting with an individual that has the right to use the data they are sharing rather than receiving it from a thief or illicit data broker. 

We applaud the newest global standard at the World Wide Web Consortium and look forward to new work at W3C that will enhance and further standardize consent-based data sharing standards that respect individual right to privacy."

Manu Sporny, CEO, Digital Bazaar

Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI)

"ETRI, a government-affiliated research institute in South Korea, leads the development of artificial intelligence (AI) and emerging ICTs. We are delighted that W3C has approved the Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) as W3C Recommendation. The W3C Recommendation for DIDs will serve as an excellent foundation for the digital transformation and the metaverse era, where every company globally strives to understand and reach. Furthermore, recognizing the importance of DIDs, the South Korean government and companies are cooperating to gradually apply DIDs to government-led public services, such as COVID-19 vaccination certificates and mobile driver's licenses. Therefore, ETRI is confident that the approval of the W3C Recommendation for DIDs will contribute significantly to establishing a safe and convenient DIDs-based digital ecosystem."

Seungyun Lee, Director of Open Source Center, ETRI

Fundacion CTIC Centro Tecnológico

"At CTIC we believe that DIDs are an important building block towards a truly decentralised web. We will therefore help companies and public administrations to apply DIDs in ways that go beyond replicating known centralised identity management schemes."

Pablo Coca, Director for business development and operation, CTIC Centro Tecnológico

GS1

"GS1 believes that DIDs, and the closely related technologies around Verifiable Credentials, are likely to make a very substantial difference to the level of trust in the data that underpins supply chains. We therefore welcome the transition of the DID-Core to Recommendation status. We are working on a number of initiatives involving national accreditation agencies, governments and industry partners around the world and GS1 will continue to be an active member of the community developing and testing these standards at W3C."

Phil Archer, Web Solutions Director, GS1 Global Office

Identity.com

"Identity.com fully supports the advancement of DID Core 1.0 to W3C recommendation as an official web standard. Identity.com is an open-source identity verification platform offering developers a native identity layer based on the blockchain. For us, decentralized identifiers are the fundamental technology underpinning decentralized digital identities, providing the security and standards for the future of the Internet and Web3. We believe end-users should have full ownership over their identities. This standard is a positive development for the industry."

Phillip Shoemaker, CEO, Identity.com

Jolocom GmbH

"The DID-core spec becoming an official W3C recommendation is a major and long overdue milestone for the decentralized community. At Jolocom we are currently piloting a DID-based Self-sovereign Identity Wallet in a multitude of use cases and with over two dozen partners. Questions of standardization and interoperability have always been at the core of our work in these projects. It is therefore especially gratifying and exciting to witness this step towards community cohesion. We also take it as a major motivation to continue our efforts on interoperability, to keep implementing DIDs and to further contribute to W3C efforts."

Joachim Lohkamp, CEO, Jolocom GmbH

Intel Corporation

"Intel Corporation congratulates the DID Working Group on Decentralized Identifier (DID) 1.0 reaching W3C Recommendation status. 

DID provides a framework to unify and consolidate multiple evolving identity systems. Consolidating identity systems within a single framework is useful for validating the authenticity of information and preserving its integrity as it is moved and processed among cloud, edge, and client systems. This potentially increases the capabilities of the Web to connect and unify multiple sources of information. 

The continuing evolution of this work will be key to the development of new technologies in the fields of supply chain management and Internet of Things (IoT) devices and services. For example, a Birds of a Feather (BOF) discussion group at IETF Supply Chain Integrity, Transparency, and Trust (SCITT) has already highlighted DID as a useful approach in providing much needed structure for exchanging information through the supply chain, and the Web of Things (WoT) WG is planning to support DID for identifying and discovering IoT devices and metadata. 

Intel Corporation supports this work and encourages the DID Working Group to continue working towards the convergence of widely implemented and adopted standardized best practices for identity in its next charter."

Eric Siow, Web Standards and Ecosystem Strategies Director, Intel Corporation

Mavennet Systems Inc.

"Mavennet is a firm believer in the power of Decentralized Identifiers. We believe DIDs, and associated technologies are a fundamental cornerstone to building a more transparent, trusted and resilient web enabling commercial applications that were not possible before. Mavennet is actively building a number of products utilizing DIDs to augment trust, security and automation in the supply chain."

Mahmoud Alkhraishi, Director of Engineering, Mavennet Systems Inc.

Mesur.io

"Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) alongside W3C Verifiable Credentials (VCs) are enabling our customers to have confidence in the data that they capture and share in pursuit of ESG goals and regulatory requirements. These two standards provide a path to interoperability where the user is in control of their own data in a privacy preserving manner, which is critical for us in solving global problems such as biodefense, food and water security, and in combating forced and child labor."

Michael Prorock, CTO, mesur.io

MIT Open Learning

"The members of the Digital Credentials Consortium (DCC)—comprising 12 international universities—are working together to develop new digital systems for academic credentials. The DCC approach focuses on open standards, open processes, and developing open source software to ensure learner agency in the use of their digital credentials. One of the key components of these approaches is using the W3C Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) specification so that learners and issuers can securely associate themselves with their credentials. The DCC has chosen to implement DIDs along with W3C Verifiable Credentials to enable an interoperable, verifiable, and more trustworthy exchange of digital academic credentials."

Brandon Muramatsu, Associate Director, Projects, MIT Open Learning

Ology Newswire, Inc.

"Decentralized Identifiers are an important tool to level the playing field. With DIDs, individuals and small teams enjoy the same level of cryptographic verification of identity, claims, and content that is available to the largest and most powerful governments and corporations. 

At Ology Newswire, DIDs enable digital publishers to contribute content to the public square with cryptographic provenance to enhance censorship resistance. A free WordPress plugin serves DIDs for each author on a WordPress site giving the publisher direct control over verification. 

The DID standard is flexible enough to empower not just major corporations and governments, but also individual people and small groups with something important to say or a small enterprise to build. The wide range of applicability embodies the heart and soul of open internet standards."

Christian Gribneau, CEO, Ology Newswire, Inc.

PassiveBolt Inc

"PassiveBolt is thrilled that W3C has endorsed the Decentralized Identity specification DID 1.0. As the first company developing Web 3 based physical access control solutions, we are applying decentralized identity to address problems in the security industry. Issuing credentials for people to access secure spaces currently requires property managers to centrally store PII which exposes them to security risks, regulatory risks, and high costs. PassiveBolt is pioneering a Web3 platform that eliminates regulatory and security risks by enabling property managers to provide access to their secure spaces via user-owned and controlled digital identities based on DIDs."

Kabir Maiga, CEO, PassiveBolt

Spruce Systems, Inc.

"Spruce’s mission is to let users control their data across the web, and we strongly believe that the W3C Decentralized Identifiers are critical to achieving that. DIDs increase user choice, manage complexity across trust models, and when used with adjacent specifications such as Verifiable Credentials, can form the identity layer for a user-centric Internet. We strongly support DID-Core’s transition to a Recommendation, and will continue our contributions to the community."

Wayne Chang, Co-Founder and CEO, Spruce Systems, Inc.

Transmute

"Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) enable identity holders to assert control and reputation outside of centralized authorities, which is an unprecedented win for individual and organizational autonomy across the globe. 

Transmute helps companies and governments operate more efficiently across contexts without compromising competitiveness by providing provable and secure ways of exchanging critical trade data. DIDs implemented with Verifiable Credentials (VCs) are the core technologies Transmute relies on to secure data at scale. The tremendous community effort to standardize DIDs with W3C makes this work possible and enables wide adoption of this important technology."

Karyl Fowler, CEO and Co-Founder, Transmute

51Degrees

"DID 1.0 is a fantastic demonstration of much needed decentralized innovation."

James Rosewell - CEO 51Degrees

Testimonials from the industry

Blockchain CommonsEuropean CommissionDecentralized Identity FoundationDiwalaDock Labs AGGATACAGimlyIdentity Woman in BusinessiGrant.ioThe National Association of Convenience StoresOpen Credentialing InitiativePatient Privacy Rights FoundationPinnacle CorporationSpherityTrinsicTruAgeTrust Over IP (ToIP) FoundationUnited Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE)U.S. Customs and Border ProtectionU.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS)

Blockchain Commons

"DIDs are at the core of our next generation of digital identity on the internet. I'm thrilled at their recognition as an international standard. However, they are just the first step. In order to ensure a compassionate digital infrastructure that protects digital human rights, we need to design DID-centric architectures that fulfill their decentralized possibilities and minimize the identities and credentials that we share. We've laid a great foundation with the DID 1.0 spec; now we need to build on it."

Christopher Allen, IETF TLS 1.0 co-editor, W3C DID spec co-author, and Principal Architect at Blockchain Commons.

European Commission

"The European Commission’s European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI) team warmly welcomes the vote by the W3C to promote the W3C DID Core 1.0 specification to "Recommendation" status.

The European Commission strives to ensure that European values are at the heart of our digital transition. This notably includes ensuring trusted digital identities for all EU citizens and residents and the creation of a secure and interoperable European Digital Identity, in which digital identity and identification are in the citizens’ control.

Decentralised identifiers (DIDs) are a type of identifier that enables verifiable, decentralised digital identity. DIDs therefore contribute to creating a decentralised identity ecosystem and to build the supporting services and capabilities that will allow citizens to create, control, and use their own digital identity.

The Commission’s EBSI team looks forward to adopting the W3C DID Core 1.0 specification in the EBSI framework as a full W3C standard."

Robert Czarny, Blockchain / DLT Business Manager, Directorate-General for Informatics (DIGIT), European Commission

Decentralized Identity Foundation

"We believe DIDs will change the course of digital identity, building in portability and interoperability at the lowest possible level. DIDs are a foundation for creating a new class of products, services, and experiences that advance our digital lives, and we look forward to leveraging DIDs and other technologies developed in the community to champion a new class of user-first, self-owned digital identity systems.

DIDs are an important technical foundation for the products (such as the Universal Resolver, the Sidetree protocol, and DIDCommv2) and activities of virtually all of our members, many of whom actively contributed to the specification."

Rouven Heck, Executive Director, Decentralized Identity Foundation

Diwala

"Diwala is working in parts of the world where digital interconnectedness has some way to go. We see W3C Decentralized Identifiers as critical to build a better digital world for these countries. We see that DIDs is the foundation to achieve an evolution of the Web platform, and leapfrog countries who have yet to reach the same digital resources as the digital leading countries of this world. DIDs will help people of the web have better control of complexity. Combining this with adjacent specifications such as Verifiable Credentials will greatly increase innovation speed, innovation opportunities and data control. We support the move of DID-Core to a Recommendation, and look forward to continuing to build on it."

Snorre Lothar von Gohren Edwin, CTO, Diwala

Dock Labs AG

"Decentralized identifiers (DIDs) represent a much needed, privacy preserving innovation that enables individuals and organizations to create, own and control their online identities. This technology is a core part of the identity and credentialing solutions offered by Dock, and the W3C recommendation of the DID-Core specification is a welcome milestone that ensures that we continue to develop our technology with interoperability in mind."

Nick Lambert, CEO, Dock Labs AG

GATACA

"For the past 3 years GATACA has had its own DID method enabling us to implement successful use cases across Europe. We’re grateful to have had the support of projects like eSSIF-Lab to advance our DID technology, and look forward to continuing using these core W3C SSI mechanisms & standards to advance its adoption. Our mission to bring real-life trust to the internet in the simplest way through one single, global digital ID is guaranteed by standardised, globally recognised decentralised identifiers and verifiable credentials."

Samuel Gómez Escalante, Founder & CTO, GATACA

Gimly

"With self-sovereign identity - DIDs and VCs - we finally are able to add the identity and authentication layer that had been missing since the inception of the internet. At Gimly we are bridging the digital and physical worlds, leveraging SSI in combination with NFC capabilities of smartcards and mobile devices to bring trust and transparency back into our digital as well as physical interactions. This work has been partly funded through the Horizon 2020 Essif-lab program."

Caspar Roelofs, Founder, Gimly Projects and Partnerships

Identity Woman in Business

"I still remember that first whiteboard session for what would become Decentralized Identifiers (DID) v1.0 that I helped facilitate following the ID2020 conference in 2016. Since then, as a community steward and contributor, I have had the pleasure to watch the DID specification progress through workshoping at the Internet Identity Workshop and pre-standardization in the Credentials Community Group before spec work graduated into an official W3C working group - which I participated in as well. It is a big milestone for the community and towards the infrastructure we need to support individuals really owning and controlling the digital representations of themselves. In my new role as a Principal of a Decentralized Identity consulting firm, I look forward to helping organizations understand and implement this standard."

Kaliya Young, Identity Woman, Founder and Principal at Identity Woman in Business, W3C Invited Expert, co-founder of the Internet Identity Workshop

iGrant.io

"Decentralised Identifiers open a new world for individuals to share personal data (credentials) while protecting their privacy. One fundamental aspect of any data exchange is auditability and regulatory compliance. Through our work with NGI-Trust eSSIF-Lab, MyData and similar organisations, iGrant.io has contributed to defining and standardising data exchange agreements (did:mydata) that make every personal data transaction immutable, trustworthy and auditable. This will create new opportunities with seamless data sharing across public and private entities governed by new data regulations."

iGrant.io

The National Association of Convenience Stores

"In the Convenience Retail channel, age restricted items represent roughly 50 million transactions a day! Restricted items traditionally have been limited within a single transaction, with the age checked using a driver’s license. Regulatory scrutiny now extends to industry-wide sales of items to individuals no matter where they purchase them, and verifying age for the sale of those items using a driver's license presents a big privacy threat. Addressing this issue, NACS has created the TruAge program using W3C Decentralized Identifiers and Verifiable Credentials. Working with our partner Conexxus, NACS has been able to provide a system using open standards that gives a clear “on ramp” for additional participants in the ecosystem. TruAge supports both in-store and on-line transactions, providing safe and responsible sales of age restricted goods while preserving consumer privacy.

NACS advances the role of convenience stores as positive economic, social and philanthropic contributors to the communities they serve. The U.S. convenience store industry, with more than 152,000 stores nationwide selling fuel, food and merchandise, serves 165 million customers daily—half of the U.S. population—and has sales that are 11% of total U.S. retail and foodservice sales. NACS has 1,900 retailers and 1,800 supplier members from more than 50 countries."

Brian E. Kimmel, Executive Vice President, COO and CFO, The National Association of Convenience Stores

Open Credentialing Initiative

"The members of the Open Credentialing Initiative (OCI) were thrilled to learn about the approval of W3C Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) 1.0 as a W3C Recommendation. OCI's architecture heavily relies on this work by W3C to create solutions using DIDs and Verifiable Credentials that solve current challenges in the pharmaceutical supply chain. We see tremendous potential in leveraging this technology for further use cases and look forward to exploring the possibilities."

Bob Celeste, Facilitation, Open Credentialing Initiative

Patient Privacy Rights Foundation

"Standardized DIDs are an essential first step toward empowering individuals to engage peers, institutions and service providers without having to trade platform surveillance for convenience. A standardized digital identifier empowers the individual by reducing their switching costs among service providers and platform intermediaries. The power of individual choice and self-determination will not be realized, however, unless the protocols that incorporate identity enable delegation in order to manage the burden of choice and the anxiety of self-determination."

Adrian Gropper, CTO, Patient Privacy Rights Foundation

Pinnacle Corporation

"W3C Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) and W3C Verifiable Credentials (VCs) enabled Pinnacle to be a leader in introducing privacy-preserving digital age verification in convenience retail. By integrating this advanced technology, NACS TruAge gives our web-based Affiniti POS state of the art industry standard-based capabilities to sell restricted goods in the markets we serve.

Standards make investing in technology development safe, and quality standards make it easy. Having the technology based on a worldwide standard lends immediate credibility and bears out the inherent privacy and security promised by DIDs and VCs."

Peter Steele, Vice President of Research, Pinnacle Corporation

Spherity

"Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) are a verifiable and interoperable cryptographic method of identifying users and things. With DIDs and adjacent specifications such as Verifiable Credentials, a user-centric Internet can form an identity layer that increases user choice, establishes trust, and creates a seamless user experience.

