mastodon 4.7.2Developers, designers: make your voices heard and get involved in W3C! by @mcf@w3c.social, @tidoust@w3c.social and @dontcallmeDOM@w3c.social
📢 Two of @w3c@w3c.social’s most commonly used IRC bots, RRSAgent and Zakim, are now open source. These bots have assisted over 60,000 meetings at W3C over the past 25 years! 😊🎉
▶️ https://www.w3.org/blog/2026/w3c-irc-bots-now-open-source/ - by @gerald@w3c.social
Zakim is for agenda and queue management and RRSAgent for recording minutes. Their code and issue trackers are on #GitHub:
👇From a T-shirt designed by @karlcow@piaille.fr to thank W3C group chairs back in 2008!
A character encoding defines how text is stored as bytes. If you’ve seen “café” instead of “café,” that’s an encoding mismatch. This intro covers how encoding works, how #Unicode and UTF-8 relate, and why mistakes break apps and websites. It also matters beyond #developers, affecting readability, search, data exchange, #accessibility and whether people see text correctly online.
🎬 Watch @xfq@w3c.social, @w3c@w3c.social's Internationalization Lead, explain what character encoding is: https://youtu.be/y2ay7otbFWk
#i18n
@w3c@w3c.social invites implementations of "Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) v1.1". DIDs enable verifiable digital #identity without relying on central authorities. #timetoimplement
▶️ https://www.w3.org/TR/did-1.1/
A DID is a simple text string consisting of three parts: 1) the 'did' URI scheme identifier, 2) the identifier for the DID method and 3) the DID method-specific identifier.
Feedback welcome: https://github.com/w3c/did/issues
@w3c@w3c.social invites implementations of RDF 1.2 Concepts and Abstract Data Model and RDF 1.2 Semantics #timetoimplement
▶️ https://www.w3.org/TR/rdf12-concepts/
▶️ https://www.w3.org/TR/rdf12-semantics/
Compared to RDF 1.1, RDF 1.2 enables using RDF triples as objects in other triples, allowing triple annotation, and introduces directional language-tagged strings for better human-readable presentation #i18n
RDF1.2 Primer: https://www.w3.org/TR/rdf12-primer/
Feedback welcome! https://github.com/w3c/rdf-concepts/issues and https://github.com/w3c/rdf-semantics/issues
📢 If you’re based in the EU 🇪🇺 , don’t miss the chance to get financial support for your @w3c@w3c.social #WebStandards work and present your contributions at #w3cTPAC, taking place in #Dublin 🇮🇪 this October!
⏰ Submit your proposal(s) by 24 April: https://standict.eu/open-call/open-call-2
📂 From the wide range of eligible topics: #a11y, #AI, #IoT, #payments, and many more.
The @w3c@w3c.social Membership has elected four new members to the @ab@w3c.social, starting 1 July: @torgo@mastodon.social (Samsung Electronics), Wei Ding (Huawei), @elena@w3c.social (Holopin) and Andrew Wafaa (ARM). They join continuing participants @hober@mastodon.social, Hiroshi Ota, Avneesh Singh, @hdv@front-end.social, Song Xu, and Brent Zundel.
Since 1998, the W3C Advisory Board has guided W3C on strategy, process, and governance, while working to resolve issues, evolve standards processes, and support the Web in the interest of all.
Read more: https://www.w3.org/wiki/AB
📢 The @w3c@w3c.social Breakouts Day 2026 agenda is available!
➡️ https://www.w3.org/calendar/breakouts-day-2026/
Two dates: 🗓️ 25 March from 13:00-15:00 UTC and 🗓️ 26 March from 21:00-23:00 UTC
We invite the web community to take part in these one-hour sessions and give input on diverse topics such as #ActivityPub, #AI, cognitive #a11y, #privacy, policy engagement, #sustainability and more!
Anyone with a W3C account (including non-Members) can participate. No fee or registration is required.
