[January 09, 2001]
ARTS Convention to Demonstrate IXRetail XML Messaging.
A recent announcement from the Association
of Retail Technology Standards (ARTS) describes a "public
demonstration of the new IXRetail standard using XML to connect
various applications from different vendors across multiple
platforms. Convention attendees will see XML connect POS (Point Of
Service) to Price Management and Inventory including transactions
from RF, wireless and the Internet. The XML messages will build on
the work of ActiveStore schemas and use the new ARTS
XML Data Dictionary. ARTS, in cooperation with ActiveStore, has
developed Extensible Markup Language (XML) messages to interface
systems within the retail enterprise. The UCC has been working with
VICS, ECR Europe and the Global Commerce Initiative to develop a
merchandise classification standard focused on business-to-business
operations. The Association for Retail Technology Standards (ARTS)
of the National Retail Federation is a retailer-driven membership
organization dedicated to creating an open environment where both
retailers and technology vendors work together to create
international retail technology standards. ARTS has two standards
embraced by the retail industry around the world: (1) Standard
Retail Data Model, and (2) Unified POS. These standards have been
created through a cooperative effort of retailers and software
solution providers to reduce the time and cost of implementing
technology within the retailing industry. The National
Retail Federation has been developing the Product Attribute
System (PAS) for the past nine months, which is designed to assist
consumers in quickly identifying and locating merchandise on the
Internet. PAS is intended to be an industry guideline, rather than a
standard. The UCC and NRF have identified initial areas for joint
activity and cooperation. In September [2000], ARTS and IXRetail
moved a significant portion of the Data Model into the public domain
as an XML Data Dictionary for use in creating XML messages. ARTS and
the UCC will meet to explore the possibility of creating a common
data dictionary to support the retail industry processes on the
global level." The IXRetail standard under development is a
"cooperative effort of the Association
for Retail Technology (ARTS), which is a division of the NRF,
and ActiveStore, a Microsoft-led standards initiative." See
further detail in (1) the text of the announcement, "NRF
Convention to be Forum for First Retail XML Demonstration. IXRetail
Cooperative Shows Proof Behind Theory", and (2) "ARTS
IXRetail."
[January 09, 2001]
Marketplace XML (mpXML) for Virtual Private Marketplaces.
SourceTrack recently announced Marketplace XML (mpXML) as
"open XML standard for the exchange of electronic commerce
marketplace information." The company's hosted service, based
on the Ariba Marketplace solution, provides customized 'virtual
private marketplaces' for companies purchasing electronically from
their own preferred suppliers. The SourceTrack web site provides
access to the XML DTD and sample documents. From the announcement:
"SourceTrack, a
Tampa-based, e-purchasing service for mid-sized companies and their
suppliers, has unveiled Marketplace XML (mpXML), an open XML
standard for the exchange of electronic commerce marketplace
information. SourceTrack authored mpXML in response to its need for
a simple, flexible, standard method to quickly exchange supplier
data and import supplier catalogs into the SourceTrack marketplace.
mpXML is a combination of SourceTrack-authored rules and existing
best-of-breed XML standards.
[January 09, 2001]
W3C Publishes MathML 2.0 Specification as a Proposed Recommendation.
Mathematical
Markup Language (MathML) Version 2.0 has been released as
a W3C Proposed Recommendation. Reference: W3C Proposed
Recommendation 08-January-2001, edited by David Carlisle (NAG),
Patrick Ion (Mathematical Reviews, American Mathematical Society),
Robert Miner (Design Science, Inc.), and Nico Poppelier (Penta
Scope). The Proposed Recommendation review period extends through
5-February-2001, after which the specification may become a W3C
Recommendation. Document abstract: "This specification defines
the Mathematical Markup Language, or MathML. MathML is an XML
application for describing mathematical notation and capturing both
its structure and content. The goal of MathML is to enable
mathematics to be served, received, and processed on the World Wide
Web, just as HTML has enabled this functionality for text. This
specification of the markup language MathML is intended primarily
for a readership consisting of those who will be developing or
implementing renderers or editors using it, or software that will
communicate using MathML as a protocol for input or output. It is
not a User's Guide but rather a reference document. This document
begins with background information on mathematical notation, the
problems it poses, and the philosophy underlying the solutions
MathML proposes.