Spherity’s DID-powered solutions provide verifiable, compliance solutions for enterprise and object identity. The W3C DID spec is wired into the core of our identity SaaS solution for enterprise identity wallets, intelligent serial numbers, and process compliance, which integrates with existing ERP and tracking systems via easy-to-use APIs."

Trinsic

"The Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) specification is at the core of our efforts to solve the governance problem in the decentralized world. At Trinsic, we believe in the power of everyone to control their identity. We also believe that ecosystems should have the ability to express their solutions using a trust model that is secure, scalable, and interoperable. The W3C recommendation of the DIDs data model is a milestone that completes the required infrastructure to make this vision possible. We're honored to partner with eSSIF-Lab to develop an open source solution for Trust Registries as a solution to governance based on DIDs."

Tomislav Markovski, Cofounder and CTO at Trinsic

TruAge

"TruAge utilizes W3C Decentralized Identifiers and W3C Verifiable Credentials for its nation-wide digital age verification system in the United States. We are pleased to see the advancement of these global W3C standards, which enabled the National Association of Convenience Stores and its 1,900 retailer and 1,800 supplier members in more than 50 countries to build a next generation privacy-respecting digital age verification system. TruAge, which is based on W3C and Conexxus standards, are currently being integrated into point of sale systems that perform more than 50 million age verifications per day."

Kyle McKeen, CEO, TruAge

Trust Over IP (ToIP) Foundation

"Decentralized identifiers are one of the key building blocks of the decentralized digital trust infrastructure for which the Trust Over IP (ToIP) Foundation is defining a complete architecture. DIDs will put the power of cryptography directly into the digital wallets of every person and organization using the Internet, enabling personal information to be protected, privacy to be preserved, and trust to be established at a scale that has never been possible before."

John Jordan, Executive Director, Trust Over IP (ToIP) Foundation

United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE)

"Digitalisation is a key enabler of the UN’s sustainable development goals (SDGs). The decentralised architecture of the W3C’s DID and VC standards offer important opportunities to accelerate progress towards the SDGs. Improved access to finance for micro business in developing countries, transparency of sustainable supply chains, reduced environmental impacts, and reductions in counterfeit goods are all good use cases for the application of VC/DID based solutions. The UNECE explores important factors for establishing trust in the next-generation digital world and promotes the vision of a more open, free and secure digital future for all."

United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) - United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT)

U.S. Customs and Border Protection

"US Customs and Border Protection is actively pursuing interoperability standards based on W3C Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) and W3C Verifiable Credentials (VCs) as next generation supply chain enhancements for 2023 and 2024. The standards developed by W3C will have a profound effect on the future of supply chain modernization by driving down development costs for both public and private sectors, allowing technology choice, as well as maintaining a safe and open environment for the international community."

Vincent Annunziato, Director of Business Transformation & Innovation Division, U.S. Customs and Border Protection

U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS)

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) works to protect privacy and reduce vendor lock-in by ensuring open standards and demonstrable interoperability testing. "As the US government agency that initially funded the work leading up to the Decentralized Identifiers specification, we are pleased to see its ratification as a global standard,” said Anil John, Technical Director of S&T’s Silicon Valley Innovation Program. “We have and continue to contractually obligate our vendors to adhere to open global standards, including W3C Verifiable Credentials and W3C Decentralized Identifiers, as part of our ‘Preventing Forgery & Counterfeiting of Certificates and Licenses’ workstream, and participate in open standards processes in order to ensure transparency, protect privacy, and increase global equity in technology outcomes that affect not only those in the US, but abroad as well."

U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T)
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W3C to become a public-interest non-profit organization <![CDATA[By incorporating, W3C is replacing its original Hosted model and boosting its crucial web standards work]]> Tue, 28 Jun 2022 17:07:00 +0000 https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2022/w3c-le/ https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2022/w3c-le/ <![CDATA[press-releases]]> <![CDATA[

By incorporating, W3C is replacing its original Hosted model and boosting its crucial web standards work

 

https://www.w3.org/ — 28 June 2022 — The World Wide Web Consortium is set to pursue 501(c)(3) non-profit status. The launch as a new legal entity in January 2023 preserves the core mission of the Consortium to shepherd the web by developing open standards with contributions from W3C Members, staff, and the international community.

"We designed the W3C legal entity in a way that keeps our core unchanged. Our values-driven work remains anchored in the royalty-free W3C Patent Policy, and the W3C Process Document where we enshrined dedication to security, privacy, internationalization and web accessibility. W3C and its Members will continue to play a fundamental role in making the web work for billions of people."

Dr. Jeff Jaffe, W3C CEO.

Understanding the historical Hosted model

When Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee founded W3C in 1994, he created a community of peers. Web technologies were already moving so quickly that it was critical to assemble a single organization to coordinate web standards. Tim accepted the offer from MIT, who had experience with consortia, to host W3C. He required from the start that W3C have a global footprint.

Within a few years, MIT (USA), Keio University (Japan), Inria (France, transitioning to ERCIM in 2003) completed agreements to provide W3C legal hosting. We added in 2013 Beihang University (China). The four partnered administratively in a Hosted model to manage W3C Members and provide employment of the global W3C staff working under the direction of W3C’s management.

At the operational level, which is not changing, W3C Members are bound together for our technical work, united around the W3C’s mission to lead the web to its full potential by creating open standards that ensure that the web remains open, accessible, internationalized, secure, and interoperable for everyone around the globe.

Building on 28 years of expertise

Under the Hosted model we were able to make significant changes for the better: launched free and public Community Groups for pre-standardization, improved our process and patent policy, liberalized our document license, adopted living Recommendations, broadened our focus to industry, established liaisons with IETF, WHATWG, ISO.

The Web Consortium has a track record of delivering globally recognized standards, including the foundational HTML and CSS upon which the web is built. The social and economic value of what W3C and its Members have produced cannot be overstated: hundreds of open standards have powered the creation of 2 billion websites, the emergence of transformative phenomena like social media, e-commerce, video on the web, videoconferencing. W3C’s work enables people with disabilities to access the web, supports websites in languages all around the world, improves web security through strong authentication. W3C standards may be used by anyone, at no cost.

Yet, there are imperatives to elevate W3C to a level where it rises up stronger.

Greater means, stronger governance are fueling the need for change

We need a structure where we meet at a faster pace the demands of new web capabilities and address the urgent problems of the web. The W3C Team is small, bounded in size, and the Hosted model hinders rapid development and acquisition of skills in new fields.

We need to put governance at the center of the new organization to achieve clearer reporting, accountability, greater diversity and strategic direction, better global coordination. A Board of Directors will be elected with W3C Member majority. It will include seats that reflect the multi-stakeholder goals of the Web Consortium. We anticipate to continue joint work with today’s Hosts in a mutually beneficial partnership.

Preserving our world-class standards development process

As important as all these points are, they only represent a change to the shell around W3C. The proven standards development process must and will be preserved.

W3C processes promote fairness, enable progress. Our standards work will still be accomplished in the open, under the W3C Process Document and royalty-free W3C Patent Policy, with input from the broader community. Decisions will still be taken by consensus. Technical direction and Recommendations will continue to require review by W3C Members – large and small. The Advisory Board will still guide the community-driven Process Document enhancement. The Technical Architecture Group will continue as the highest authority on technical matters.

Next steps

Our transition to launch the legal entity includes concrete stages – adoption of Bylaws: filing for 501(c)(3) non-profit status; election and seating of a Board of Directors – all to transfer staff, Member contracts, and operations to the new structure.

As W3C was created to address the needs of the early web, our evolution to a public-interest non-profit is not just to continue our community effort, but to mature and grow to meet the needs of the web of the future.

About the World Wide Web Consortium

The mission of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is to lead the Web to its full potential by creating technical standards and guidelines to ensure that the Web remains open, accessible, and interoperable for everyone around the globe. W3C well-known standards HTML and CSS are the foundational technologies upon which websites are built. W3C works on ensuring that all foundational Web technologies meet the needs of civil society, in areas such as accessibility, internationalization, security, and privacy. W3C also provides the standards that undergird the infrastructure for modern businesses leveraging the Web, in areas such as entertainment, communications, digital publishing, and financial services. That work is created in the open, provided for free and under the groundbreaking W3C Patent Policy.

W3C's vision for "One Web" brings together thousands of dedicated technologists representing more than 400 Member organizations and dozens of industry sectors. W3C is jointly hosted by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL) in the United States, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) headquartered in France, Keio University in Japan and Beihang University in China. For more information see https://www.w3.org/.

End Media Advisory

Media Contact

Amy van der Hiel, W3C Media Relations Coordinator <[email protected]>
+1.617.253.5628 (US, Eastern Time)

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Changing the face of the web: W3C Web Fonts Working Group and MPEG recognized with a Technology & Engineering Emmy® Award <![CDATA[Changing the face of the web: W3C Web Fonts Working Group and MPEG recognized with a Technology & Engineering Emmy® Award]]> Mon, 25 Apr 2022 14:38:00 +0000 https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2022/woff-emmyaward/ https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2022/woff-emmyaward/ <![CDATA[press-releases]]> <![CDATA[

https://www.w3.org/ — 25 April 2022 — Today the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Fonts Working Group and MPEG together received a 2021 Technology & Engineering Emmy® Award for standardizing font technology for custom downloadable fonts and typography for web and TV devices.

A new face of the web

Web Fonts have enhanced the way we see and read text on the web, how we communicate; and they have literally changed the typographic face of the web.

 

global WebFont usage zero in 2011, rising to 50% by 2015 and 80% in 2020; red line = mobile, blue line = desktop

 

The invention of the World Wide Web has often been compared, in its world-changing impact on society, to the invention of the printing press in Europe. The pieces of moveable typeface used by Gutenberg helped to lead to a revolution in the sharing of information then, and Web Fonts have changed the way we see and interact with information on the web now.

We can often immediately identify, from the pointed heavy shapes in the text of a gothic movie poster or the sleek lines of the title of a futuristic sci-fi show, its genre. Web Fonts bring this aesthetic experience, this added visual layer of communication, more easily and more widely to the web. In addition to aesthetic experience, fonts can bring identity to the written word.

Chris Lilley, co-developer of Web Open Font Format (WOFF) and Staff Contact of the W3C Web Fonts Working Group,

A culmination of 25 years of work

This award for Web Fonts represents the culmination of a quarter-century of work at the Web Consortium. In 1996, just 2 years after the World Wide Web Consortium was founded, Chris Lilley, who accepted the Emmy® award for W3C, wrote a Rationale for Fonts on the Web, noting: “ a solution for Fonts on the web should be a framework, capable of supporting current and future technologies (based on content negotiation between a knowing and willing sender and recipient), and be implementable from publically available specifications.” A year later, the W3C Fonts working group released the first public draft of Web Fonts, introducing the now-familiar @font-face CSS mechanism. 

However, it would be decades of work in order to reach the point where downloadable fonts could be easily licensed and reliably used in any browser on laptops, mobile and TV. 

Downloadable fonts were not previously common on the web. W3C cleared many years of roadblocks and brought together communities of web developers, browser and font vendors to find a way forward. The new Web Fonts Working Group, established in 2009, addressed the lack of an interoperable font format and font licensing through the creation in 2012 of an industry-supported, DRM-free, open font format for the web called “WOFF” (Web Open Font Format) whose version 2 –a standard since 2018–, is deployed in all major web browsers and now powers the vast majority (80%) of sites.

Web Fonts heighten consumer experience and give web professionals greater aesthetic and creative choices. In many ways, though we often take fonts for granted, they act as a visual language in themselves. Fonts can be both medium and message

Vladimir Levantovsky, Chair of the W3C Web Fonts Working Group.

Making Web Fonts on the web work for everyone

Web Fonts enable people to use fonts on demand over the web, without requiring installation in the operating system. The technology developed by the W3C Web Fonts Working Group significantly improves compression efficiency and lowers network bandwidth. The Brotli compressor used in WOFF2 is so efficient that it was also adopted into HTTP, providing benefits to the web for HTML, CSS and Javascript files as well. 

At the start of the web, using “web core” font pack was the only option and many sites looked the same. To us today, the text on some older websites look a bit drab and almost funny. Now, thanks to WOFF, we have a wide range of open, easy to use fonts which make it easier for designers and creators to express themselves, share meaning and bring greater richness and creativity to the web. 

W3C is immensely honored to be recognized with this, our third Emmy® Award in Technical & Engineering in seven years, for work by Web Fonts Working Group and MPEG of standardizing web font technology. We are proud that W3C was able to provide a space where solutions can be found and groups can together improve technology, artistry and expression for web users. Congrats to the Web Fonts Working Group for the culmination of many years of work and on this well deserved honor.

Jeff Jaffe, CEO of W3C.

In 2016 W3C was recognized with a Technical and Engineering Emmy® for the Timed Text Markup Language (TTML) standard that helps ensure that the needs of people with disabilities, particularly people who are deaf or hard of hearing, are addressed and in 2018 W3C received a Technical and Engineering Emmy® for worldwide media standard enabling a Full TV Experience on the Web, bringing videos to the Web with HTML5.

Try it live!

This press release comes with four alternative styles, each with the section titles in a different font. If your browser supports alternative styles, you can select them from the View → Page Style menu. Otherwise, use the button below to cycle through them. (The fonts come from the large collection at Google Fonts.)

Next style

 

Web Fonts for minority languages

A typical computer does not have fonts for all scripts. E.g., here is article 1 of the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights in Tai Khün, written in the Tai Tham script, first without Web Fonts and then with. Many browsers will not display it without Web Fonts.

ᨾᨶᩩᩔ᩼ᨴ᩠ᨦᩢᩉᩖᩣ᩠ᨿᨠᩮ᩠ᨯᩨᨾᩣᨾᩦᨻ᩠ᨦᩈᩁᩓᩢᨹ᩠ᨿ᩵ᨦᨻ᩠ᨿᨦᨠ᩠ᨶᩢ ᨶᩱᨠᩥᨲ᩠ᨲᩥᩈ᩠ᨠᩢ ᩓᩢᩈᩥᨴ᩠ᨵᩥ ᨲ᩵ᩣ᩠ᨦᨣᩳ᩶ᨣᩢᨾᩦᨾᨶᩮᩣᨵᨾ᩠ᨾ᩼ᩓᩢ ᨣ᩠ᩅᩁᨷᨭᩥᨷ᩠ᨲᩢᨲᩳ᩵ᨠ᩠ᨶᩢᨯᩢ᩠ᩅ᩠ᨿᨣ᩠ᩅᩣ᩠ᨾᨹ᩠ᨿ᩵ᨦᨻ᩠ᨿᨦᨠ᩠ᨶᩢ

 

ᨾᨶᩩᩔ᩼ᨴ᩠ᨦᩢᩉᩖᩣ᩠ᨿᨠᩮ᩠ᨯᩨᨾᩣᨾᩦᨻ᩠ᨦᩈᩁᩓᩢᨹ᩠ᨿ᩵ᨦᨻ᩠ᨿᨦᨠ᩠ᨶᩢ ᨶᩱᨠᩥᨲ᩠ᨲᩥᩈ᩠ᨠᩢ ᩓᩢᩈᩥᨴ᩠ᨵᩥ ᨲ᩵ᩣ᩠ᨦᨣᩳ᩶ᨣᩢᨾᩦᨾᨶᩮᩣᨵᨾ᩠ᨾ᩼ᩓᩢ ᨣ᩠ᩅᩁᨷᨭᩥᨷ᩠ᨲᩢᨲᩳ᩵ᨠ᩠ᨶᩢᨯᩢ᩠ᩅ᩠ᨿᨣ᩠ᩅᩣ᩠ᨾᨹ᩠ᨿ᩵ᨦᨻ᩠ᨿᨦᨠ᩠ᨶᩢ

 

Here is the same text in Sanskrit using a script called Grantha. Again first without Web Fonts and then with:

