Media Advisory: W3C Mobile Web Initiative Sponsors to Reveal Vision in London on 15 November 2005

The W3C's Mobile Web Initiative is having its inaugural event in London, 
bringing together mobile industry leaders and consumers in an effort to 
make the Web experience both richer and easier on mobile devices. 
Registration is open to the press, but you must register in order to 
attend. Read on to learn more about the Mobile Web Initiative, the 
program for London, and the W3C contact in your region.

Media Advisory - W3C Mobile Web Initiative Sponsors to Reveal Vision in 
London on 15 November 2005

Web Resources:
this press release
   in English: http://www.w3.org/2005/10/mwi-UKevent_media_advisory.html.en
   in French:
http://www.w3.org/2005/10/mwi-UKevent_media_advisory.html.fr

W3C's Mobile Web Initiative: http://www.w3.org/Mobile/

http://www.w3.org/ -- 25 October 2005 -- The World Wide Web Consortium 
(W3C) and sponsors of the Mobile Web Initiative (MWI) are organizing a 
morning of presentations related to challenges and opportunities for the 
mobile Web on Tuesday 15 November 2005. The half-day event will take 
place at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) in London.

"The Mobile Web Initiative's goal is to make browsing the Web from 
mobile devices a reality," explains Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director and 
inventor of the Web. "W3C and mobile industry leaders are working 
together to improve Web content production and access for mobile users 
and the greater Web."

Mobile Web Initiative Aims to Provide a Richer and Easier Web User 
Experience

The rich Web environment is one that users now expect to access from 
mobile devices as well as the desktop. Yet interoperability and 
usability problems persist, and mobile Web access still suffers as a 
result. With the support of international mobile industry leaders, W3C 
recently launched the Mobile Web Initiative, which aims to use existing 
standards in documentable ways — Mobile Web Best Practices (see news 
item) — to improve the mobile experience on the Web.

Mobile Web Initiative to Hold Its First Outreach Event in Europe

This public MWI event will focus on current mobile Web challenges and 
opportunities. The program opens with a video welcome from Tim 
Berners-Lee, followed by a presentation on the vision and ambitions for 
the mobile Web by Dr. Philipp Hoschka, Deputy Director for W3C Europe 
and W3C's Mobile Web Initiative leader.

Mobile Web Initiative sponsors will speak on two panels: "Mobile Web 
Challenges and Potential" and "Putting the Vision into Practice", 
chaired respectively by Rotan Hanharan, chief architect at MobileAware, 
and Daniel Appelquist, senior technology strategist for the Vodafone Group.

The content of this half day's talks is to be made available to the 
public. W3C is organizing this event to further the MWI mission of 
educating operators, content developers, and handset manufacturers on 
available options and new developments.

Mobile Web Initiative Boasts Strong International Sponsorship

The current nineteen MWI sponsors are key players in the mobile 
production chain, including authoring tool vendors, content providers, 
adaptation providers, handset manufacturers, browser vendors and mobile 
operators. They are:

Afilias, Argogroup, Bango.net, Drutt Corporation, Ericsson, France 
Telecom, HP, Jataayu Software, mTLD, MobileAware, Nokia, NTT DoCoMo, 
Opera Software, TIM Italia, RuleSpace, Segala M Test, Sevenval, 
Vodafone, and Volantis.

Logistics and Contact Information

Date: 15 November 2005
Time: from 8:30 am until 12:30pm
Location: The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), 195
Piccadilly, London - W1J 9LN, UK

To register, press should contact Salli Roskilly at 
salli@saffroncoms.com (Tel: +44 (0)1763 208708 -- Mob: +44 07977 573003) 
or fill out the online registration form.

Contact Americas and Australia --
     Janet Daly, <janet@w3.org>, +1.617.253.5884 or +1.617.253.2613
Contact Europe, Africa and Middle East --
     Marie-Claire Forgue, <mcf@w3.org>, +33 4 92 38 75 94 or +33 6 76 86 
33 41
Contact Asia --
     Yasuyuki Hirakawa <chibao@w3.org>, +81.466.49.1170

About W3C's Mobile Web Initiative (W3C-MWI)

The mission of W3C’s Mobile Web Initiative (W3C MWI) is to make Web 
access from a mobile device as simple, easy, and convenient as Web 
access from a desktop device. Through the MWI Sponsorship Program, key 
players in the mobile production chain, including authoring tool 
vendors, content providers, adaptation providers, handset manufacturers, 
browser vendors and mobile operators lead the Initiative. MWI 
participants develop authoring guidelines, checklists and best 
practices, as well as a database of descriptions that can be used by 
content authors to adapt their content to a particular device. For more 
information see http://www.w3.org/Mobile/
About the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

The W3C was created to lead the Web to its full potential by developing 
common protocols that promote its evolution and ensure its 
interoperability. It is an international industry consortium jointly run 
by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT 
CSAIL) in the USA, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and 
Mathematics (ERCIM) headquartered in France and Keio University in 
Japan. Services provided by the Consortium include: a repository of 
information about the World Wide Web for developers and users, and 
various prototype and sample applications to demonstrate use of new 
technology. To date, nearly 400 organizations are Members of the 
Consortium. For more information see http://www.w3.org/

Received on Tuesday, 25 October 2005 02:56:03 UTC