[January 08, 2001]
Revised Last Call Working Draft for XPointer Version 1.0.
Daniel Veillard
posted an announcement
for W3C's release of an updated (second) last call working draft
specification for XML
Pointer Language (XPointer) Version 1.0. Reference: W3C
Last Call Working Draft 8-January-2001, edited by Steve
DeRose (Brown University Scholarly Technology Group), Eve
Maler (Sun Microsystems), and Ron
Daniel Jr. (Interwoven). The working draft specification
"defines the XML Pointer Language (XPointer), the language to
be used as the basis for a fragment identifier for any URI reference
that locates a resource whose Internet media type is one of text/xml,
application/xml, text/xml-external-parsed-entity,
or application/xml-external-parsed-entity. XPointer, which
is based on the XML Path
Language (XPath), supports addressing into the internal
structures of XML documents. XPointer's extensions to XPath allow it
to: (1) Address points and ranges as well as whole nodes; (2) Locate
information by string matching; (3) Use addressing expressions in
URI references as fragment identifiers, after suitable escaping.
XPointer allows for examination of a hierarchical document structure
and choice of its internal parts based on various properties, such
as element types, attribute values, character content, and relative
position. In particular, XPointer provides for specific reference to
elements, character strings, and other parts of XML documents,
whether or not they bear an explicit ID attribute. The
structures located with XPointer can be used as link targets or for
any other application-specific purpose. This specification does not
constrain what uses an application may make of locations identified
by XPointers. In particular, implementation of traversal to a
resource is not constrained by this specification, and whether user
'traversal' is the purpose of an XPointer at all is
application-dependent. A formatted-text browser traversal might
scroll to and highlight the designated location; a
structure-oriented graphical viewer or a document-relationship
display might do traversal in quite a different way; and a search
application, parser, archival system, or expert agent might use
XPointers for other purposes entirely.
[January 08, 2001]
RenderX Releases 'XEP' XSL Flow Object (FO) Rendering Engine Version
2.01.
Nikolai Grigoriev (RenderX)
has announced the release of an updated version of XEP, a XSL Flow
Object (FO) Rendering Engine for converting XSL FO documents to
either PDF or PostScript. XEP
Version 2.01 is now available for download from the RenderX
web site. "The web site itself has also undergone major
changes in both the design and the contents. All examples and demos
are now conformant to the last XSL FO version (Candidate
Recommendation). The new version of XEP has several improvements as
compared to the previous one (XEP 1.02): (1) it supports the fresh
XSL FO specification (Candidate Recommendation of 21 November 2000);
(2) additional XSL FO functionality has been implemented; (3) the
code has been optimized to run faster; (4) native PDFlib library
calls have been replaced by pure Java code; (5) font support is
greatly improved [user fonts can be embedded; Unicode support is
consistent and versatile]; (6) documentation has been improved: it
now includes an XSL FO primer; (7) Ant-based installation script is
provided; (8) extra examples and tools are included in the
distribution [FO-to-HTML stylesheet; migration stylesheet to convert
XEP 1.02 files to XSL FO CR.]
[January 08, 2001]
James Clark Announces New Schema Language 'TREX' (Tree Regular
Expressions for XML).
James Clark (Thai Open Source
Software Center) has posted an announcement
for the release of TREX (Tree Regular Expressions for XML) -- a
simple schema language for validating XML documents. "I've
designed and implemented a small, simple schema language. It's
called TREX (Tree Regular Expressions for XML). Calling it a schema
language is perhaps misleading: it's goal is purely validation. It
doesn't aim to assist in interpreting or processing the document.
The post-validation infoset is exactly the same as the
pre-validation infoset. You can find more, including a tutorial,
a (relatively) formal spec and a sample implementation in Java on
top of SAX2 at http://www.thaiopensource.com/trex/.
TREX is basically the type system of XDuce
with an XML syntax and with a bunch of additional features (like
support for attributes and namespaces) needed to make it a practical
language for structure validation. Of existing Schema languages,
it's closest to RELAX.
It's not tied to any particular datatyping language; rather, the
idea is that you can plug whatever datatyping language you want (e.g.,
XML Schemas Part 2).
This is the first release, so there will certainly be bugs in both
the documents and the implementation. I plan to continue to refine
both the design and the implementation. Input is
welcome."