𑌸𑌰𑍍𑌵𑍇 𑌮𑌾𑌨𑌵𑌾𑌃 𑌸𑍍𑌵𑌤𑌨𑍍𑌤𑍍𑌰𑌾𑌃 𑌸𑌮𑍁𑌤𑍍𑌪𑌨𑍍𑌨𑌾𑌃 𑌵𑌰𑍍𑌤𑌨𑍍𑌤𑍇 𑌅𑌪𑌿 𑌚, 𑌗𑍌𑌰𑌵𑌦𑍃𑌶𑌾 𑌅𑌧𑌿𑌕𑌾𑌰𑌦𑍃𑌶𑌾 𑌚 𑌸𑌮𑌾𑌨𑌾𑌃 𑌏𑌵 𑌵𑌰𑍍𑌤𑌨𑍍𑌤𑍇। 𑌏𑌤𑍇 𑌸𑌰𑍍𑌵𑍇 𑌚𑍇𑌤𑌨𑌾-𑌤𑌰𑍍𑌕-𑌶𑌕𑍍𑌤𑌿𑌭𑍍𑌯𑌾𑌂 𑌸𑍁𑌸𑌮𑍍𑌪𑌨𑍍𑌨𑌾𑌃 𑌸𑌨𑍍𑌤𑌿। 𑌅𑌪𑌿 𑌚, 𑌸𑌰𑍍𑌵𑍇𑌽𑌪𑌿 𑌬𑌨𑍍𑌧𑍁𑌤𑍍𑌵-𑌭𑌾𑌵𑌨𑌯𑌾 𑌪𑌰𑌸𑍍𑌪𑌰𑌂 𑌵𑍍𑌯𑌵𑌹𑌰𑌨𑍍𑌤𑍁।

𑌸𑌰𑍍𑌵𑍇 𑌮𑌾𑌨𑌵𑌾𑌃 𑌸𑍍𑌵𑌤𑌨𑍍𑌤𑍍𑌰𑌾𑌃 𑌸𑌮𑍁𑌤𑍍𑌪𑌨𑍍𑌨𑌾𑌃 𑌵𑌰𑍍𑌤𑌨𑍍𑌤𑍇 𑌅𑌪𑌿 𑌚, 𑌗𑍌𑌰𑌵𑌦𑍃𑌶𑌾 𑌅𑌧𑌿𑌕𑌾𑌰𑌦𑍃𑌶𑌾 𑌚 𑌸𑌮𑌾𑌨𑌾𑌃 𑌏𑌵 𑌵𑌰𑍍𑌤𑌨𑍍𑌤𑍇। 𑌏𑌤𑍇 𑌸𑌰𑍍𑌵𑍇 𑌚𑍇𑌤𑌨𑌾-𑌤𑌰𑍍𑌕-𑌶𑌕𑍍𑌤𑌿𑌭𑍍𑌯𑌾𑌂 𑌸𑍁𑌸𑌮𑍍𑌪𑌨𑍍𑌨𑌾𑌃 𑌸𑌨𑍍𑌤𑌿। 𑌅𑌪𑌿 𑌚, 𑌸𑌰𑍍𑌵𑍇𑌽𑌪𑌿 𑌬𑌨𑍍𑌧𑍁𑌤𑍍𑌵-𑌭𑌾𑌵𑌨𑌯𑌾 𑌪𑌰𑌸𑍍𑌪𑌰𑌂 𑌵𑍍𑌯𑌵𑌹𑌰𑌨𑍍𑌤𑍁।

About the World Wide Web Consortium

The mission of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is to lead the Web to its full potential by creating technical standards and guidelines to ensure that the Web remains open, accessible, and interoperable for everyone around the globe. W3C well-known standards HTML and CSS are the foundational technologies upon which websites are built. W3C works on ensuring that all foundational Web technologies meet the needs of civil society, in areas such as accessibility, internationalization, security, and privacy. W3C also provides the standards that undergird the infrastructure for modern businesses leveraging the Web, in areas such as entertainment, communications, digital publishing, and financial services. That work is created in the open, provided for free and under the groundbreaking W3C Patent Policy.

W3C's vision for "One Web" brings together thousands of dedicated technologists representing more than 400 Member organizations and dozens of industry sectors. W3C is jointly hosted by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL) in the United States, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) headquartered in France, Keio University in Japan and Beihang University in China. For more information see https://www.w3.org/.

End Press Release

Media Contact

Amy van der Hiel, W3C Media Relations Coordinator <[email protected]>
+1.617.253.5628 (US, Eastern Time)

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0
W3C and Yubico offer first online Web Authentication course for developers <![CDATA[W3C and Yubico offer first online Web Authentication course for developers]]> Thu, 14 Oct 2021 10:02:00 +0000 https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2021/webauthn-mooc/ https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2021/webauthn-mooc/ <![CDATA[press-releases]]> <![CDATA[

https://www.w3.org/, and https://www.yubico.com — 14 October 2021 — Amid growing need around the world to modernize authentication and address phishing and credential theft, W3C and Yubico announced today the opening of registration for a W3Cx online education course that teaches developers how to build and incorporate modern authentication techniques into their web-based applications using W3C’s Web Authentication (WebAuthn).

 

webauthn logo

 

W3C and Yubico collaborated to design the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) titled “Introduction to Web Authentication” to equip learners with the knowledge to replace aging password-based credentials with a secure model that incorporates strong authentication. The course begins 30 November 2021 and is free to learners who can opt-into a paid course and earn a certificate of completion.

Yubico is happy to team up with W3C on this MOOC course. On our joint mission to make the internet safer for all, an important step is to educate developers on modern authentication standards and tools.

Stina Ehrensvard, CEO and co-founder of Yubico

The three-week online course introduces developers to the principles of Web Authentication, from the development of the Application Programming Interface (API), to the terminology and the technical know-how. The heart of the course teaches students how to build and deploy their own Web Authentication server.

Course aimed at raising awareness, boosting adoption

One of the pillars of the Web Authentication API is its design to eliminate phishing by using public key-based credentials to protect log-ins and access to Web resources. Credentials represent the most common initial attack target, and compromised credentials represent 20% of breaches at an average cost of $4.37 million per breach, according to IBM’s 2021 Breach Report.

WebAuthn will change the way people access resources on the web. With multi-factor solutions that eliminate a weak link, Web services and businesses adopt WebAuthn to move beyond vulnerable passwords and improve the security of online experiences. I am looking forward to more web developers becoming experts thanks to this course and implementing the web-wide interoperability guidance of the standard.

Jeff Jaffe, W3C CEO

The W3C’s Web Authentication Working Group advanced to W3C Recommendation in 2019 the specification “Web Authentication: An API for Accessing Public Key Credentials Level 1”. The group completed a second Recommendation version in 2021, and is currently working on a third update. A W3C Recommendation is an official web standard.

The “Introduction to Web Authentication” course is the seventh online course available on W3Cx, W3C’s online learning platform on edX. Since the initial HTML5 online course launched in 2015, over 1.3M students from around the world have enrolled in a W3Cx course.

About the World Wide Web Consortium

The mission of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is to lead the Web to its full potential by creating technical standards and guidelines to ensure that the Web remains open, accessible, and interoperable for everyone around the globe. W3C well-known standards HTML and CSS are the foundational technologies upon which websites are built. W3C works on ensuring that all foundational Web technologies meet the needs of civil society, in areas such as accessibility, internationalization, security, and privacy. W3C also provides the standards that undergird the infrastructure for modern businesses leveraging the Web, in areas such as entertainment, communications, digital publishing, and financial services. That work is created in the open, provided for free and under the groundbreaking W3C Patent Policy.

W3C's vision for "One Web" brings together thousands of dedicated technologists representing more than 400 Member organizations and dozens of industry sectors. W3C is jointly hosted by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL) in the United States, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) headquartered in France, Keio University in Japan and Beihang University in China. For more information see https://www.w3.org/.

About Yubico

Yubico sets new global standards for simple and secure access to computers, mobile devices, servers, and internet accounts. The company’s core invention, the YubiKey, delivers strong hardware protection, with a simple touch, across any number of IT systems and online services. The YubiHSM, Yubico’s ultra-portable hardware security module, protects sensitive data stored in servers. Yubico is a leading contributor to the FIDO2, WebAuthn, and FIDO Universal 2nd Factor open authentication standards, and the company’s technology is deployed and loved by 9 of the top 10 internet brands and by millions of users in 160 countries. Founded in 2007, Yubico is privately held, with offices in Sweden, UK, Germany, USA, Australia, and Singapore. For more information: www.yubico.com.

End Press Release

W3C Media Contact

Amy van der Hiel, W3C Media Relations Coordinator <[email protected]>
+1.617.253.5628 (US, Eastern Time)

Yubico Media Contact

Karin Muskopf, Sr. Director, Global Communications <[email protected]>

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World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) welcomes Snake Nation into its membership as the first recipient of a Grant for the Web inclusion grant <![CDATA[World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) welcomes Snake Nation into its membership as the first recipient of a Grant for the Web inclusion grant]]> Tue, 17 Aug 2021 10:04:00 +0000 https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2021/snakenation/ https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2021/snakenation/ <![CDATA[press-releases]]> <![CDATA[

https://www.w3.org/ — 17 August 2021 — The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and Grant for the Web welcome new W3C member Snake Nation whose social media platform offers Web monetization and greater access to the web for diverse voices.

The World Wide Web Consortium develops global Web standards that help ensure access for all, with a vision for one, interoperable World Wide Web for all humanity. In early 2021 the Web Consortium announced its collaboration with Grant for the Web, a program of the Interledger Foundation. Together the organizations aim to ensure that the proposals, grantees, and community of the Grant for the Web program will shape the emerging Web Monetization ecosystem so that it supports scalable, global, and open standardization.

Snake Nation awarded first W3C Grant for the Web inclusion grant

W3C and Grant for the Web are also working together to identify geographic areas of growth,  target programs and development opportunities for these regions, as well as Inclusion Grants to underwrite new W3C memberships in lower income countries. Snake Nation joins the Web Consortium today as the first of these new members.

Snake Nation is a mission-driven, culture, content and technology company based in Cape Town, South Africa and Atlanta, USA. The company's mission is to enable equity in the creative economy for diverse creators by giving them the tools to own their individual narrative. The company does so via a new kind of social media platform, SnakeNation.io where members are incentivized for engaging with content like posting, flame-ups, comments and shares and can earn digital currency. By linking creative and economic freedom and tapping into the intersection of culture and technology, millennials now have at their fingertips a powerful means of alleviating youth unemployment and poverty.

Their new media platform and digital currency launched recently in South Africa and aims to target creatives across this African country. Snake Nation has already founded creative college societies with access to an audience of over 8-million Multicultural Millennial creators and consumers. Snake Nation also drives awareness and participation in Southern Africa on 52 campuses and reaches 600k students.

Incorporating diverse perspectives from across the globe

We’re excited to welcome Snake Nation as our first recipient of the W3C & Grant for the Web Membership scholarship. We believe passionately that to ensure that the Web achieves its role as a universal platform for humanity, its design needs to incorporate diverse perspectives from across the globe. Participation by organizations like Snake Nation is vital to W3C’s and Grant for the Web’s vision - we will have more creativity, more innovation and ultimately, a better web for everybody.

Dominique Hazael-Massieux, W3C Developer Relations Lead

Media consumption has changed, and so has the world. Millennials watch what they want, when they want and how they want. They have the buying power to move the needle and their diverse stories are not reflected in traditional media. We are thankful and excited to be recognized by W3C and Grant for The Web for our work to create a more just and equitable internet. We know that in our mission to create more equity in the creative economy, web monetization is a major tool that can create massive change for those creators and youth who use the web to earn a living. Having access to the world class tools, network and community of W3C and GFTW will help propel our collective missions forward.

Karl Carter, SnakeNation.io CEO and Tech Visionary

Snake Nation’s unique approach to tackling a number of key issues immediately grabbed our attention. Their unique take on the platform addresses key issues like community via social media to promote creators, equity by monetizing the web via crypto and education by ensuring equal access to all.

Chris Lawrence, Senior Program Manager from Grant for the Web.

Note to editors: For more information

World Wide Web Consortium
Snake Nation
Grant for the Web

 

End Press Release

Media Contacts

Nomsa Mdhluli at Tishala Communications - South Africa: +27 (0) 71 6286231 or <[email protected]>
Roy Bannister at Tishala Communications - South Africa +27 (0) 82 468 8622 or <[email protected]>

Amy van der Hiel, World Wide Web Consortium: <[email protected]>

Chris Lawrence, Interledger Foundation: <[email protected]>

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0
Web Audio API brings audio design to the Web as it becomes a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Recommendation <![CDATA[Web Audio API enables the creation and manipulation of music and sounds, directly in the browser]]> Thu, 17 Jun 2021 10:35:00 +0000 https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2021/webaudio/ https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2021/webaudio/ <![CDATA[press-releases]]> <![CDATA[

Web Audio API enables the creation and manipulation of music and sounds, directly in the browser.

Read testimonials from W3C Members and Industry Users

https://www.w3.org/ — 17 June 2021 — The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) announced today that Web Audio API is now an official standard, bringing music and audio creation and manipulation to the Web.

 

web audio logo

 

Web Audio API is a JavaScript API for creating, shaping, and manipulating sounds directly in a Web browser. It is already widely deployed for the creation of music and sound effects on Web pages, for the creation of online musical instruments, for Web games, and for collaborative artworks such as sound installations.

Responsive, high-quality sounds in any website, any web app

Focussed on sound creation (rather than merely the playback of recorded audio), the Web Audio API provides a rich set of modular building blocks which web and app developers can combine to create a wide range of applications, including: auditory feedback in user interfaces, musical instruments, soundtracks and effects for entertainment and gaming, teaching, spatial audio for AR and VR, online audio editing apps, crossfading and compression for in-car music management, and audio analysis and visualisation.

Web Audio is available everywhere

With the API standardized and deployed as a royalty-free feature in Web browsers and other devices and platforms, both on desktop and mobile, creating sound with the Web Audio API has become a dependable, widely deployed, built-in capability, eliminating the need to install plugins or download separate applications.

Web Audio is used in many applications including: SoundCloud, Mozilla Hubs, Firefox Mixed Reality, Ableton, Google Meet and Stadia, SoundTrap, Amped Studio, BandLab, BeatPort, Soundation, Leimma & Apotome, and Spotify.

The development of the Web Audio API to the point of it becoming a W3C Recommendation represents a huge effort from developers, audio experts and audio artists across industry and academia. A major contributing factor in the success of the API has been the support from the user community who have engaged with the spec and developed some incredible work. The founding of the annual Web Audio conference has increased the reach of the API and provided a platform for academic, creative and scientific use of the WAAPI. Finally the enthusiasm of browser vendors to commit their time to shaping and implementing the API has made this a very rewarding process. I hope that this engagement will continue as we develop future enhancements to the API.

Matthew Paradis, Audio WG co-chair

Web-wide, multi-user experiences

In contrast to most native audio applications, the Web Audio API naturally lends itself to creation of collaborative and interactive artworks online, where instead of a passive audience, people can actively interact with the artists and each other, using nothing more than the browser on their computer or mobile phone.

The future of Web Audio API is already in the works

The W3C Web Audio Working Group has benefitted from the shared developer experience of the global Web Audio community over the last six years, exemplified by the annual Web Audio Conference series and the Web Audio weekly newsletter.

Together, the Working Group and community have already started work on Web Audio API v2. This will build on and enrich the first version of the API, adding more complex and much-requested features which were insufficiently developed to be included in the first version of the API.

Web Audio API joins the many W3C standards that define an Open Web Platform for application development with unprecedented potential to enable developers to build rich interactive experiences, that are available on any device and environment.

About the World Wide Web Consortium

The mission of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is to lead the Web to its full potential by creating technical standards and guidelines to ensure that the Web remains open, accessible, and interoperable for everyone around the globe. W3C well-known standards HTML and CSS are the foundational technologies upon which websites are built. W3C works on ensuring that all foundational Web technologies meet the needs of civil society, in areas such as accessibility, internationalization, security, and privacy. W3C also provides the standards that undergird the infrastructure for modern businesses leveraging the Web, in areas such as entertainment, communications, digital publishing, and financial services. That work is created in the open, provided for free and under the groundbreaking W3C Patent Policy.

