W3C Mobile Web tutorial @ WWW2012

6 02 2012

At this year’s 21th International World Wide Web Conference – WWW2012, W3C organizes a W3C tutorial track over two days, on Monday 16 and Tuesday 17 April 2012.

Half-day tutorials from leading experts will be available to researchers and developers seeking to pick up new skills on the latest developments on W3C Web standards.

One of these W3C tutorials will be about “Developing Mobile Web Applications” and will be taught by Dominique Hazaël-Massieux (W3C Mobile Web Activity Lead) and Frances de Waal (W3DevCampus trainer for the Mobile Web and Application Best Practices online training course). The tutorial informations are summarized below:

  • W3C tutorial on “Developing Mobile Web Applications”
  • by Frances de Wall and Dominique Hazaël-Massieux
  • on Tuesday April 17th – morning
  • at the Lyon Convention Centre, Lyon, France
  • Abstract: Participants to the tutorial will learn how to build applications for mobile devices using Web technologies. We will first focus on what makes it different to use the Web on mobile devices compared to computers: the specific constraints of these devices, as well as their increasing specific advantages. The tutorial will then look at how to exploit all the specificities of the mobile user experience, via JavaScript APIs, touch interactions, camera integration, etc.
  • Please register to this tutorial before 13 February to get an early bird rate!


New “startup level” for W3C Membership

6 02 2012

Part of the goals of our MobiWebApp project is to help more European SMEs get involved in the standardization work around Web applications on mobile devices.

As a result, we’ve been pushing for the adoption of a new W3C Membership level targeted at small enterprises, which W3C just announced is now available to any company with less than 10 employees, less than 2.25M Euros of gross revenues and has never been a W3C Member before.

The fee for most Europe-based companies is at 1950€ (as can be verified in the W3C fees calculator), making it a great opportunity for small business that would like to help shape the future standards of the Web. Don’t miss it!



Early bird rate ends soon for the MWABP course

6 01 2012

Just a quick reminder that the early bird rate for the W3C “Mobile Web and Application Best Practices” (MWABP) acclaimed course is expiring next Monday. Do register before 9 January 2012 eod, and save 60 Euros!

This 3rd edition of the MWABP course will start on 30 January, and will last 8 weeks. Participants are expected to spend an average of 4-6 hours per week to both learn the course material and work on  the assignments.

The course will be lead by trainers Frances de Waal and Phil Archer. Read the past students’ feedback and find out more about the course. And again, do not forget to register before 9 January 2012 to benefit from the early bird rate!



Registration opens for 3rd edition of the Mobile Web training course

13 12 2011

W3C is pleased to announce a third edition of its most popular online training course, “Introduction to Mobile Web and Application Best Practices“:

During the course, participants will:

  • learn about and use the recommended versions of HTML and CSS to use for mobile today;
  • understand the constraints of working on mobile and how to overcome them to deliver the best possible experience to the widest range of users;
  • practice client side and server side content adaptation techniques;
  • learn about and use the exciting new APIs available on modern mobile platforms.

The course will be lead by trainers Frances de Waal and Phil Archer. Read the past students’ feedback and find out more about the course. And do not forget to register before 9 January 2012 to benefit from the early bird rate!



November Update to Standards for Web Applications on Mobile

6 12 2011

Back in February, I announced the start of a series of updates for a standardization roadmap for Web applications on mobile devices, a compilation of the most relevant current and upcoming technologies to develop Web applications well-fitted to mobile devices, which was again updated in May and August 2011.

I have just released a fourth update to that document that takes into account the many changes that have occurred in the past 3 months. Among the highlights:

The next smaller iteration of this document will be provided end of February, in time for Mobile Word Congress 2012. Stay tuned!



Beyond the device frontier

21 11 2011

I’ve just published on the W3C blog an illustration on another aspect in which mobile Web applications create new opportunities: given how ubiquitous the Web is becoming, it is now offering ways for devices to complete one another, making what I call “hyperdevices” (by analogy to hypertext).

I’ve built two demonstrations that illustrate this, and that you can either run by yourself, or simply watch as a video:

  • the remote whiteboard exploits touch-capabilities from a mobile device to draw on a computer (video);
  • the 3D explorer uses a mobile device with an accelerometer as a way to manipulate a 3D object on another screen (video).

The work happening in the Device APIs Working Group — in particular around device discovery — will be a critical component in making this type of interactions a natural extension of what we think of using the Web.



Workshop Papers on Offline Web Applications

28 10 2011

As announced a few weeks ago, next week a W3C workshop dedicated to offline Web applications will take place in Santa Clara, California.

I submitted two position papers based on the input and feedback I’ve gathered through the MobiWebApp project: one on HTTP optimizations for HTML5’s ApplicationCache, and the other on making Web applications first class citizens.

These are only two of the 28 papers that were submitted to the workshop, and which are bound to make a basis for a great discussion next Saturday.



Mobile Web Applications Interoperability Event

18 10 2011

Are you concerned about mobile fragmentation? Do you need to test a Web application on a mobile device? If so, we would like to invite you to the Mobile Web Applications Interoperability event on 6-7 December 2011, in Sophia-Antipolis, France.

This event, co-organized by W3C through MobiWebApp and MOSQUITO project partners, and hosted by ETSI, will be the occasion:

  • to practice and develop test cases for the W3C testing framework. Web specifications under consideration are those directly relevant for the development of mobile Web applications (candidates include the audio/video elements in HTML5, HTML5 Application Cache, the Contacts API, Device Orientation Event specification, Web Storage, Web Workers).
  • to test Web applications on a wide variety of devices through various network configurations

Participation is free and open to everyone. Please register on ETSI’s Web site by mid-November.

Check the Call for Participation for details.



Workshop on future of Offline Web Applications

12 09 2011

W3C just announced an upcoming workshop on one of the key aspects of the development and deployment of Web applications, in particular on mobile devices: the ability to install them and keep them working while offline.

The workshop aims at identifying a clear path forward for innovation in the Open Web Platform related to offline Web application invocation and use.

The workshop will be held on November 5 2011, hosted by Vodafone in Redwood city in California, right after the W3C annual TPAC week of meetings in Santa Clara.

If you want to contribute to the discussions, please submit a position paper by September 30, as described in the call for participation.




Standards for Web Applications on Mobile: Current state and roadmap

5 09 2011

Back in February, I announced the start of a series of updates for a standardization roadmap for Web applications on mobile devices, a compilation of the most relevant current and upcoming technologies to develop Web applications well-fitted to mobile devices, which was again updated in May 2011.

Standardization roadmap preview

As the project reaches the end of its first year, I have now just released a more complete version of that roadmap, with perspectives on what’s coming up over the course of the next year.

It also takes into account the latest changes in this space, with new drafts from the Web performance Working Group, a new charter for the Device APIs group, an early editors draft for Web Real-Time communications and much more.

This document is extracted from the equivalent page in the W3C wiki, where contributions from the larger community are more than welcomed. Many thanks to those who already contributed to it!

The next smaller iteration of this document will be provided end of November. Stay tuned!