[January 06, 2001]
Multi-Channel Access XML (MAXML).
Curious Networks is
developing 'Multi-Channel Access XML (MAXML)' as an XML application
which "fully supports HTML, XHTML, XML, WAP (HDML and WML),
Palm PQAs, VoiceXML and Java and will support new channels as they
emerge." From the web site description: MAXML is "an
XML-based definition language that enables a developer to create one
application definition and have it instantly accessible. MAXML is
designed specifically for the growing need to deploy applications on
not just one, but many access channels simultaneously. By utilizing
MAXML, [Curious Networks'] Continuum
delivers powerful and efficient wired and wireless solutions through
a single development effort. The Foundation of MAXML is Interaction
Oriented Development. MAXML defines both the integration into
backend systems and how users will interact with data in these
backend systems -- independent of the access device. Curious
Networks designed MAXML using a fundamentally different approach to
application development. Unlike traditional development processes
based on defining presentation, MAXML is founded on how users
interact with information. Developers define their applications
within MAXML in terms of interactions users will have with the
applications. Curious Networks has defined these interactions
through extensive research and usability tests on how people want
information organized and presented as well as how they interact
with it.
[January 06, 2001]
Resource Directory Description Language (RDDL) Specification and
RDDL API.
Jonathan Borden (of The
Open Healthcare Group) recently announced the release of an
updated specification for 'Resource Directory Description Language
(RDDL)', together with a new RDDL namespace URI http://www.rddl.org/
and some code which demonstates the beginnings of a RDDL API. A
"Resource Directory" as defined by the Resource
Directory Description Language (RDDL) Specification
"provides a text description of some class of resources and of
other resources related to that class. It also contains a directory
of links to these related resources. An example of a class of
resources is that defined by an XML
Namespace. Examples of such related resources include schemas,
stylesheets, and executable code. A Resource Directory Description
is designed to be suitable for service as the body of a resource
returned by deferencing a URI serving as an XML Namespace name. The
Resource Directory Description Language is an extension of XHTML
Basic 1.0 with a new element named resource. This element serves as
an XLink to the referenced
resource.
[January 05, 2001]
PostSecondary Electronic Standards Council XML Forum for Education.
The Postsecondary Electronic Standards Council (PESC) recently
chartered an 'XML Forum for Education' for the purpose of
establishing Extensible Markup Language (XML) standards for the
higher education community. The Forum was established following
several months of study by teams assigned to assess the technical
aspects of XML, its application in higher education, and future
development trends.
[January 04, 2001]
Program for XSLT-UK, the First XSLT Conference.
Sebastian
Rahtz has posted an announcement
with the program listing for XSLT-UK, 'the first XSLT
conference'. "The first XSLT-UK conference will take place in
the UK, Sunday and Monday, 8-9 April 2001 in Keble College, Oxford,
England. We now have our speakers lined up, the venue is booked, and
its looking good for an interesting two days. The conference is
priced reasonably, and if you are really new to XSLT, then Ken
Holman's two-day course is set to run on Friday and Saturday, 6th
and 7th April 2001. This provides an ideal introduction to
XSLT." The speaker lineup includes Jeni Tennison, Michael Kay,
Jacek Ambroziak, Norm Walsh, Steve Muench, Tom Kaiser, Wolfgang
Emmerich, Leigh Dodds , Mario Jeckle, Ben Robb, Evan Lenz, Arved
Sandstrom, and G. Ken Holman. The announcement is at http://www.dpawson.co.uk/xsltuk/,
and registration is now open.
[January 03, 2001]
W3C Last Call Working Drafts for Speech Recognition Grammar and
Speech Synthesis Markup Language.
The W3C Voice Browser Working
Group has issued two 'last call' working draft documents for the
W3C Speech Interface Framework. These specifications are part of the
W3C Voice Browser Activity, in which W3C "is working to expand
access to the Web to allow people to interact with Web sites via
spoken commands, and listening to prerecorded speech, music and
synthetic speech. This will allow any telephone to be used to access
Web-based services, and will be a boon to people with visual
impairments or needing Web access while keeping theirs hands and
eyes free for other things. It will also allow effective interaction
with display-based Web content in the cases where the mouse and
keyboard may be missing or inconvenient. The review period for both
WDs ends 31-January-2001.
[January 03, 2001]
Microsoft Releases Updated SOAP Toolkit and Web Services Behavior
Application.