W3C's vision for "One Web" brings together thousands of dedicated technologists representing more than 400 Member organizations and dozens of industry sectors. W3C is jointly hosted by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL) in the United States, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) headquartered in France, Keio University in Japan and Beihang University in China. For more information see https://www.w3.org/.

End Press Release

Media contact

Amy van der Hiel, W3C Media Relations Coordinator <[email protected]>
+1.617.253.5628 (US, Eastern Time)

Testimonials from W3C members and Industry Users

BBCGoogleMozillaSpotifyUniversité Côte d’AzurWeb3D Consortium

BBC

The BBC has been a major contributor to the Web Audio API since the formation of the Audio working group at the W3C. To see it become a standard represents a huge effort across the industry to provide modern audio processing on the web platform. From a broadcast perspective, the WAAPI supports our aspirations to deliver personalised, accessible, immersive and interactive experiences to our audiences via our web based playback platforms in a way which was previously not possible

Andy Conroy, Controller, BBC Research & Development

Google

The Web Audio API transformed how we interact with sound in the browser by bringing advanced audio processing and musical creativity into the Web platform.

Immersive audio experiences entertain and delight after just following a link on the web. Businesses have built audio and music production tools. Games bring dynamic soundscapes. Teleconferencing & video chat tools enhance the quality of their connection. And much more richness has flourished, from online audio books to enhanced marketing experiences

Google is pleased to have supported Web Audio standardization and advocacy over this decade-long journey and thanks the many contributors along the way.

Hongchan Choi, Web Audio Technical Lead, Google

웹 오디오 API는 실시간 음향 처리 및 합성을 웹 플랫폼으로 가져옴으로써 우리가 웹 브라우저를 통해 소리를 다루는 방식을 완전히 탈바꿈시켰습니다.

웹 링크 하나로 몰입형 음향을 체험할 수 있으며, 웹 기반의 음악 제작 도구들은 음악 교육을 변화시키고 있습니다. 또한, 웹 오디오 API는 동적인 게임 음향의 구현과 화상회의 음성 품질의 향상을 위해 사용되고 있습니다. 더 나아가 온라인 오디오 북과 멀티미디어를 이용한 마케팅에 이르기까지 더욱 풍부해진 웹 경험을 제공합니다.

구글은 지난 10여 년 동안 웹 오디오 표준화 과정을 끊임없이 지원해 왔습니다. 오늘 이 뜻깊은 이정표를 축하하며 그 긴 여정에 이바지 한 모든 이들에게 감사드립니다.

Hongchan Choi, Web Audio Technical Lead, Google

Mozilla

Eleven years ago Mozilla pioneered the first experimental implementations of real-time audio processing in web browsers. We've been innovating in this domain ever since, and we are very pleased to see the Web Audio API become a W3C Recommendation.

With the addition of AudioWorklet’s direct audio sample manipulation, the Web Audio API is now a viable foundation for a broad range of use-cases and applications. Existing native code bases or highly custom processing algorithms can now be deployed on the Web to build fully-featured digital audio workstations, state-of-the-art VR experiences, or even physical modelling of acoustic instruments, delivering on the vision of our early experiments and building a better internet.

Paul Adenot, Mozilla

Soundtrap, Spotify

For nearly ten years Soundtrap has been working to democratize music creation and the Web Audio API has been at the core of our product since the beginning. Our goal has always been to make music and storytelling more accessible and collaborative, and Web Audio has been key to removing the barriers of installed desktop software and making audio production available to anyone with a web browser. We are proud to be a part of the Web Audio community and are excited to now see Web Audio recognized as the official W3C standard for audio on the web.

Björn Melinder, Senior Staff Engineer, Soundtrap, Spotify

Université Côte d’Azur

Université Côte d'Azur (France) joined the W3C Audio Working Group in 2013. Today, we are happy to see the WebAudio API become an official standard. We have successfully used the WebAudio technology in our teaching and we have participated with other academic actors in the creation of the research domain of the same name. Some of the software developed by our scientists, based on WebAudio, is now marketed by the CNRS and has won prestigious awards at international conferences.

No one could have predicted the rapid transition to the online world that is now part of our daily lives. The work done on WebAudio over the past decade has put the Web platform in a central position to change the world of music and multimedia, enabling it to adapt to this new way of living and working.

Michel Buffa, Professor at the University of Côte d’Azur

Université Côte d’Azur (France) a rejoint en 2013 l’Audio Working Group du W3C. Aujourd'hui, nous sommes heureux de voir la WebAudio API devenir une norme officielle. Nous avons utilisé avec succès la technologie WebAudio dans nos enseignements et nous avons participé avec d’autres acteurs du monde académique à la création du domaine de recherche du même nom. Certains logiciels développés par nos scientifiques, basés sur WebAudio, sont aujourd’hui commercialisés par le CNRS et ont obtenu des prix prestigieux dans des conférences internationales.

Personne n’aurait pu prédire la fulgurante transition vers le monde en ligne qui fait désormais partie de notre quotidien. Les travaux effectués sur WebAudio au cours de la dernière décennie placent aujourd’hui la plate-forme Web dans une position centrale pour modifier le monde de la musique et du multimédia, en lui permettant de s'adapter à cette nouvelle façon de vivre et de travailler.

Michel Buffa, Maître de Conférence à l’Université Côte d’Azur

Web3D Consortium

Extensible 3D (X3D) Graphics is the royalty-free open standard for publishing, viewing, printing and archiving interactive 3D models on the Web.

The W3C Web Audio API is unique and fundamentally important for adding high-fidelity audio processing in a performant cross-platform manner for the Web.

X3D version 4 fully integrates all capabilities in the W3C Web Audio API as a declarative audio graph, within X3D scene graphs, for processing and synthesizing audio in spatialized Web applications.

Open-source implementations and examples repeatably demonstrate how compelling audio capabilities improve 3D interaction, realism and presence on the Web.

Efi Lakka, University of South Wales, UK
Thanos Malamos, Hellenic Mediterranean University (HMU), Greece
Richard Puk, Intelligraphics Inc. USA
Don Brutzman, X3D Graphics Working Group, Web3D Consortium
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W3C re-introduces popular BLINK feature <![CDATA[New feature gives back full editing control to web authors while ensuring inclusive user experience for all]]> Fri, 02 Apr 2021 10:07:00 +0000 https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2021/blink/ https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2021/blink/ <![CDATA[press-releases]]> <![CDATA[

New feature gives back full editing control to web authors while ensuring inclusive user experience for all

2021-04-02: This fake press release was published as a joke at the occasion of April Fools' Day. Please, enjoy --with sound ON.

https://www.w3.org/ — 1 April 2021 — W3C today re-introduced the popular BLINK feature as part of the open web platform. There was much critique in the community about the removal of the prior version of BLINK, which W3C now has addressed using state-of-the-art technology. Web authors can be sure to get the readers’ attention that their important information deserves, and web users can be sure never to miss important information again. The new and improved BLINK employs multimodal interaction to ensure an inclusive user experience for all.

Inclusive and accessible

The new BLINK feature is built on the W3C Personalization Semantics so users can customize it according to their particular accessibility needs and preferences. For example, users can change the color, rate, and brightness of the blink. Users can also replace the blinking with different types of animations such as swiveling, pulsating, and waving. This is not only critical for people with disabilities but also for cultural considerations around the world. People prefer different types of blinking depending on their cultural and societal background.

Multimodal interaction

A significant drawback of the prior version of BLINK was that it was only visual. When readers weren't looking on the screen or when the text was scrolled away from the viewport, the blinking content was not communicated. This was also an accessibility issue for people who can’t see the screen. The new BLINK feature is now also communicated via audio and vibration alerts to ensure no one is left behind. With the BLINK feature, authors can ensure that important information is communicated to the reader, whatever they are currently doing, whether they like it or not.

Empowering authors

Web pages are increasingly more complex and full of content. For years web authors have been struggling to highlight particularly important information in a way that busy readers cannot miss. "Blinking is a natural form of drawing attention. Many things in real life blink, and for a reason, for example quasars, traffic lights, eyelids and much more," said Bert Bos, co-inventor of CSS and Blink DTD expert.

Eye-gaze analysis and AI algorithms

The new implementation of BLINK addresses other shortcomings of the previous endeavor; for example, readers can miss blinking content when it coincides with the blinking of their own eyelids. Recent research identified that the most effective rate of blinking is approximately 500 milliseconds after the eye completes a blinking cycle, when the brain is ready to absorb new information from the surrounding environment. The new BLINK feature uses the camera built into most current devices to optimize the blinking rate, based on the individual’s eye-blink rate. AI algorithms adapt the blinking behavior to the natural eye-blink habits of the particular web user.

Example of BLINK

The example below demonstrates some of the features. It uses eye-gaze tracking to adapt itself to the blinking rate of the reader. The multimodal mode is also enabled.

Click on ‘blink example’ below to try it.

 

Blink example

This is an important feature.

AI status:  The script will override this text The script will override this text

The last year has been hard enough, so have some of that 90s flair, have a little BLINK as a treat.

About the World Wide Web Consortium

The mission of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is to lead the Web to its full potential by creating technical standards and guidelines to ensure that the Web remains open, accessible, and interoperable for everyone around the globe. W3C well-known standards HTML and CSS are the foundational technologies upon which websites are built. W3C works on ensuring that all foundational Web technologies meet the needs of civil society, in areas such as accessibility, internationalization, security, and privacy. W3C also provides the standards that undergird the infrastructure for modern businesses leveraging the Web, in areas such as entertainment, communications, digital publishing, and financial services. That work is created in the open, provided for free and under the groundbreaking W3C Patent Policy.

W3C's vision for "One Web" brings together thousands of dedicated technologists representing more than 400 Member organizations and dozens of industry sectors. W3C is jointly hosted by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL) in the United States, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) headquartered in France, Keio University in Japan and Beihang University in China. For more information see https://www.w3.org/.

End Press Release

Media contact

Coralie Mercier, Head of W3C Marketing & Communications <[email protected]>

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Web Real-Time Communications (WebRTC) transforms the communications landscape; becomes a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Recommendation and multiple Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standards <![CDATA[WebRTC enables rich, interactive, live voice and video communications anywhere on the Web, boosting global interconnection]]> Tue, 26 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2021/webrtc-rec/ https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2021/webrtc-rec/ <![CDATA[press-releases]]> <![CDATA[

WebRTC enables rich, interactive, live voice and video communications anywhere on the Web, boosting global interconnection

Read testimonials from W3C Members.

 

https://www.w3.org/ and https://www.ietf.org/ — 26 January 2021 — The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) announced today that Web Real-Time Communications (WebRTC), which powers myriad services, is now an official standard, bringing audio and video communications anywhere on the Web.

 

WebRTC

 

WebRTC, comprised of a JavaScript API for Web Real-Time Communications and a suite of communications protocols, allows any connected device, on any network, to be a potential communication end-point, on the Web. WebRTC already serves as a cornerstone of online communication and collaboration services.

Today’s landmark achievement is timely. Faced with a global pandemic of the COVID-19 coronavirus, the world has gone more and more virtual. It makes the Web even more crucial to society in information sharing, real-time communications, and entertainment. It is gratifying to see our technologies playing a key role in enabling such critical digital infrastructure. Combining the universal reach of the Web with the richness of live audio & video conversations has reshaped how the world communicates.

Dr Jeff Jaffe, W3C CEO

Voice and video over IP revolutionized the way that people communicate around the world. Integrating these technologies into the Web platform has dramatically expanded their reach. Thanks to close collaboration between the IETF and W3C to standardize these technologies. WebRTC has enabled billions of people to connect and engage with each other during the COVID-19 pandemic, regardless of device or geography.

IETF Chair Alissa Cooper

Live audio-video communication systems in any website, any web app

The WebRTC framework provides the building blocks from which web and app developers can seamlessly add video chat to a range of applications, including tele-education and tele-health, entertainment and gaming, professional and workformce collaboration.

With the foundations standardized and deployed as a royalty-free feature in Web browsers and other devices and platforms, setting up a secure audio-video communication system with WebRTC has become a built-in capability, eliminating the need to install plugins or download separate applications.

WebRTC is massively deployed as a communications platform and powers video conferences and collaboration systems across all major browsers, both on desktop and mobile. Billions of users can interact now that WebRTC makes live video chat easier than ever on the Web. And from startups to Web-scale companies, in commercial products and open source projects, WebRTC has vastly expanded the ability to deploy real-time interaction solutions to customers and users.

Real-world positive and timely impact

The year 2020 has shown both how critical WebRTC already is in a world where travel and physical contacts need to be limited, as well as the many improvements that can be brought to the technology to address new usages that have emerged.

Businesses and households are relying on WebRTC for a wealth of operations, increasing its adoption. Organizations are leveraging WebRTC to conduct training, interviews, strategic planning or as a substitute for in-person meetings to keep connected through happy hour and other social interactions - it is replacing not only in-person meetings, but it is now also replacing the human interactions inside offices. Domains such as healthcare and defense use WebRTC for training. Schools and universities have shifted to virtual learning platforms. Cloud gaming and social networks use live streaming and interactive broadcasts. Entertainment is trying to figure out how to bring the audience back to the studios by doing it remotely. Sports are trying to recreate the in-stadium experience using WebRTC. Families and friends make daily use of products that are built with WebRTC or parts of it.

The future of WebRTC is already in the works

With the use of WebRTC expanding beyond the initial core design to power video conferences and collaboration systems in web browsers and other ecosystems (e.g., native apps), more features and more optimizations are now needed.

There is already work underway in the IETF WebTransport (WEBTRANS) and WebRTC Ingest Signaling over HTTPS (WISH) working groups that will build on, coordinate with and extend efforts of other IETF working groups. These include QUIC, to defin new protocols that support the development of the WebTransport API, and HTTPBIS, to specify a simple, extensible, HTTPS-based signaling protocol to establish one-way WebRTC-based audiovisual sessions between broadcasting tools and real-time media broadcast networks.

The W3C WebRTC Working Group has started work on WebRTC Next Version Use Cases to map out WebRTC's future, notably:

  • End-to-end encryption in server-mediated videoconferencing
  • Live processing of audio and video feeds, including via Machine Learning
  • Internet of Things (e.g., an IoT sensor maintains a long-term connection and seeks to minimize power consumption)

The WebRTC Working Group is iterating on existing and new use cases, with a focus on understanding the full range of the needs and their priority. W3C recently started work on WebTransport and Web Codecs, which promises to bring the benefits of low-latency streaming to the broader media and entertainment ecosystem.

WebRTC joins the many W3C standards that define an Open Web Platform for application development with unprecedented potential to enable developers to build rich interactive experiences, powered by vast data stores, that are available on any device and environment.

About the World Wide Web Consortium

The mission of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is to lead the Web to its full potential by creating technical standards and guidelines to ensure that the Web remains open, accessible, and interoperable for everyone around the globe. W3C well-known standards HTML and CSS are the foundational technologies upon which websites are built. W3C works on ensuring that all foundational Web technologies meet the needs of civil society, in areas such as accessibility, internationalization, security, and privacy. W3C also provides the standards that undergird the infrastructure for modern businesses leveraging the Web, in areas such as entertainment, communications, digital publishing, and financial services. That work is created in the open, provided for free and under the groundbreaking W3C Patent Policy. For its work to make online videos more accessible with captions and subtitles, W3C received a 2016 Emmy Award. And for its work to standardize a Full TV Experience on the Web, W3C received a 2019 Emmy Award.

W3C's vision for "One Web" brings together thousands of dedicated technologists representing more than 400 Member organizations and dozens of industry sectors. W3C is jointly hosted by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL) in the United States, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) headquartered in France, Keio University in Japan and Beihang University in China. For more information see https://www.w3.org/.