@w3c@w3c.social is pleased to endorse the 2026 Web Engines Hackfest, in A Coruña 🇪🇸
📆 15-17 June 2026: https://webengineshackfest.org/
W3C Working Groups can meet in person and collaborate with the broader web community at this annual event, uniting contributors from major browser engines, testing, specs, web compatibility, and docs like @mdn@mastodon.social and https://web.dev.
@dontcallmeDOM@w3c.social plans to be there with other team members!
YAML-LD brings the power of JSON-LD’s #LinkedData to YAML, using YAML’s more compact and expressive syntax #timetogiveinput #FPWD
▶️ https://www.w3.org/TR/yaml-ld-10/
The @w3c@w3c.social specification "YAML‑LD 1.0" offers more data types and flexible structure than #JSON, while ensuring compatibility with #JSONLD syntax, semantics, and #APIs.
Feedback wlc! https://github.com/w3c/yaml-ld/issues
Animated images (as enabled by GIF, PNG, etc.) are in common use on the web. They autoplay by default, which can be disruptive and doesn’t meet #accessibility standards. The "CSS Image Animation Module Level 1" specification introduces a #CSS property 'image-animation' and a pseudo- class ':animated-image' to let authors and #developers manage and customize how animated images play #timetogiveinput #FPWD
▶️ https://www.w3.org/TR/css-image-animation-1/
Explainer: https://drafts.csswg.org/css-image-animation-1/explainer
📣 The recap of last month's "@w3c@w3c.social Breakouts Day 2026" is out!
▶️ https://www.w3.org/blog/2026/2026-breakouts-day-recap/
This year, people proposed 16 sessions, attended by over 200 people in total.
From #AIGenerated software and web standardization to #accessibility, #privacy, and the future of social #APIs, the community came together to explore what’s next for the Web.
#WebStandards
cc @tidoust@w3c.social and Ian Jacobs
Is your website missing out on one of #HTML’s easiest yet most powerful tools? The lang attribute takes just seconds to add, but it makes a massive difference for #accessibility, SEO, and how your content displays. @webi18n@w3c.social
In this video, @xfq@w3c.social, who leads @w3c@w3c.social's #Internationalization activity, breaks down exactly what the language attribute does and demonstrate why skipping it can have real consequences. @webi18n@w3c.social
Curious who shapes the web’s architecture and how you can influence what comes next? Got ideas for where the Web should go?
Meet the @w3c@w3c.social @tag@w3c.social on March 4, 2026 in #London 🇬🇧 for an open panel + Q&A 🎤
▶️ https://ti.to/web-standards/meet-the-w3c-tag
#developers and content authors, come learn how your voice can help shape its future.
🆓 event! 🎫 register soon!
Handling hallucinations in voice agents can be even more challenging than in text-based #chatbots. In this talk, Ulrike Stiefelhagen shows that industry (Workers Daily Summary) and healthcare (Patient Chat) use cases reveal how evolving requirements in #LLM systems can actually create new opportunities for #voice, even in traditionally difficult contexts like #privacy and noisy environments.
🎬 https://youtu.be/nGf2mvRV2QI
More in: https://www.w3.org/2025/10/smartagents-workshop/report.html
#SmartVoiceAgents
Pronunciation in web content suffers from the lack of a standardized way to specify Synthetic Speech Markup Language (SSML) in #HTML. A standard would benefit assistive technologies, voice agents, and #AI systems learning from web content. In this talk, Sarah Wood showcases an EdTech standards community solution and explores ways to support consistent, accessible pronunciation in web #voice applications.
🎬 https://youtu.be/Bc04fXrR1U4
More in: https://www.w3.org/2025/10/smartagents-workshop/report.html
#SmartVoiceAgents
Congrats to @sphcow@mastodon.social on being appointed as a @tag@w3c.social member by the @w3c@w3c.social team! 👏 👏
The W3C TAG's mission is to define and clarify architectural principles, address broad web architecture issues, and coordinate cross-technology developments within and beyond W3C.
