Getting on board

The WURFL community has again been alerted [1] to the mission of the
DDWG. With the public workshop coming up soon (Madrid, July), hopefully
it will be apparent that W3C is serious about the issue of access to
device descriptions. Sources of information such as WURFL will be an
integral part of the solution. There will also be a significant role for
commercial organisations, such as device manufacturers and adaptation
specialists (that includes my employer) who have huge databases of
laboriously gathered device information. Sharing the essential device
information through an agreed interface will make it easier for everyone
to produce improved end-user experiences.

We in the DDWG see this as a supporting technology to achieve results in
keeping with the Best Practices. The latest version of the Mobile Web
Best Practices (BP) acknowledges that "it is likely that a more
sophisticated and enhanced user experience will be achieved if
adaptation is used." [2]

Of course, the success of any adaptation will depend on access to
reliable information about devices. The DDWG has considered the issue in
depth, and has generally been of the opinion that only a small amount of
information is necessary to provide a functional experience, and
probably enough to achieve a BP experience. The problem is providing a
single, common, simple access mechanism to a store of this basic
information. The DDWG is working on this, and is being helped by many
people who already gather device information in various forms, including
s/w vendors, manufacturers, other standards bodies (e.g. OMA) and of
course the ever-generous Open Source community.

If you or your company has an interest in making this objective a
reality, please take a look at the details of the workshop [3].

---Rotan Hanrahan (DDWG Chair)

____________________________
Dr Rotan Hanrahan
Chief Innovations Architect
Mobileaware Ltd



[1]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wmlprogramming/message/14925?viscount=100
[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-mobile-bp-20060412/
[3] http://www.w3.org/2005/MWI/DDWG/workshop2006/