About the Internet Engineering Task Force

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is the Internet's premier technical standards body, gathering a large, international community of network designers, engineers, operators, vendors, and researchers concerned with the evolution of the Internet architecture and the smooth operation of the Internet. For more information, see: https://www.ietf.org/

End Press Release

Media Contacts

Amy van der Hiel, W3C Media Relations Coordinator <[email protected]>
+1-617-253-5628 (US, Eastern Time)

Greg Wood <[email protected]>
+1-703-625-3917 (US, Eastern Time)

Support for WebRTC from W3C Members and the industry

Agora.ioChina MobileCiscoEricssonGoogleIntel CorporationMozillaNTT CommunicationsPeer5|pipe|Shanghai Bilibili Technology Co., Ltd.Tencent Games

Agora.io

Ten years ago, WebRTC ushered in a new era promising the democratization of real-time audio/video communications. By breaking this capability free from the confines of hardware endpoints and moving it into the browser, WebRTC started us down the path of real-time engagement (RTE) for all.

As a company whose core mission is to make our novel RTE technology ubiquitous around the world, this is a particularly memorable moment for us at Agora. We are proud to stand alongside W3C on this groundbreaking day to recognize WebRTC as the web standard.

Edward Brakus, Senior VP, Product & Product Marketing, Agora.io

China Mobile

WebRTC provides the basis of quick implementation of audio and video communication services. The W3C efforts greatly improve the compatibility and interoperability for the product teams in development and deployment. Today, we are looking forward to the enhancement and extension in the WebRTC NV, including PeerConnection, Media Capture and others, from which the web developer community can benefit. We will promote the vigorous development of the web ecosystem with the new release.

Song XU, Technical Director, China Mobile - Migu

WebRTC提供了音视频和和通讯的基础实现,而经过W3C 标准化的该技术,让很多企业开发团队在实施和部署时候具有极大兼容性 和高效性。今天我们非常期待WebRTC NV新版本中的增强扩展,包括 PeerConnection、Media Capture等新内容中得到受益,并一起推进Web生 态系统的蓬勃发展。

徐嵩 技术总监 中国移动 咪咕公司

Cisco

The creation of the WebRTC standards and their implementation across all major browsers provides developers with a common set of protocols to add video conferencing to a range of applications. By enabling easy deployment for all web conferencing applications including Webex, we can connect people globally, empowering richer and more inclusive experiences.

Cullen Jennings, CTO for Security and Applications, Cisco

Ericsson

Ericsson has been a main contributor to the WebRTC specifications in W3C and IETF since the first discussions started in the industry. Today we are pleased to see it become an official standard. We have successfully used WebRTC in several commercial solutions, and we have also contributed to including key elements of WebRTC in 3GPP standards to enable a richer 5G voice service in the future with interactive calling. WebRTC plays an important role in aligning user experience and improving interoperability of rich collaboration services to provide better communication capabilities for people, which is more important than ever.

Mikael Prytz, Research Director, Ericsson

Google

As one of the longstanding drivers behind WebRTC, Google is pleased and proud to see the recognition of WebRTC as a universal and open standard for real time communication. The WebRTC W3C standard, the support from Google’s open source implementation and free-to-use technologies such as the VP8 video codec, have all formed the basis of a thriving and growing ecosystem of companies and services. At Google, WebRTC is fundamental to a great number of products and services including Google Duo, Google Meet and Stadia. We applaud the contributions from volunteers and industry stakeholders that have contributed to making this milestone possible and share this moment with them.

Tomas Gunnarsson, WebRTC engineering lead, Google

WebRTC has grown into a thriving ecosystem of applications and services, thanks to the web and the innovation enabled by open standards and open source. We’re especially proud of the role WebRTC has played during the COVID-19 pandemic in keeping people connected through video communications, as well as the emergence of new domains like cloud gaming. It’s been a rewarding journey, and we’re thankful for all the individuals and organizations across the industry who have contributed to making this milestone possible.

Justin Uberti, Distinguished Engineer, Google

Intel Corporation

Intel is pleased to support the WebRTC 1.0 standard reaching W3C Recommendation status, a major accomplishment from all the working group participants. As a strong WebRTC advocate, Intel contributes to the WebRTC ecosystem with its holistic hardware and software expertise and perspective to help enable unified real-time communication experiences across devices, operating systems, and browsers. Intel-sponsored Open WebRTC Toolkit open-source project and its Intel Collaboration Suite for WebRTC distribution have helped businesses build end-to-end real-time communication platforms across domains, from video conferencing to remote education and interactive live streaming.

Mark Skarpness, General Manager and Vice President, System Software Engineering, Intel Corporation

Mozilla

Video conferencing is a critically important method of communication, especially right now and WebRTC brings it to everyone instantly using only their Web browser. It’s a powerful demonstration of the true power of the Web.

Eric Rescorla, CTO, Mozilla

NTT Communications

It’s an exciting announcement that WebRTC 1.0 reaches the Recommendation stage. We are proud of one of the contributors to the WebRTC community and business. WebRTC is the game changer of Web, it brings us the real-time scenario to the ecosystem. With the horrific virus, people rapidly changed into remote communication. Though it was dramatical changes, we can smoothly keep up with since there was WebRTC already. I believe this movement will be moving forward. After WebRTC 1.0, new specs will keep realizing a more fantastic and brilliant world. We promise to keep contributing to these great activities.

Kensaku Komatsu, Principal Engineer, NTT Communications Innovation Center

Peer5

In 2012, upon hearing of the upcoming WebRTC spec, Peer5's founders were inspired to create a platform based on WebRTC from the ground up. Ever since, Peer5 has been a vocal and proactive advocate of WebRTC and is delighted that it has finally consolidated its official status as an internationally recognized standard. The community has been fundamental in achieving our shared vision of WebRTC's potential to enable and advance applications such as P2P networking.

Shachar Zohar, CTO & Co-founder, Peer5

|pipe|

I’m delighted to see WebRTC become an official W3C Recommendation. At |pipe| we see tremendous opportunities for WebRTC beyond regular video conferencing between people. Instead we’re applying it to the Internet of Things: bringing simplicity, security and data privacy to small connected devices (baby monitors, IP cameras, drones, etc.).

Licensed as an SDK/API to device developers and OEMs, |pipe| is a small WebRTC implementation with a simple way to claim/lend devices securely to any smartphone browser, without passwords. There are already tens of thousands of small camera devices in the field secured by our implementation of the WebRTC standard.

WebRTC devient officiellement une W3C Recommendation, et j’en suis ravi. |pipe| voit d’importantes opportunités pour le WebRTC, au-delà des vidéoconférences régulières entre les personnes. Au lieu de cela, nous l'appliquons à l'Internet des objets (IoD-IoT), apportant simplicité, sécurité et confidentialité des données aux petits appareils connectés (babyphones, caméras IP, drones, etc.).

Vendue sous la forme de SDK/API auprès de développeurs d'appareils et d’OEMs, |pipe| est une petite implémentation WebRTC qui dispose d’un moyen simple pour s’approprier/se prêter des appareils en toute sécurité, et ce sur n'importe quel navigateur de smartphone, sans mot de passe. Il existe déjà en utilisation des dizaines de milliers de petits appareils incluant un dispositif vidéo, sécurisés par notre implémentation de la norme WebRTC.

Tim Panton, Founder/CTO, pi.pe GmbH

Shanghai Bilibili Technology Co., Ltd.

WebRTC helps to solve many technical bottlenecks of point-to-point communication in the low-latency scenarios. It has brought in great opportunities to us Tech companies, especially contributed a lot to the rapid development in Bilibili. In the extremely difficult period of 2020-2021, I am very glad to see the official recommendation of WebRTC be released. We firmly believe that WebRTC will soon become the necessary infrastructure of the Internet and will play an important role in the innovation of streaming media technology, adding benefit to all walks of life.

Zhaoxin Tan, Technical Manager, Bilibili Inc.

Tencent Games

We’re pleased to see the Web Real-Time Communications (WebRTC) becomes a W3C Recommendation. The introduction of the WebRTC greatly enhances the capabilities of web applications and enables the possibilities for new promising applications such as cloud gaming which runs directly on the remote servers and can greatly reduce the hardware requirements and costs for users with configuration-free, download-free gaming experiences.

We hope that WebRTC will extensively and flexibly support the characteristics of cloud gaming, including high bandwidth, high frame rate, low latency, and high-frequency interactions and in that case will reach its full potential for interactive entertainment.

Hyton DENG, General Manager of R&D Department, Tencent Games
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EMVCo, FIDO Alliance, and W3C collaborate on educational resource for more secure and convenient Web payments <![CDATA[First work product from Web Payment Security Interest Group outlines the roles of complementary technologies that can enhance the security and convenience of web payments for merchants and their e-commerce customers.]]> Thu, 05 Nov 2020 14:41:00 +0000 https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2020/htr/ https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2020/htr/ <![CDATA[press-releases]]> <![CDATA[

https://www.w3.org/ — 5 November 2020 — EMVCo, the FIDO Alliance and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) have published a document explaining the roles of their related technology specifications, that together can support merchants in delivering a more secure and convenient payment experience for the benefit of their e-commerce customers.

The ‘How EMVCo, FIDO, and W3C Technologies Relate’ document is the first output of the Web Payment Security Interest Group, a collaborative industry-led initiative focused on enhancing the interoperability of web payments. Key to this ongoing effort is identifying gaps between relevant specifications to increase compatibility among different technologies.

This new educational resource informs payments industry stakeholders on the roles of EMV® Secure Remote Commerce (SRC), EMV 3-D Secure (3DS), EMV Payment Tokenisation, FIDO Alliance's FIDO2 specifications, and W3C's Web Authentication and Payment Request APIs, which may be used together to enable more secure and convenient card-based payment during an e-commerce guest checkout on the Web.

The document also addresses how these technical specifications can support merchant efforts to fight fraud, protect user privacy and meet regulatory requirements, while helping to reduce cost and streamline the online payment process.

Following the document’s publication, the Web Payment Security Interest Group is actively seeking feedback from interested organizations to improve and enhance the document. For more information and details on how to submit feedback, please visit: https://www.w3.org/securepay/.

At the Authenticate 2020 Conference on 18 November, representatives from EMVCo, the FIDO Alliance and W3C will participate in a virtual panel session to discuss the document and seek input on it from payments industry stakeholders. The conference is open and free for anyone to attend.

As more merchants move online, especially since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and fraud attempts increase, EMVCo sees this collaboration with the FIDO Alliance and W3C as a major contribution to advancing secure web-based payments, while also simplifying the online payment process for merchants and helping to reduce friction for their e-commerce customers.

Bastien Latge, Director of Technology for EMVCo

FIDO Authentication can complement EMVCo and W3C technologies by securely and conveniently authenticating users and transactions in a variety of scenarios. The Web Payments SIG and this first resource are intended to educate and answer questions so ultimately these technologies can be implemented for stronger and simpler web payments. We look forward to industry feedback to help us to frame future educational outputs.

Christina Hulka, executive director and chief operating officer of the FIDO Alliance

W3C, EMVCo, and FIDO have been working together for a number of years, and now is the time for the industry to start to reap the benefits. We published 'How EMVCo, FIDO, and W3C Technologies Relate' to usefully answer real-world industry questions. Through it, the three organizations have also advanced their understanding of each other's activities. This now allows us to accelerate our joint efforts, and in collaboration with industry, to develop the next generation of secure and user-friendly technologies to streamline e-commerce.

Ian Jacobs, W3C's payments lead

End Press Release

Notes to Editors:

EMV® is a registered trademark in the U.S. and other countries and an unregistered trademark elsewhere. The EMV trademark is owned by EMVCo, LLC.

About EMVCo

EMVCo is the global technical body that facilitates the worldwide interoperability and acceptance of secure payment transactions by managing and evolving the EMV Specifications and related testing processes. EMV is a technology toolbox that enables globally interoperable secure payments across face-to-face and remote environments. Adoption of EMV Specifications and associated approval and certification processes promotes a unified international payments framework, which supports an advancing range of payment methods, technologies and acceptance environments. The specifications are available royalty free, designed to be flexible, and can be adapted regionally to meet national payment requirements and accommodate local regulations.

EMVCo is collectively owned by American Express, Discover, JCB, Mastercard, UnionPay and Visa, and focuses on the technical advancement of the EMV Specifications. To provide all payment stakeholders with a platform to engage in its strategic and technical direction, EMVCo operates an Associates Programme and encourages all interested parties to get involved.

For further information: www.emvco.comEMV® InsightsLinkedInTwitterAn Introduction to EMVCoYouTube

About the FIDO Alliance

The FIDO (Fast IDentity Online) Alliance, fidoalliance.org, was formed in July 2012 to address the lack of interoperability among strong authentication technologies, and remedy the problems users face with creating and remembering multiple usernames and passwords. The FIDO Alliance is changing the nature of authentication with standards for simpler, stronger authentication that define an open, scalable, interoperable set of mechanisms that reduce reliance on passwords. FIDO authentication is stronger, private, and easier to use when authenticating to online services.

About the World Wide Web Consortium

The mission of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is to lead the Web to its full potential by creating technical standards and guidelines to ensure that the Web remains open, accessible, and interoperable for everyone around the globe. W3C well-known standards HTML and CSS are the foundational technologies upon which websites are built. W3C works on ensuring that all foundational Web technologies meet the needs of civil society, in areas such as accessibility, internationalization, security, and privacy. W3C also provides the standards that undergird the infrastructure for modern businesses leveraging the Web, in areas such as entertainment, communications, digital publishing, and financial services. That work is created in the open, provided for free and under the groundbreaking W3C Patent Policy. For its work to make online videos more accessible with captions and subtitles, W3C received a 2016 Emmy Award. And for its work to standardize a Full TV Experience on the Web, W3C received a 2019 Emmy Award.

W3C's vision for "One Web" brings together thousands of dedicated technologists representing more than 400 Member organizations and dozens of industry sectors. Organizationally, W3C is jointly run by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL) in the United States, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) headquartered in France, Keio University in Japan and Beihang University in China. For more information see https://www.w3.org/.

EMVCo PR Contacts

Dave Amos / Chloe Smith
<[email protected]> / <[email protected]>
+44 1943 468007

FIDO Alliance PR Contacts

Karen Arena, Aircover PR
<[email protected]>
+1 732-407-8510

W3C PR Contact

Amy van der Hiel, W3C Media Relations Coordinator
<[email protected]>
+1.617.253.5628 (US, Eastern Time)

]]>
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W3C Launches Initiative to Improve the Web for Merchants <![CDATA[Business forum will address challenges for customer experiences and business needs using Web technologies]]> Wed, 21 Oct 2020 17:56:00 +0000 https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2020/merchantbg/ https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2020/merchantbg/ <![CDATA[press-releases]]> <![CDATA[

Business forum will address challenges for customer experiences and business needs using Web technologies

https://www.w3.org/ — 21 October 2020 — W3C today launched the Merchant Business Group, an open forum to address challenges for customer experiences and business needs using Web technologies. Merchants, integrators, platform providers, and others will discuss how emerging Web technologies could help address customer experience challenges, and what additional Web capabilities may be necessary. The Merchant BG offers participants an opportunity to learn directly from the organizations building Web experiences about how Web standards trends can affect (and improve) e-commerce.

Worldpay from FIS, Fiserv, Coles Supermarket Group and Connexus are the first organizations to join the new group.

Strengthening the Merchant Voice within W3C

Today a number of merchants, integrators, associations participate in the Web Payments Working Group (WPWG) and other W3C groups.

We want merchants to have a greater voice within W3C to ensure the Web meets their needs. Merchants have told us that they want to be part of the conversation about e-commerce, but with more focus on the challenges that businesses face. In the Merchant BG, we'll be looking at their use cases and the problems they face when selling online.

Nick Telford-Reed, staff contact for the Merchant BG and co-Chair of the WPWG

I’m delighted to be co-chairing the W3C’s Merchant Business Group. The Group’s worthy mission is to improve the Web for both business-to-business (B2B) merchants and business-to-consumer (B2C) merchants. I’m particularly interested in the discussions about emerging tech and the increasing demand of online shopping due to COVID. Currently living in Melbourne, where we have stage 4 lock-down restrictions in place limiting our in-store shopping, means we have to rely very heavily on buying everything online, so this is particularly important and topical. Exploring topics like web checkout, accessible immersive web experiences and improving mobile web commerce experiences will yield some fantastic outcomes.