▶️ Find out more: https://www.w3.org/2001/tag/
#w3cTPAC #w3cdevs2025
Co-organizers @mcf@w3c.social and Kensaku Komatsu heartly thank the Kobe devmeetup sponsors for their support: Kobe Digital Lab, Google and Asratec!
One of the event's highlights was an interactive demo by #Kobe-based idol group "GootCrew", showcasing the MOQ protocol for ultra-low-latency media and robot control.
The Linked Web Storage (LWS) vision enables #WebApps development where data storage, #authentication, access control, and app providers are all loosely coupled. It builds on the Solid Community’s work: : https://solidcommunity.net/
The @w3c@w3c.social "Linked Web Storage Protocol 1.0" specification describes how a client communicates with both an authorization server and a compliant storage server #FPWD #timetogiveinput
▶️ https://www.w3.org/TR/lws10-core/
Feedback wlc: https://github.com/w3c/lws-protocol/issues/
Congrats to @cdub@mastodon.social and @tantek.com for the newly published W3C statement: "Vision for W3C". 👏 👏
▶️ https://www.w3.org/TR/w3c-vision/
This document outlines W3C's mission, values, purpose, and guiding principles. It aims to provide clarity on what @w3c@w3c.social is, what it does, and why it matters.
🎬 Tune in to @cdub@mastodon.social’s presentation from last year, where he outlined the vision for the web and W3C: https://youtu.be/O4IELa71J9c
Missed the #w3cTPAC #hackathon in #Kobe 🇯🇵 three weeks ago? Participants were given 90 minutes to address one of two proposed challenges: "CSS Playground" or "Dashboard".
View all cool submitted projects: https://www.w3.org/2025/11/TPAC/hackathon/#submissions
Congrats to the winners @marcosc@mastodon.social, @christianliebel@mastodon.cloud, @diekus@toot.cafe, Koyo Isono, Giacomo Petri, Kazumasa Okabe, Adam Page, @igarashi@w3c.social, Shirisha Balusani, and thanks to @elena@w3c.social for organizing this event! cc @mcf@w3c.social 👇
In this talk, Zohar Gan explores improving #accessibility of 3D web content through semantic metadata and #voice interaction, with a demo and a proposal to standardize a semantic 3D metadata schema, its embedding in media and web spatial voice.
🎬 https://youtu.be/Cq2Is-uIuNU
More in: https://www.w3.org/2025/10/smartagents-workshop/report.html
#SmartVoiceAgents
In this talk, Bhiksha Rajh explores the issue of hallucinations in Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) systems, covering their definition, characterization, measurement, and potential mitigation strategies.
🎬 https://youtu.be/BT1kd0Agv5Q
More in: https://www.w3.org/2025/10/smartagents-workshop/report.html
#SmartVoiceAgents
The @w3c@w3c.social #Publishing Maintenance #WorkingGroup issues EPUB Annotations 1.0 as #FPWD, enabling richer reading and improved interoperability #timetogiveinput
▶️ https://www.w3.org/TR/epub-anno-10/
This document defines a profile of the Web Annotation Data Model for #EPUB publications, enabling annotations such as highlights, notes, and bookmarks to be expressed using embedded #JSON-LD. The spec. also introduces Annotation Sets for packaging and sharing annotations.
Feedback welcome: https://github.com/w3c/epub-specs/issues?q=is%3Aissue%20state%3Aopen%20label%3ASpec-Annotations
After the Ethical Web Principles published as a W3C statement last December, the Privacy Principles developed by @tag@w3c.social have just been published as another W3C Statement, i.e. endorsed as a position by the W3C community.
https://www.w3.org/TR/2025/STMT-privacy-principles-20250515/
@w3cdevs@w3c.social
Congrats to editors @robin@mastodon.social and @jyasskin@hachyderm.io !
