DeviceOrientation Specification - "Last Call"

Hello All,
Since the previous “Last Call”, a Security and Privacy section in response to the only comment received previously – see http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-geolocation/2015Dec/0000.html.  There has been no additional feedback as per the GH issues list.  So another Last Call is being initiated within the group.

As before note that “Last Call” is not meaningful in the same sense as Last Call for other specifications you may have been involved with in the past.  This is now an informal process to collect final comments on the specification – there will not be any Last Call draft.  The deadline for submission of these comments to the public-geo mailing list is April 11, 2016, 12:00 AM US Pacific time.

-Giri Mandyam, Geolocation Working Group Chair

From: Mandyam, Giridhar [mailto:mandyam@qti.qualcomm.com]
Sent: Saturday, November 14, 2015 7:18 AM
To: public-geolocation <public-geolocation@w3.org>
Cc: Tim Volodine <timvolodine@google.com>
Subject: Regarding DeviceOrientation Specification - "Last Call"

Hello Geolocation Working Group members,

DeviceOrientation has been languishing in standardization for several years now, and part of the reason was the sticking point Tim mentions below (differences between implementations on iOS and other mobile OS’s).  This has been addressed in the latest version of the specification.  I will now open this specification to “Last Call” in the working group to progress it to a Recommendation status.

Note that “Last Call” is not meaningful in the same sense as Last Call for other specifications you may have been involved with in the past.  This is now an informal process to collect final comments on the specification – there will not be any Last Call draft.  The deadline for submission of these comments to the public-geo mailing list is November 30, 2015, 12:00 AM US Pacific time.

-Giri Mandyam, Geolocation Working Group Chair

From: Tim Volodine [mailto:timvolodine@google.com]
Sent: Friday, November 13, 2015 9:06 PM
To: public-geolocation
Subject: Update regarding Device Orientation Specification.

DeviceOrientation Event Specification (http://w3c.github.io/deviceorientation/spec-source-orientation.html) has been amended with the following changes:
- added 'deviceorientationabsolute' event,
- the already existing 'deviceorientation' event is now 'relative' by default.

The idea is that 'deviceorientationabsolute' event can be used in Augmented Reality applications (when the direction of the magnetic north is important). While the 'deviceorientation' event would be suitable for Virtual Reality applications or games.

In particular the reasons behind this change are the following:
- compatibility of 'deviceorientation' with Safari on iOS (where it is 'relative' by default).
- 'deviceorientation' does not require magnetometer anymore and is not distorted by potential external magnetic field.
- usability of 'deviceorientation' for VR applications (e.g. no 'sensor drift' which occurred in the previous 'absolute' implementation)

These changes have been implemented in Chrome for Android but are currently in 'experimental' state, i.e. not yet enabled by default.

thanks,
Tim