Melanie O'Brien, Coles Group

The voice of the merchant community is instrumental in shaping the future of our industry. As a global leader in payments technology, FIS is very invested in being an advocate for our merchant clients. We’re delighted to be helping create smarter e-commerce experiences for consumers globally and ensuring that the needs of retailers from around the world are represented at W3C.

John O'Brien, Fellow co-chair from FIS Global

By design, the group will begin work with broad scope of discussion. Over time the group will prioritize from these and other topics:

  • Web checkout experiences, including the value merchants should gain with W3C's Web payments standards;
  • Balancing the needs of accessibility, internationalization, privacy, authentication and user friction in e-commerce;
  • Emerging regulatory requirements and ensuring good customer experience;
  • The evolution of Web advertising;
  • Good practices for reducing online fraud;
  • Enhancements to transaction integrity and assurance;
  • Customer interaction, capture and retention via accessible immersive Web experiences.
  • Improving mobile web commerce experiences.

Scope of Activity

The Merchant Business Group charter describes the group's activities, including:

  • Education about Web technology trends and the impact on merchants, including through discussions with other W3C groups. These activities will include non-technical briefings.
  • Identification of current merchant challenges, best practices for addressing them, and how those practices may change for various reasons (e.g., due to evolving privacy practices).
  • Communication of merchant use cases and requirements to groups within and outside W3C.
  • Coordinating reviews of the work of other W3C groups (e.g., the Web Payments Working Group, Web Authentication Working Group or Immersive Web Working Group).

Join the Merchant Business Group

Although the Merchant Business Group is focused on merchant needs, merchants and non-merchants alike —from around the globe— are invited to join.

A W3C Business Group gives innovators wanting to have an impact on the development of the Web in the near-term, a vendor-neutral forum for collaborating with like-minded stakeholders, including W3C Members and non-Members (who can participate in the Business Group without full W3C Membership).

For more information, including joining, please see the Merchant Business Group homepage.

About the World Wide Web Consortium

The mission of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is to lead the Web to its full potential by creating technical standards and guidelines to ensure that the Web remains open, accessible, and interoperable for everyone around the globe. W3C well-known standards HTML and CSS are the foundational technologies upon which websites are built. W3C works on ensuring that all foundational Web technologies meet the needs of civil society, in areas such as accessibility, internationalization, security, and privacy. W3C also provides the standards that undergird the infrastructure for modern businesses leveraging the Web, in areas such as entertainment, communications, digital publishing, and financial services. That work is created in the open, provided for free and under the groundbreaking W3C Patent Policy. For its work to make online videos more accessible with captions and subtitles, W3C received a 2016 Emmy Award. And for its work to standardize a Full TV Experience on the Web, W3C received a 2019 Emmy Award.

W3C's vision for "One Web" brings together thousands of dedicated technologists representing more than 400 Member organizations and dozens of industry sectors. W3C is jointly hosted by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL) in the United States, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) headquartered in France, Keio University in Japan and Beihang University in China. For more information see https://www.w3.org/.

End Press Release

Media Contact

Amy van der Hiel, W3C Media Relations Coordinator <[email protected]>
+1.617.253.5628 (US, Eastern Time)

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W3C re-energizes process for agile enhancement of Web technology and earlier Royalty-Free protection <![CDATA[2020 updates of the Process Document and Patent Policy give a real boost to building the Web]]> Tue, 15 Sep 2020 14:03:00 +0000 https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2020/process-document-patent-policy-2020/ https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2020/process-document-patent-policy-2020/ <![CDATA[press-releases]]> <![CDATA[

https://www.w3.org/ — 15 September 2020 — Today marks the first day of operation of the 2020 edition of the W3C Process Document and W3C Patent Policy, whose timely updates increase our responsiveness and strengthen our standardization activities by adding a continuous standard development mode and earlier Royalty-Free protection for implementers. The Web Consortium rolls out these operational changes at a time when the Web is increasingly essential as the world goes virtual.

Society is going virtual so it needs a more robust Web that evolves more rapidly

The 2020 global pandemic accelerated a trend for the world to go virtual, making the global Web even more critical to society –in information sharing, entertainment, commerce, real-time communications, and many more. The Web has also grown in importance to industries conducting business online. These trends demand responsiveness and agility from the Web's standardization processes and practices. Today's Process Document and Patent Policy afford us that reponsiveness, serving our mission to provide the key infrastructure for the Web.

The Web Consortium has been working on these enhancements for years, and their adoption now is particularly timely. They unlock agility and afford W3C the means to be a better standards organization and a more effective steward of the Web's full potential, able to do what the Web needs, better and faster.

Landmark standard-making agility to better reflect the transformation the Web needs

Among the changes to the W3C Process Document, the most anticipated ones offer a real boost in helping the Web serve the community:

  • streamlined community review and review for integrity (Horizontal review to ensure accessibility, internationalization, privacy, and security);
  • flexibility for multiple work modes, including stability of referenced versions and reflection of the current status in the technical reports list;
  • a continuous development mode that enables specifications to reflect rapidly developing technology –including a living standard approach as a native capability of the W3C Recommendation Track.

The Process facilitates updates of specifications to better match the consensus of working groups. By the same token, the W3C Process Document improves maintainability of specifications, including easier revision of Recommendations.

These additive improvements give developers an accurate view of the state of a specification or its implementations, and ensure accuracy of the specifications at any stage, thus removing significant confusion between e.g., the editor's draft on GitHub and the published version on the W3C website, while maintaining the same review and quality requirements that the Recommendation Track currently possesses.

At the level of the standardization process, working groups will no longer be required to bring their entire specifications back several steps for a single line of change. At the level of the robustness and reliability of the platform, algorithms can be updated for maintenance and security purposes, reducing confusion for developers and implementers: the specifications on the W3C website will be the state of the art. For long-running specifications, bringing some of the value of W3C Recommendations sooner means early implementations can safely flourish, smoothing the path to adoption.

Securing earlier Royalty-Free protection while preserving the stable, trusted patent policy

These critical improvements required an important change to the W3C Patent Policy –the first major update to this groundbreaking document since its drafting in 2004 and introduction to the world in 2005– to provide patent protection earlier.

The update preserves our royalty-free promise on Recommendations, making core Web technologies available for RF implementation and use with a licensing commitment from participants. New in this Policy update is to secure those royalty-free commitments at earlier Candidate phases, supporting unencumbered implementation and use even as specifications continue to evolve. This change helps to de-risk Web experimentation and reinforce access to the Web's technology as common infrastructure.

About the World Wide Web Consortium

The mission of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is to lead the Web to its full potential by creating technical standards and guidelines to ensure that the Web remains open, accessible, and interoperable for everyone around the globe. W3C well-known standards HTML and CSS are the foundational technologies upon which websites are built. W3C works on ensuring that all foundational Web technologies meet the needs of civil society, in areas such as accessibility, internationalization, security, and privacy. W3C also provides the standards that undergird the infrastructure for modern businesses leveraging the Web, in areas such as entertainment, communications, digital publishing, and financial services. That work is created in the open, provided for free and under the groundbreaking W3C Patent Policy. For its work to make online videos more accessible with captions and subtitles, W3C received a 2016 Emmy Award. And for its work to standardize a Full TV Experience on the Web, W3C received a 2019 Emmy Award.

W3C's vision for "One Web" brings together thousands of dedicated technologists representing more than 400 Member organizations and dozens of industry sectors. W3C is jointly hosted by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL) in the United States, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) headquartered in France, Keio University in Japan and Beihang University in China. For more information see https://www.w3.org/.

End Press Release

Media Contact

Amy van der Hiel, W3C Media Relations Coordinator <[email protected]>
+1.617.253.5628 (US, Eastern Time)

]]>
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Solution for IoT Interoperability - W3C Web of Things (WoT) <![CDATA[Web technologies enable the full potential of the Internet of Things by interconnecting platforms, devices, and cloud services]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2020 14:51:00 +0000 https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2020/wot-rec/ https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2020/wot-rec/ <![CDATA[press-releases]]> <![CDATA[

Web technologies enable the full potential of the Internet of Things by interconnecting platforms, devices, and cloud services

Read testimonials from W3C Members

 

https://www.w3.org/ — 9 April 2020 — The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) announced today that Web of Things (WoT) Architecture and Web of Things (WoT) Thing Description (TD) are now official W3C Recommendations, thus enabling easy integration across Internet of Things platforms and applications.

Applications of the Web of Things (WoT) Architecture

Many Internet of Things applications have been developed for areas as diverse as Smart factory, Smart city, Smart home and public health. By standardizing the web level descriptions of Things, we intend to promote interoperability in these important areas.

Jeff Jaffe, W3C CEO

Keeping the promise to enhance interoperability and counter fragmentation in IoT

With the diversity of technologies used in Internet of Things (IoT), such as protocols and data models, information technology users are increasingly facing high integration and maintenance costs in IoT projects as well as the need to avoid isolated silos that often leave them stuck with obsolete software and falling behind in innovation. The W3C Web of Things keeps the promise to counter the fragmentation of the Internet of Things by defining a Web-based abstraction layer for existing platforms, devices, gateways and services. By complementing existing standards, it enhances interoperability thereby reducing the risk for investors and customers. This will also enable the rapid growth of open markets for devices and services.

These solutions are already deployed in products today

The Web of Things is applicable to multiple IoT domains, including Smart Home, Industrial, Smart City, Retail, and Health applications, where usage of the W3C WoT standards can simplify the development of IoT systems that combine devices from multiple vendors and ecosystems.

One of the key components of how the W3C membership builds standards is by implementing the standards as they are being built. This has resulted in the WoT Technologies being available today in a number of solutions from our Members and others in the technology industry.

  • Siemens Desigo CC, their flagship Building Management Station uses WoT to help easily integrate datapoints and functions from different IoT systems into the Desigo CC management station and from there to cloud systems;
  • The Eclipse Thingweb node-wot is a reference implementation (in Node.js) of the WoT standards and used as baseline for many other implementations and WoT-based projects (including proof of concept projects for Smart Cities and Retail);
  • Node-RED, the well-known low-code development tool from the OpenJS Foundation, supports the WoT Thing Description as part of the Node Generator project to simplify the development of Node-RED nodes, which started as a contribution by Hitachi as part of their W3C WoT participation;
  • Mozilla WebThings is an open platform based on WoT to develop privacy and security based smart home applications;
  • Fujitsu offers WoT-compliant edge and cloud proxy (a software product), which can connect different IoT devices locally and aggregate them with a single interface to build large-scale systems on the cloud;
  • Further WoT runtime implementations are WoTPy (in Python) and SANE Web of Things Servient (in Java).

Our Members tell their own stories the best in the testimonials below.

What does the future hold?

Two baseline specifications have been developed since the launch of the Web of Things Working Group to define an abstract architecture, a common data format for describing IoT devices and services, and several building blocks that increase interoperability for IoT applications and reduce integration efforts and costs:

  • The WoT Architecture describes the overall Web of Things conceptual framework.
  • The WoT Thing Description is to the Internet of Things what index.html is to a website: it can be considered as the entry point of a physical or virtual Thing/device.

The work is far from over! W3C having recently renewed the WoT Working Group charter for the second generation of Web of Things, is continuing to expand the scope and depth of the work in this area. By example, the group plans to cover minimum-effort onboarding of Things in a secure way; interoperability profiles for support of particular usage contexts and specific technologies; vocabulary support for new protocols and additional standard metadata such as location or device manufacturer; security schemes to support constantly evolving security mechanisms such as flows in OAuth2, support for PoP Tokens, support for ACE among others; links relation type specification to maximize interoperability; standardized discovery mechanisms so that devices self-describe directly rather than depending on a centralized infrastructure; and improvements to Thing Description Templates.

About the World Wide Web Consortium

The mission of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is to lead the Web to its full potential by creating technical standards and guidelines to ensure that the Web remains open, accessible, and interoperable for everyone around the globe. W3C well-known standards HTML and CSS are the foundational technologies upon which websites are built. W3C works on ensuring that all foundational Web technologies meet the needs of civil society, in areas such as accessibility, internationalization, security, and privacy. W3C also provides the standards that undergird the infrastructure for modern businesses leveraging the Web, in areas such as entertainment, communications, digital publishing, and financial services. That work is created in the open, provided for free and under the groundbreaking W3C Patent Policy. For its work to make online videos more accessible with captions and subtitles, W3C received a 2016 Emmy Award. And for its work to standardize a Full TV Experience on the Web, W3C received a 2019 Emmy Award.

W3C's vision for "One Web" brings together thousands of dedicated technologists representing more than 400 Member organizations and dozens of industry sectors. W3C is jointly hosted by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL) in the United States, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) headquartered in France, Keio University in Japan and Beihang University in China. For more information see https://www.w3.org/.

End Press Release

Media Contact

Amy van der Hiel, W3C Media Relations Coordinator <[email protected]>
+1.617.253.5628 (US, Eastern Time)

Testimonials from W3C members

ConexxusFujitsuHitachiIntelInternet Research InstituteOraclePanasonicSiemensSingapore

Conexxus

Over the past couple of years, operators in the Convenience Retail Industry have come to a realization: “data” may be a more important asset than “location.” Existing, purpose-built data streams (such as transaction logs) exclude important contextual data, and while IoT data could help fill this gap, operators face big integration challenges in the absence of standards. The lack of standards for defining IoT data also makes it difficult for operators to propose definitions tailored to their needs. Web of Things promises to solve both the integration and the definition problems for retail operators. Conexxus, as the standards organization for Convenience Retail, endorses the Web of Things work and has already begun to use “Thing Descriptions” in current committees. Thanks to W3C for supporting this forward-looking work.

David Ezell, Director of New Initiatives, Conexxus

Fujitsu

The interoperability, the WoT standard trying to solve, remains the biggest challenge in IoT. The newly defined Web interface in WoT not only provides unified control over a various IoT devices, but also enables integration with many business systems using Web technologies. In addition, Metadata describing the device functions and Protocol Binding mapping to the device interfaces can also be applied to new communications technologies such as 5G, which are expected to become widespread in the future. Fujitsu believe that WoT is an indispensable technology and will have a significant impact on the digitization of our customers' systems.

Shingo Mizuno, Senior Vice President, Fujitsu Limited

Hitachi

We are pleased to see that "Web of Things" which connects a diverse range of IoT systems through Web technology has now been released as a W3C recommendation. Progress in IoT is driving an accelerated rate of data generated by business and society. Delivering appropriate feedback to the field using this data will lead to the creation of new value. We hope that “Web of Things” will make it easier to access insights and on-site equipment from across a wide range of operations and industry sectors, and enable the agile creation of new value for future society.

Norihiro Suzuki, Vice President & Executive Officer, Chief Technology Officer, Hitachi, Ltd.

Intel

This new WoT Standard takes a step forward in addressing the fundamental problem holding back the commercial success of IOT: the challenge of connecting different systems and domains. It provides a solution to enable different systems and domains to communicate and share data.

Eric Siow, Intel Corporation

Internet Research Institute

Internet Research Institute, Inc. welcomes the successful launch of advisories of ‘Web of Things Architecture’ and ‘Web of Things Thing Description’ by W3C. The Internet has been taking on a role to connect people to people with organizations through Web Technology. Accordingly, due to the spread of the IoT Technology, the Web Technology has found itself a new role of connecting various things to the Internet. It means, people, things and organization can now freely exchange information and data through the Web Technology. Furthermore, as 5G services spread, it is easy to imagine the combination of IoT Technology and Web Technology can lead us towards a prosperous future.

In fact, there are various protocols for IoT Technology exists today in the world, but unfortunately the interoperability of information and data exchange in between people and things, organization and things, things and things, are not being realized. In this situation, we are certain that ‘Web of Things Architecture’ and ‘Web of Things Thing Description’ will become the solution for this matter.