At #w3cTPAC in Kobe 🇯🇵, several W3C chartered work groups as well as community-run groups had #AI on their group meeting's agenda. For example, #WebNN got fresh proposals (dynamic shapes, tensor binding), and WebMCP got more in-depth discussion as way to let web apps expose JavaScript-based tools to AI agents integrated in browsers.
✨When you put developers, standards, and sushi 🍣 in one room … magic happens! At #w3cTPAC in Kobe, 30+ folks turned an evening into a #hackathon: 17 projects in 90 minutes! From #CSS playgrounds to data dashboards, the results were useful and highly creative.
Read more: https://www.w3.org/blog/2025/what-happens-when-you-put-developers-standards-and-sushi-in-one-room/
Hackathons like this one remind us that the web moves forward when people show up, try things, and share what they learn.
Thanks to @elena@w3c.social and all who made it happen! See you next time in #Dublin 🇮🇪!
Since 2011, the @w3c@w3c.social Community Group program has enabled anyone to incubate work toward Web standards, resulting in the creation of 100+ specs, with over 20 reaching Recommendation status.
Ian Jacobs and @dontcallmeDOM@w3c.social are exploring improvements to make it easier for specs with traction to move to standardization, better support groups, and make the status of incubated specs clearer.
Learn more in their presentation from last week: https://www.w3.org/2025/09/03-council-minutes.html (incl. minutes, recording and slides)
Web Extensions let users customize their browsers by altering their behaviors and page content through small applications developed by third party #developers. This proposed new @w3c@w3c.social Web Extensions #WorkingGroup aims to standardize a common core of cross-browser extension #APIs that has emerged from recent progress in #interoperability, making cross-browser extension development easier.
▶️ https://w3c.github.io/charter-drafts/2025/webextensions-wg.html
Feedback and input welcome: https://github.com/w3c/charter-drafts/issues?q=is%3Aissue%20state%3Aopen%20title%3A [wg/webextensions]
The Security Web Application Guidelines #CommunityGroup wants to understand how developers are using specific web platform #security features, and what the barriers are to the adoption. #WebApps
📢 Take their survey at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1-8DvgiB3AqrFU7tqe0GCoQsh6lfdOHHnUldOzMrtmeQ/viewform?pli=1&pli=1&pli=1&pli=1&edit_requested=true
🗓️ 20-22 April 2026: the @w3c@w3c.social member-only Spring meeting is held in #Hangzhou 🇨🇳
W3C members will convene to engage in discussions related to strategic directions and their implications and impact on the rest of the world. A session will be dedicated to the 20th anniversary of W3C in China 🎂.
The in-cabin experience for passenger vehicles continues to increase in complexity as auto manufacturers add more features. However, most people only use a small fraction of these, often because they don’t know what’s available or how to access it. In this talk, Frankie James discusses how voice agents can help unlock these capabilities, as well as the potential challenges and limitations of the technology.
🎬 https://youtu.be/rxLhGn6BUp8
More in: https://www.w3.org/2025/10/smartagents-workshop/report.html
#SmartVoiceAgents
Gaze provides informative cues for barge-in detection, turn-taking coordination, and reference resolution in dialog systems, yet commonly remains underutilized in current dialog system implementations. In this talk, Fares Abawi shows how webcam gaze tracking and neural fusion with audio-language features can enable more responsive #multimodal dialog systems.
🎬 https://youtu.be/cHUXbVS7RJI
More in: https://www.w3.org/2025/10/smartagents-workshop/report.html
#SmartVoiceAgents
Congrats to editors Matt Garrish and @tzviya@w3c.social for the two newly published @w3c@w3c.social #WebStandards "Digital Publishing WAI-ARIA Module 1.1 (DPUB-ARIA)" and "Digital Publishing Accessibility API Mappings 1.1 (DPUB-AAM)". #timetoadopt
▶️ https://www.w3.org/TR/dpub-aria-1.1/
▶️ https://www.w3.org/TR/dpub-aam-1.1/
Alexa, Siri, and other #voice assistants rely on turn-based “verbal ping-pong,” waiting for users to finish speaking before responding. Humans communicate continuously, updating understanding in real time. Incremental agents mimic this by processing speech word-by-word, enabling more natural interaction. In this talk, Casey Kennington explores the need and requirements for building real-time processing into agents.
