Fw: W3C Mobile Web Access Initiative

Hi;

I don't know if this is something ua want to look into?  The mobile web is 
certainly on the rise, about two and a half years ago we got 2.5G or General 
Packet Radio Service (GPRS) here in the UK, which offers transfer rates of 
around 55KbPS, and one of the big three cell networks started it's Wideband 
Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA), reffered to as 3G in most of Europe, 
this week, and that gives transfer rates of upto 2MbPS.  So, the ability is 
there to browse the web as if you were at home, and the cell networks are 
trying to push their 3G services quite hard, as it was expensive to purchase 
the licences from the government.

On the software side of things, there's Microsoft's offerings such as 
SmartPhone and WinCE, both of which support the .Net compact framework, and 
I know WinCE has PocketIE.  There's also Java in the form of J2ME, which 
I've been told is a bit vendor specific as to it's implementation on cell 
phones.

Therefore, this could potentially offer great opportunities for the mobile 
web.  Maybe Matt could advise, as I don't know the specs mentioned in the 
article, but to me it seems something of a semantic based protocol.  The 
device is saying "here's the format I need the information in.  Please can 
you provide it in this form?".  If this is the case, then it offers very 
easy translation into a veriety of forms required for accessibility, such as 
text, speech, and so on, especially if it's XML based content.

Will
----- Original Message ----- >
> W3C highlights Mobile Web Initiative at workshop
> Initiative aims to make Web access from mobile devices as easy as desktop
> Web access
>
> By Laura Rohde, IDG News Service
> November 18, 2004
>
> The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is considering a new effort called the
> "W3C Mobile Web Initiative," that will seek to make Web access from mobile
> devices such as mobile phones and PDAs (personal digital assistants), as
> simple, easy and convenient as desktop Web access.
> The W3C made the announcement at a two-day "Mobile Web Initiative" 
> workshop,
> begun Thursday in Barcelona, Spain, organized to help efforts to improve
> Web-surfing capabilities of handheld devices.
> Participants are highlighting the challenges in accessing the Web over
> handheld devices and discussing possible solutions, the group said.
>
> Over 40 position papers were submitted to the W3C for presentation at the
> workshop from companies like Vodafone (Profile, Products, Articles) Group,
> Nokia (Profile, Products, Articles), and Hewlett-Packard (Profile, 
> Products,
> Articles).
>
> Ideas include developing "best practices" documents, providing support
> infrastructures for mobile developers, organizing training programs for 
> Web
> content providers and creating validation and conformance testing services
> for Web-access from mobile devices, the W3C said.
> The workshop is part of the W3C's ongoing work to refine the mobile Web
> experience. In January, it recommended a new standard, the technical
> specification called "Composite Capability/Preference Profiles (CC/PP):
> Structures and Vocabularies 1.0," as a means for enabling handheld devices
> to communicate with Web servers and exchange content delivery information.
>
> Tim Berners-Lee founded the W3C in October 1994 as a group to sponsor work
> to develop common Web protocols. The group, which collaborates closely 
> with
> CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is hosted by the
> Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at Massachusetts
> Institute of Technology, by European Research Consortium for Informatics 
> and
> Mathematics in France and by the Keio Research Institute at Keio 
> University
> in Japan.
>
> All of the position papers submitted to W3C can be accessed online at:
> http://www.w3.org/2004/10/MWIWS-papers
>

Received on Friday, 19 November 2004 08:03:19 UTC