We are at the age of seeing out the preceding era of Internet that mainly connects people and seeing in an era of its connecting things. Therefore we strongly believe that WoT Technology could take a important role to develop a wide variety of the Internet services. In the future, we intend to proactively implement the development of services using WoT Technology.

Hiroshi Fujiwara, CEO, Internet Research Institute, Inc.

Oracle

Lack of interoperability standards and a highly fragmented ecosystem full of proprietary interfaces have been major hurdles for enterprise adoption of IoT technologies. These issue have been compounded by the wide range of proprietary data formats and connectivity protocols that are used across many different industries, making it very difficult to build IoT platforms that can be quickly extended for a large range of use cases. At Oracle we are thrilled that W3C Web of Things is addressing these issues head-on with the W3C Web of Things Specifications. Open standards have always opened up closed markets and driven rapid technology adoption. We firmly believe that this IoT ecosystem and the W3C Web of Things community will play a major role in bringing IoT technologies mainstream, and become a catalyst for a number of innovations benefitting a wide range of industries.

Jai Suri, Senior Director, Internet of Things Cloud, Oracle

Panasonic

Panasonic is delighted with the publication of the Web of Things Recommendations. Our company has been involved in Web of Things activities since the first Web of Things Workshop in 2014 and has contributed to the formulation of the Recommendation through technical proposals and Plugfest. Panasonic is now transforming itself into a company that achieves “Lifestyle Updates”. We believe that the Web of Things will be one of important technologies contributing to this transformation.

Yoshiyuki Miyabe, Senior Managing Executive Officer and CTO, Panasonic Corporation

Siemens

The new WoT standard enables Siemens to better combine and analyze data from different systems and domains in a very simple yet meaningful way. We use WoT e.g. to integrate devices and subsystems into our flagship building management station Desigo CC and from there to the cloud. Heterogenous and proprietary OT and IoT solutions caused in the past significant engineering and maintenance effort, e.g. if you wanted to analyze holistically data from different sources in a building. Using WoT we can quickly integrate data from different devices into a data pool and use that pool for further value creation, e.g. analytics, engineering, validation, energy optimization.

Helmut Macht, Chief Technology Officer, Siemens

Singapore

The Government Technology Agency of Singapore (GovTech Singapore) welcomes the rollout of the WoT Architecture and Thing Description recommendations. We are hopeful that these recommendations will help to promote the development of an open, interoperable and standardised IoT ecosystem globally. This will not just benefit private enterprises operating in the smart technologies space, but public sector agencies that are looking to maximise IoT and its potential for their citizens.

Lim Chinn Hwa, Senior Director, GovTech Singapore’s Smart Nation Platform Solutions
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Studio 24 to work with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) on their website redesign <![CDATA[Studio 24 to work with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) on their website redesign]]> Tue, 25 Feb 2020 13:49:00 +0000 https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2020/studio-24-w3c-website-redesign/ https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2020/studio-24-w3c-website-redesign/ <![CDATA[press-releases]]> <![CDATA[

https://www.w3.org/ — 25 February 2020 — The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was founded by the inventor of the Web, Tim Berners-Lee, and is responsible for key standards that make the world wide web work (such as CSS, WebRTC, accessibility, web payments and more). Studio 24 and the Web Consortium are proud to announce a contract to redesign w3.org to more effectively communicate what the organisation does with a modern, inclusive, usable website.

I am delighted to partner with Studio 24 as we embark on this project. We haven’t done a website redesign in a very long time. In fact, in the 21 years I’ve been with the W3C, I remember only 3 different designs, the current one being from a decade ago. Redesigning our website is crucial to improve the overall experience of those who depends on us for our Web standards work. As W3C makes the Web work for everyone, Studio 24 will help make our website work better for everyone.

Coralie Mercier, Head of W3C Marketing & Communications

Studio 24 have always believed in building a better web, using standards to make sure the sites they build are accessible to all regardless of who you are, what internet access you have, what device you’re using, or any disability you may have. Their own Accessibility Lead Developer will help move this forward. In this regard Studio 24’s beliefs are perfectly aligned to W3C’s mission in making a ‘Web for All’. One of W3C's primary goals is to make these benefits available to all people, whatever their hardware, software, network infrastructure, native language, culture, geographical location, or physical or mental ability.

The team are really looking forward to getting started with this project. In the 20-year history of Studio 24, it feels as if we’ve been leading up to a project like this. Our company mission to bring together human-centred design and open source technology is ideally fitted to a client such as W3C.

Simon Jones, Managing Director, Studio 24
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World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) puts a stake in the ground for international writing modes <![CDATA[World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) puts a stake in the ground for international writing modes]]> Tue, 10 Dec 2019 13:13:00 +0000 https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2019/css-writing-modes/ https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2019/css-writing-modes/ <![CDATA[press-releases]]> <![CDATA[
Making the World Wide Web world wide
締造真正全球通行的萬維網
ワールド・ワイド・ウェブが世界中につながります
전세계의 월드 와이드 웹으로 만들기

https://www.w3.org/ — 10 December 2019 — The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) announced today that CSS Writing Modes Level 3 is now an official web standard, enabling text on the Web to be laid out horizontally or vertically, as well as setting the direction in which lines are stacked.

Today’s publication of CSS Writing Modes Level 3 as a W3C Recommendation marks an essential milestone in the journey started in 2004 when the CSS Working Group started work on text layout. "Thanks to incredible Internationalization work and the help of many Asian countries working together, we have reached the momentous point where CSS enables international writing modes on the Web.

Dr. Jun Murai, W3C Steering Committee Member and Professor of Keio University

CSS support of a wide range of written languages

CSS Writing Modes Level 3 is a specification that defines CSS support for various international writing modes, including horizontal left-to-right text (such as in English or Hindi), horizontal right-to-left text (such as Hebrew or Arabic), and vertically set text (such as for Japanese or Mongolian). It also specifies how to support combinations of the above, such as bidirectional mixtures of Arabic and English text, or English or Hebrew in vertically set Asian text.

These new CSS features allow a mixture of horizontal and vertical text regions on the same page. The specification also adds support for such things as isolation in bidirectional text, glyph orientation controls, and short, inline horizontal runs in lines of vertical text. Vertical text supports line stacking from right to left (as needed for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean), as well as from left to right (as is needed for Mongolian).

Local experts and community impact the entire web platform

The publication of this Recommendation is a testament to the power of local communities to shape the Web so that it responds to their needs.

In addition to contributions from experts around the world, the engagement from local experts, particularly from Japan, and support from the local community was crucially important in researching, specifying and implementing the needed features. The involvement of local communities is essential to convince browser makers to expand their features, so that the World Wide Web is usable worldwide.

W3C is actively seeking feedback and support from communities around the world to meet local needs for language support. The language matrix captures an overview of where work is needed.

About the World Wide Web Consortium

The mission of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is to lead the Web to its full potential by creating technical standards and guidelines to ensure that the Web remains open, accessible, and interoperable for everyone around the globe. W3C well-known standards HTML and CSS are the foundational technologies upon which websites are built. W3C works on ensuring that all foundational Web technologies meet the needs of civil society, in areas such as accessibility, internationalization, security, and privacy. W3C also provides the standards that undergird the infrastructure for modern businesses leveraging the Web, in areas such as entertainment, communications, digital publishing, and financial services. That work is created in the open, provided for free and under the groundbreaking W3C Patent Policy. For its work to make online videos more accessible with captions and subtitles, W3C received a 2016 Emmy Award. And for its work to standardize a Full TV Experience on the Web, W3C received a 2019 Emmy Award.

W3C's vision for "One Web" brings together thousands of dedicated technologists representing more than 400 Member organizations and dozens of industry sectors. W3C is jointly hosted by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL) in the United States, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) headquartered in France, Keio University in Japan and Beihang University in China. For more information see https://www.w3.org/.

End Press Release

Media Contact

Amy van der Hiel, W3C Media Relations Coordinator <[email protected]>
+1.617.253.5628 (US, Eastern Time)

Testimonials from W3C members

BPSJEPAKodanshaShueishaYahoo Japan Corporation

BPS

The Web is undoubtedly a global platform which interconnects information and people of various counties, as is also the reason why implementing more languages, and more importantly its culture, has become an increasingly important topic. As W3C member from Japan, as well as a software company developing web-based eBook solutions for the domestic audience, we are both proud and delighted to be involved with the Writing Modes specification especially for but not limited to, including vertical text and other native typographic features for users from Japan, Taiwan, and Mongolia. We look forward to the future in which the Writing Mode helps spread recognition and consideration of expressions from all languages on the World Wide Web.

Hiroshi Sakakibara, Board Director, BPS Co., Ltd.

JEPA

During the dawn of the Japanese ebook business, the lack of vertical writing in the Open Web Platform was a serious hazard. Fortunately, CSS Writing Modes started at the last minute. Without the help of W3C, the Japanese e-book business could not have prospered.

MURATA Makoto, Then-leader of the internationalization subgroup of the IDPF EPUB WG, Japan Electronic Publishing Association CTO

日本の電子書籍ビジネスの黎明期において、OWPに縦書きがないことは深刻な障害でした。幸いなことに、ぎりぎりのタイミングでCSS Writing Modesが始まりました。W3Cの援助なしには、日本の電子書籍ビジネスの繁栄はあり得なかったのです。

村田 真、 IDPF EPUB WGの国際化サブグループの当時のリーダー 、一般社団法人 日本電子出版協会 CTO

Kodansha

講談社は今から百十年前に、当時は耳から聞こえるだけで消えてゆく演説や物語(講談)を、最新の印刷技術で記録し、世に広めようとして設立された歴史を持っています。現代に例えれば、ウェブ技術を大胆に取り入れたメディア活用といえるでしょうか。

 

今回、W3CのCSS・WGによってウェブの標準技術としてブラウザー上で、縦書きという文字表記スタイルが勧告となったことは、日本に限らず世界の文化の多様性が、これまで以上に守られ、伝えられてゆくことを意味します。

 

過去十年に及ぶW3C関係者の皆様のご努力と献身に、心から感謝を申し上げます。

 

講談社・社長室 標準化担当 W3C ACレッ プ 吉井順一

 

Shueisha

CSS Writing ModeがW3C勧告としてリリースされる事を大変嬉しく思います。長く議論されてきたこの技術によって、集英社が携わる多くの刊行物が、本来の表現を損なう事なくデジタルパブリッシングメディアとして機能する事と思います。

 

そしてW3Cは、技術革新と既存の表現を両立させる事によって、デジタルコンテンツ流通の重要な役割を果たす組織であり続けると期待しています。

 

株式会社 集英社 デジタル事業部 鈴木 基

 

Yahoo Japan Corporation

Yahoo Japan Corporation welcomes W3C’s recommendation of Writing Modes Level 3. Vertical writing is part of Japanese traditional culture and the recommendation of this specification is big news for the Internet in Japan. We believe that this will allow us to enhance the usability of our services.

Writing Modes Level 3 is an excellent example of W3C’s activities that respect the cultures of each country and at the same time pursue increased usability. We are certain that these activities will continue in W3C, and that they will make people’s lives more convenient around the world.

Chiaki Fujimon, Director, EVP, Managing Corporate Officer, CTO, Yahoo Japan Corporation
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World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) brings a new language to the Web as WebAssembly becomes a W3C Recommendation <![CDATA[Following HTML, CSS and JavaScript, WebAssembly becomes the fourth language for the Web which allows code to run in the browser]]> Thu, 05 Dec 2019 16:58:00 +0000 https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2019/wasm/ https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2019/wasm/ <![CDATA[press-releases]]> <![CDATA[

Following HTML, CSS and JavaScript, WebAssembly becomes the fourth language for the Web which allows code to run in the browser

Read testimonials from W3C Members

https://www.w3.org/ — 5 December 2019 — The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) announced today that the WebAssembly Core Specification is now an official web standard, launching a powerful new language for the Web. WebAssembly is a safe, portable, low-level format designed for efficient execution and compact representation of code on modern processors including in a web browser.

 

webassembly black and white logo

The arrival of WebAssembly expands the range of applications that can be achieved by simply using Open Web Platform technologies. In a world where machine learning and Artificial Intelligence become more and more common, it is important to enable high performance applications on the Web, without compromising the safety of the users.

Philippe Le Hégaret, W3C Project Lead

High-performance applications relying on a low-level infrastructure

At its core, WebAssembly is a virtual instruction set architecture that enables high-performance applications on the Web, and can be employed in many other environments. There are multiple implementations of WebAssembly, including browsers and stand-alone systems. WebAssembly can be used for applications like video and audio codecs, graphics and 3D, multi-media and games, cryptographic computations or portable language implementations.

WebAssembly enhances Web Performance

WebAssembly improves Web performance and power consumption by being a virtual machine and execution environment enabling loaded pages to run as native compiled code. In other words, WebAssembly enables near-native performance, optimized load time, and perhaps most importantly, a compilation target for existing code bases.

Despite a small number of native types, much of the performance increase relative to JavaScript derives from its use of consistent typing. WebAssembly leverages decades of optimization for compiled languages and its byte code is optimized for compactness and streaming. A web page can start executing while the rest of the code downloads. Network and API access occurs through accompanying JavaScript libraries. The security model is identical to that of JavaScript.

Future versions already in the works

The WebAssembly Working Group and the companion Community Group, where requirements gathering and language development take place, are already working on a range of features for future versions of the standard, including:

Threading
Threads provide the benefits of shared-memory multi-threading and atomic memory accesses.
Fixed-width SIMD
Vector operations that execute loops in parallel.
Reference types
Allow WebAssembly code to directly reference host objects.
Tail calls
Enable calling functions without using extra stack space.
ECMAScript module integration
Interact with JavaScript by loading WebAssembly executables as ES6 modules.

There are many other longer-term projects including several aimed at improving the usability and availability of WebAssembly. For example garbage collection, debugging interfaces, and WebAssembly System Interface (WASI), which is a set of modules for low-level system functionality such as file and network access.

WebAssembly joins the many W3C standards that define an Open Web Platform for application development with unprecedented potential to enable developers to build powerful, interactive experiences that are available on any device.

About the World Wide Web Consortium

The mission of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is to lead the Web to its full potential by creating technical standards and guidelines to ensure that the Web remains open, accessible, and interoperable for everyone around the globe. W3C well-known standards HTML and CSS are the foundational technologies upon which websites are built. W3C works on ensuring that all foundational Web technologies meet the needs of civil society, in areas such as accessibility, internationalization, security, and privacy. W3C also provides the standards that undergird the infrastructure for modern businesses leveraging the Web, in areas such as entertainment, communications, digital publishing, and financial services. That work is created in the open, provided for free and under the groundbreaking W3C Patent Policy. For our work to make online videos more accessible with captions and subtitles, W3C received a 2016 Emmy Award. And for its work to standardize a Full TV Experience on the Web, W3C received a 2019 Emmy Award.

W3C's vision for "One Web" brings together thousands of dedicated technologists representing more than 400 Member organizations and dozens of industry sectors. W3C is jointly hosted by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL) in the United States, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) headquartered in France, Keio University in Japan and Beihang University in China. For more information see https://www.w3.org/.

End Press Release

Media Contact

Amy van der Hiel, W3C Media Relations Coordinator <[email protected]>
+1.617.253.5628 (US, Eastern Time)

Testimonials from W3C members

360Alibaba GroupAgora.ioBaiduHuaweiTencentXiaomi

360

"WebAssembly 规范的推出,进一步拓展了 Web 技术的应用 场景,让以往无法想象的应用成为可能,也为开发社区提供了更多选择, 为提升用户体验提供了技术保障。WebAssembly 标准的正式发布,让 Web 技术社区不再满足于浅尝辄止的保守应用,终于可以大胆地将其作为一个 正式的选型方案,这也势必会大力推进相应行业场景的发展。期待在 WebAssembly 标准化的推进过程中看到更多的 WASM 应用大放异彩。 "

胡尊杰,360 奇舞团 Web 前端技术经 理

Alibaba Group

"Alibaba is pleased to see that WebAssembly finally becomes a W3C Recommendation. We hope this new standard could trigger more innovation from the developer community as well as to enrich the functionality and experiences of the Web."