🎬 https://youtu.be/I26KBfY3Vx8
More in: https://www.w3.org/2025/10/smartagents-workshop/report.html
#SmartVoiceAgents
Voice AI moved from #VoiceXML to LLM-driven agents, creating powerful but fragmented platforms. In this talk, RJ Burnham explores whether it’s time for new #voice #AI standards that restore interoperability without stifling innovation.
🎬 https://youtu.be/wSbdFGzZZhs
More in: https://www.w3.org/2025/10/smartagents-workshop/report.html
#SmartVoiceAgents
In this talk, Raj Tumuluri explores the gap between functional performance and emotional resonance in modern #AI, outlining principles for building empathetic, trustworthy systems. Topics include tone consistency, handling ambiguity, and design choices that convey reliability, concluding with a practical framework.
🎬 https://youtu.be/AJMoRjPXn-g
More in: https://www.w3.org/2025/10/smartagents-workshop/report.html
#SmartVoiceAgents
Screen readers enable non-visual web access but lack conversational context. In this talk, Brian Vuong demonstrates how #AI #voice agents can bridge the gap between visual interfaces and blind/low-vision users. He identifies the specific #WebStandards gaps that currently hinder the seamless integration of such third-party agents into the DOM.
🎬 https://youtu.be/qnnYe6D9Cgc
More in: https://www.w3.org/2025/10/smartagents-workshop/report.html
#SmartVoiceAgents
As part of the Open Floor Protocol (OFP) standards group with the @linuxfoundation@social.lfx.dev, Emmet Coin is working on a common protocol for multi-agent conversational systems. The talk demonstrates multi-agent coordination with a human participant and outlines progress toward fully collaborative conversations across agents and humans.
🎬 https://youtu.be/NKPnx73RF6I
More in: https://www.w3.org/2025/10/smartagents-workshop/report.html
#SmartVoiceAgents
Voice agents exist, but poor design disrupts natural communication. In this talk, Paola Di Maio highlights key #UX gaps and presents findings that support #WebStandards for configurable, naturally responsive #voice interactions for #AI agents.
🎬 https://youtu.be/gB7IHey8o_Q
More in: https://www.w3.org/2025/10/smartagents-workshop/report.html
#SmartVoiceAgents
🗓️ Sunday, April 19 (evening) 🇨🇳
Co-organizers @w3c@w3c.social and Ant Group are excited to open registration for the Hangzhou Developer Meetup, bringing together local #developers and W3C members for an engaging community experience.
▶️ https://www.w3.org/events/happenings/2026/hangzhou-developer-meetup/
Expect engaging tech talks, along with live demos featured throughout a networking session with fellow #developers
🎟️ Free to attend, but registration is required! https://labs.w3.org/beihang/signup/2026-hangzhou-dev-meetup
In this talk, Kristiina Jokinen explores designing trustworthy #GenAI based applications, focusing on grounding as a key principle for spoken interaction. She reviews challenges, opportunities, and lessons learnt in creating accountable reasoning and fluent natural dialogue between smart AI agents and users, to support long-term interactions and #trust for responsible and safe #AI agents.
🎬 https://youtu.be/8Pmxmn7gCsA
More in: https://www.w3.org/2025/10/smartagents-workshop/report.html
#SmartVoiceAgents
The growth of voice agents across platforms is hindered by usability, security, and interoperability challenges. In this talk, Patricia Lee presents a data-driven framework for Web standardization, focusing on stakeholder needs, trust and compliance, and measurable requirements to enable scalable, user-friendly #voice #AI adoption.
🎬 https://youtu.be/kT_Z5NWyi5Q
More in: https://www.w3.org/2025/10/smartagents-workshop/report.html
#SmartVoiceAgents