Hongru(Judy) Zhu, W3C Advisory Board Member, General Manager of Standardization Department, Alibaba Group

Agora.io

"WebAssembly makes it possible to provide strong computing capabilities on Web. It will exceedingly expand the application scenario of Web Apps, and rapidly increase the chance of developing compute-intensive Apps including real-time video/audio processing, hardcore games and AI with Web technologies. As an RTC service provider, Agora is devoted to deliver services with better real-time performance. We have released products based on WebAssembly, which enhances the performance and compatibility of video stream processing. We belief WebAssembly will be the most important option for Web developers to implement high performance Web Apps."

Chun Gao,Senior Architect of Agora

Baidu

"热烈祝贺 WebAssembly 标准正式发布!百度一直是 W3C 的坚定支持者和参与者、贡献者和先行者,在 WebAssembly 的 runtime 平台技术、小程序小游戏和区块链技术等各个方面都有不错的应 用。随着标准的发布,我们将继续联合产业同仁一起打造开放、平等、协 作、分享的 Web 新生态。也期待 WebAssembly 标准能为 Web 新生态的繁 荣注入全新动力!"

吴萍,百度 App 主任架构师

Huawei

"Congrats to this new milestone of WebAssembly. We believe it’s a very promising technology - it enhances the performance of Web and also acts as a nice bridge between Web and non-Web platforms. We look forward to more adoptions of WebAssembly in practice."

Zhiqiang Yu,W3C Advisory Committee Representative of Huawei

Tencent

"Web 的能力越来越强,承载的业务越来越复杂,需要的 计算能力也越来越高。随着 WebAssembly 技术飞速发展,我们终于迎来了 WebAssembly 标准的正式发布。2008 年我们迎来了 Web 性能的第一次飞 跃 JIT 技术,如今 WebAssembly 将再一次大幅提升 Web 性能。我们得以 将更多桌面端的软件高效地移植到 Web,同时也可以在 Web 中使用 C/C++、Rust、Go 来优化需要大量计算的模块。WebAssembly 技术日益成 熟,将促进更多的应用从桌面延伸到 Web,这将赋予本就十分强大的 Web 更加丰富的功能!"

于涛,腾讯技术总监、 Alloyteam 负责 人

Xiaomi

"WebAssembly 的标准化为 Web 技术的发展奠定了坚实 的基础,极大地扩展了 Web 应用的边界,解决了传统应用的可移植性问题, 提升了 Web 应用性能。 作为 W3C 会员,小米将继续支持和探索 WebAssembly 标准的落地应用,包括在浏览器、小游戏等重要场景支持 WebAssembly 。未来小米将持续在业务场景中进一步支持 WebAssembly 的 标准化发展。"

周珏嘉,小米集团技术委员会技术总 监
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W3C launches an Introduction to Web Accessibility free online course in cooperation with UNESCO IITE <![CDATA[W3C launches an Introduction to Web Accessibility free online course in cooperation with UNESCO IITE]]> Tue, 03 Dec 2019 10:33:00 +0000 https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2019/intro-web-accessibility-course/ https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2019/intro-web-accessibility-course/ <![CDATA[press-releases]]> <![CDATA[

https://www.w3.org/ — 3 December 2019 — On the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education (UNESCO IITE) announced the launch of the online course built on the W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) open curricula with international expert trainers from W3C Member organizations. The “Introduction to Web Accessibility” Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) introduces digital accessibility, and provides a strong foundation for making websites and apps work well for people with disabilities, meet international standards, and enhance the user experience for all web users.

 

illustration showing two persons looking at a
computer and WAI icons

One of W3C's enduring values is a Web for All, and that can only be achieved by including standards and guidelines that encourage an accessible web - which we work on every day. But an accessible web is not something W3C can assure by ourselves, we need the entire web community focused on ensuring that every web site is accessible. This course is a critical component of assuring that everyone is knowledgeable about how to meet the needs of users with disabilities.

Jeff Jaffe, W3C CEO

W3C and UNESCO IITE cooperate to raise awareness of Web Accessibility

W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) and the UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education (UNESCO IITE) are cooperating to provide a free online course built on the open curricula of the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). By combining the technical expertise of W3C and its Member organizations with the educational networks of the UNESCO IITE, W3C aims to reach audiences on an international scale.

Advanced technologies provide unprecedented opportunities to reduce the historically contingent learning divide and increase access to knowledge and quality education, especially for vulnerable groups, including persons with disabilities. UNESCO IITE recognizes inclusive education as the capstone of equality and mainstreaming. Cutting-edge technologies and innovative tools substantially contribute to the implementation and actualization of these principles, particularly to ensuring equal access to information, education and self-fulfilment for all. At UNESCO IITE, we keep up our joint efforts to promote the high-potential use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) for the creation of safe, healthy, non-violent, disability-sensitive, gender-responsive, equitable and inclusive educational environments.

Tao Zhan, Director of UNESCO IITE

The W3Cx Introduction to Web Accessibility is open for enrollment today. The course will start on 28 January 2020.

Web Accessibility fundamentals for a wide range of professions

Designed to teach the fundamentals of Web accessibility and their benefits for people with and without disabilities, the Introduction to Web Accessibility course is intended for a wide range of Web professionals. As the Web has become indispensable for our daily lives, accessibility for people with disabilities has become increasingly essential for many organizations and governments around the world.

The course follows a logical progression exploring Web accessibility through real stories of people with disabilities; the many tangible and intangible benefits of Web accessibility, including its business case; the related international standards and checks; and how to integrate Web accessibility into organizational design and development processes. The course includes optional activities related to the particular skills students may want to develop; for example, coding activities and business development activities.

This course is based on the open curricula of the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), a framework for developing courses using role-based modules that build on and extend the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) accessibility training resources. These curricula will be available to anyone to use as an authoritative foundation for creating courses, and are being developed through the consensus process of the W3C Education and Outreach Working Group (EOWG) with support from the European Commission (EC) funded WAI-Guide Project (Grant 822245).

Taught by international expert Trainers from W3C Member organizations

On edX, a non-profit platform for education and learning, W3Cx's Introduction to Web Accessibility course features expert trainers from W3C Member organizations from around the world including: Deque, Infoaxia, Intopia, Knowbility, The Paciello Group, and Web Key IT, all using the WAI Open Curriculum.

These expert trainers will cover the definition and scope of Web accessibility. This will include how people with disabilities use different assistive technologies and adaptive strategies to interact on the Web for all disabilities impacted by Web accessibility, including hearing, learning and cognitive, neurological, physical, speech, and visual disabilities. Students will learn the business and social benefits of Web accessibility, and learn how to find and use technical standards and training resources from W3C so that they can start working on Web accessibility.

Free course on W3Cx, optional certificate

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the key organization that sets standards for the Web, which is so important when it comes to ensuring that the Internet works for everyone. As an edX partner since 2015, W3C has made programming and coding knowledge available to the over 20 million edX learners worldwide. I am thrilled that their new course on edX, Introduction to Web Accessibility, will focus specifically on enabling developers to create accessible sites for people with disabilities.

Anant Agarwal, edX Founder and CEO

Introduction to Web Accessibility is the sixth online course available on W3Cx, W3C’s online learning platform on edX, the world's leading nonprofit online learning platform. Since the initial HTML5 online course launched on W3Cx, over 950,000 students from around the world have enrolled in a W3Cx course. Whether starting their professional life, or embarking on a new chapter, many students have seen their career prospects expand as a result of taking courses in the W3Cx Front-End Web Developer Professional Certificate Program: HTML5 & CSS Fundamentals, CSS Basics, HTML5 Coding Essentials and Best Practices, JavaScript Introduction, and HTML5 Apps and Games.

Students can audit the Introduction to Web Accessibility for free, or choose to receive a Verified Certificate for $99 USD. A verified certificate from edX can provide proof for an employer, school, or other institution that a student has successfully completed an online course. Verified Certificates enable students to gain access to graded materials, unlimited course materials at any time, and to showcase their accomplishments on their resume.

About the World Wide Web Consortium

The mission of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is to lead the Web to its full potential by creating technical standards and guidelines to ensure that the Web remains open, accessible, and interoperable for everyone around the globe. W3C well-known standards HTML and CSS are the foundational technologies upon which websites are built. W3C works on Web accessibility, internationalization, security and privacy across hundreds of Web technologies. That work is created in the open, provided for free and under the unique W3C Patent Policy. For our work to make online videos more accessible with captions and subtitles, W3C received a 2016 Emmy Award. And for its work to standardize a Full TV Experience on the Web, W3C received a 2019 Emmy Award.

W3C's vision for "One Web" brings together thousands of dedicated technologists representing more than 400 Member organizations and dozens of industry sectors. W3C is jointly hosted by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL) in the United States, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) headquartered in France, Keio University in Japan and Beihang University in China. For more information see https://www.w3.org/.

About the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)

W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) is an integral part of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). In partnership with organizations around the world, WAI pursues accessibility of the Web for people with disabilities through the following primary activities: ensuring that core technologies of the Web support accessibility features; developing guidelines for web content, user agents, and authoring tools; facilitating development of evaluation and repair tools for accessibility; conducting education and outreach; coordinating with research and development that can improve future accessibility of the Web; and promoting coordination and harmonization of web accessibility standards.

WAI benefits from multi-stakeholder involvement throughout its work, including representation from industry, disability communities, accessibility research, and government. Since its inception in 1997, WAI has produced and is widely known for the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG), User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG), and Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA), as well as technical and educational guidance to support the implementation of these accessibility standards. For more information see https://www.w3.org/WAI/.

About UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education (UNESCO IITE)

For over two decades the core principle: "Every learner matters and matters equally" has led the aspiration and performance of the UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education (UNESCO IITE). Established in 1997 as the UNESCO category 1 Institute with a global mandate for ICT in education, it has significantly contributed to the promotion of equal teaching and learning opportunities for all, no matter the context, abilities, location or circumstances. In its vigorous activity, UNESCO IITE facilitates the application of information and communication technologies (ICT) in education, while continuously and diligently involving international and local stakeholders in both creating and maintaining conditions for inclusive and equitable education. For more information see https://iite.unesco.org/.

End Press Release

W3C Media Contact

Amy van der Hiel, W3C Media Relations Coordinator <[email protected]>
+1.617.253.5628 (US, Eastern Time)

UNESCO IITE Media Contact

Elena Varkvasova, Programme Specialist, Unit of Teacher Professional Development and Networking, UNESCO IITE <[email protected]>
+7 965 496 72 00 (Moscow Standard Time)

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EMVCo, FIDO Alliance, and W3C Form Interest Group to Enhance Security and Interoperability of Web Payments <![CDATA[EMVCo, FIDO Alliance, and W3C Form Interest Group to Enhance Security and Interoperability of Web Payments]]> Wed, 17 Apr 2019 16:34:00 +0000 https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2019/wps/ https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2019/wps/ <![CDATA[press-releases]]> <![CDATA[

https://www.w3.org/ — 17 April 2019 — The FIDO Alliance, EMVCo, and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) announced today the creation of a new Interest Group for organizations to collaborate on a vision for Web payment security and interoperability. Participants in the Web Payment Security Interest Group will define areas of collaboration and identify gaps between existing technical specifications in order to increase compatibility among different technologies.

Industry Demand for Interoperability

FIDO Alliance, W3C, and EMVCo develop complementary technologies that can enhance the security and convenience of web payments. This group has been created to better understand and shape the future of secure web-based payments, and ensure alignment on the work of the three technical bodies. EMVCo looks forward to productive discussions and ultimately, increased interoperability for web payments.

Karteek Patel, Chair of the EMVCo Executive Committee

IDO standards for simpler, stronger authentication can help secure user interactions specified in domain-specific standards developed in other technical bodies. We are pleased to be working with our payment industry partners on how FIDO authentication and authenticator metadata can support their transaction authorization goals. This interest group will help to streamline coordination and requirements sharing with EMVCo and W3C.

Brett McDowell, executive director, FIDO Alliance

The Web Payment Security Interest Group complements existing specification-level discussions around EMV® Secure Remote Commerce (SRC), EMV 3-D Secure (3DS), FIDO Alliance's FIDO2 specifications, and W3C's Web Authentication and Payment Request APIs. The group also provides the foundation for collaboration around future technical specifications.

Deliverables: Vision and Analysis

The Web Payment Security Interest Group charter defines a scope of activities that includes formulation of a vision for web payment security, development of use cases, gap analysis, liaisons with other organizations, and identification of standardization opportunities for each organization. The Interest Group does not publish specifications. Technical work is carried out in other groups within each organization, such as the FIDO2 Technology Working Group, the W3C Web Payments Working Group, or one of EMVCo's working groups.

W3C's authentication and payments standards are part of the bigger story of the transformation of the payments industry. The transformation will continue in unpredictable ways as the web adds new services such as streaming video, real-time communications, and augmented reality. This Interest Group will help ensure that new payment models for these services will have security as a fundamental requirement.

Jeff Jaffe, W3C CEO

Call for Participation

EMVCo, FIDO Alliance, and W3C encourage their respective members to join the Interest Group. For more information about how to join the group, please see the Web Payment Security Interest Group home page.

About the FIDO Alliance

The FIDO (Fast IDentity Online) Alliance, fidoalliance.org, was formed in July 2012 to address the lack of interoperability among strong authentication technologies, and remedy the problems users face with creating and remembering multiple usernames and passwords. The FIDO Alliance is changing the nature of authentication with standards for simpler, stronger authentication that define an open, scalable, interoperable set of mechanisms that reduce reliance on passwords. FIDO authentication is stronger, private, and easier to use when authenticating to online services.

About EMVCo

EMVCo is the global technical body that facilitates the worldwide interoperability and acceptance of secure payment transactions by managing and evolving the EMV Specifications and related testing processes. EMV is a technology toolbox that enables globally interoperable secure payments across face-to-face and remote environments. Adoption of EMV Specifications and associated approval and certification processes promotes a unified international payments framework, which supports an advancing range of payment methods, technologies and acceptance environments. The specifications are available royalty free, designed to be flexible, and can be adapted regionally to meet national payment requirements and accommodate local regulations.

EMVCo is collectively owned by American Express, Discover, JCB, Mastercard, UnionPay and Visa, and focuses on the technical advancement of the EMV Specifications. To provide all payment stakeholders with a platform to engage in its strategic and technical direction, EMVCo operates an Associates Programme and encourages all interested parties to get involved.

EMV® is a registered trademark in the U.S. and other countries and an unregistered trademark elsewhere. The EMV trademark is owned by EMVCo, LLC. Visit www.emvco.com for further information and join EMVCo on LinkedIn.

About the World Wide Web Consortium

The mission of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), www.w3.org, is to lead the Web to its full potential by creating technical standards and guidelines to ensure that the Web remains open, accessible, and interoperable for everyone around the globe. W3C develops well known specifications such as HTML5, CSS, and the Open Web Platform as well as work on security and privacy, all created in the open and provided for free and under the unique W3C Patent Policy. For its work to make online videos more accessible with captions and subtitles, W3C received a 2016 Emmy Award.

W3C's vision for "One Web" brings together thousands of dedicated technologists representing nearly 500 Member organizations and dozens of industry sectors. W3C is jointly hosted by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL) in the United States, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) headquartered in France, Keio University in Japan and Beihang University in China. For more information see https://www.w3.org/.

End Press Release

FIDO Alliance PR Contacts

Megan Shamas
Montner Tech PR
+1 203-226-9290
<[email protected]>

EMVCo PR Contacts

Kirsty Blackburn / David Amos
+44 113 3501922
<[email protected]> / <[email protected]>

W3C PR Contact

Amy van der Hiel, W3C Media Relations Coordinator <[email protected]>
+1.617.253.5628 (US, Eastern Time)

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W3C honored with Emmy® Award for Standardization of a Full TV Experience <![CDATA[W3C honored with Emmy® Award for Standardization of a Full TV Experience]]> Wed, 17 Apr 2019 13:51:00 +0000 https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2019/award-tv/ https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2019/award-tv/ <![CDATA[press-releases]]> <![CDATA[ ]]> 0