From a recent company announcement: "Microsoft
Corporation today unveiled two SOAP-related technologies to help
developers build and use Web Services -- applications made available
over the Web via Internet-standard XML, SOAP and UDDI. The first
tool is the beta release of the Microsoft
SOAP Toolkit Version 2.0, which provides developers using
Microsoft Visual Studio 6.0 with rapid Web Services development
capabilities for production-ready applications. The second is Web
Services Behavior for the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser
software, enabling Web developers to aggregate Web Services from
multiple Web pages. Both are key technologies for facilitating the
creation and integration of Web Services, the programmable building
blocks that form the next-generation applications of the
Internet.
[January 03, 2001]
'W3C Working Draft for Stochastic Language Models (N-Gram)
Specification.
The W3C Voice Browser Working
Group has published a first public working draft for a Stochastic
Language Models (N-Gram) Specification. Reference: W3C
Working Draft 3-January-2001, edited by Michael K. Brown (Avaya
Labs), Andreas Kellner (Philips Research Labs), and Dave Raggett
(W3C/Openwave). Section 11 of the draft supplies the XML Document
Type Definition for W3C Stochastic Language Model (N-Gram)
Specification. This working draft specification "defines syntax
for representing N-Gram (Markovian) stochastic grammars within the
W3C Speech Interface Framework. The use of stochastic N-Gram models
has a long and successful history in the research community and is
now more and more effecting commercial systems, as the market asks
for more robust and flexible solutions. The primary purpose of
specifying a stochastic grammar format is to support large
vocabulary and open vocabulary applications. In addition, stochastic
grammars can be used to represent concepts or semantics. This
specification defines the mechanism for combining stochastic and
structured (in this case Context-Free) grammars as well as methods
for combined semantic definitions."
[January 03, 2001]
CGM Open Releases Browser Helper Object (BHO) for WebCGM Web
Graphics.
CGM Open has announced
the public release of a Browser Helper Object (BHO) which allows
software vendors to build WebCGM viewers that can handle
object-level WebCGM addressing. CGM Open is an OASIS-affiliated
global consortium dedicated to standardized graphical information
exchange. The Browser
Helper Object project has developed the product for software
developers who want to develop a WebCGM viewer; the code is offered
as a public service to the developer community. According to the
announcement, the tool "enables browsers such as Microsoft
Internet Explorer to effectively use the WebCGM Web graphics
standard. Designed in collaboration with Microsoft, the CGM Open BHO
is an add-on software component that allows object-to-object linking
of graphics in Web content... W3C standards prescribe an extension
associated with URLs -- the 'URL fragment' -- which enables
specifications such as WebCGM (and SVG) to address individual
graphical objects within Web documents or pages. It was discovered
that Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE, 5.0 and 5.5 at least) did not
correctly handle URL fragments in all necessary situations. The
WebCGM BHO solves the problem for WebCGM applications running with
IE.
[January 02, 2001]
Release of Apache FOP Version 0.16.
A posting from Arved
Sandstrom contains the announcement
for the Version 0.16 release of FOP, the Apache XML Project's XSL-FO
(Extensible Stylesheet Language Formatting Objects) processor. FOP
is a Java application that "reads a formatting object tree and
then turns it into a PDF document. The formatting object tree can be
in the form of an XML document (output by an XSLT engine like XT or
Xalan) or can be passed in memory as a DOM Document or (in the case
of XT) SAX events." Arved says: "Significant additions in
this 0.16 release include column support, hyphenation, and PDF
compression. Tables have also received a lot of attention. In the
larger picture, work continues on filling in the gaps between the
XSL Candidate Recommendation and FOP. We anticipate a production
release which has at least Basic conformance in all areas by
early-mid spring of this year.
[January 02, 2001]
XML Namespace Resources.
The end of calendar year 2000 saw eruption of (yet) another
communal lament about the W3C
XML Namespace specification, which fails to meet the
requirements or expectations of some users. Resulting from the
discussion: a number of new proposals for indicating "what a
namespace URI should point to." (1) Tim Bray, one of the XML
Namespace editors, licensed
underground activity for a namespace markup vocabulary that
could reference related resources ("it would have to be done
low, fast, and under the radar...") and then floated
his own suggestion for XNRL
(XML Namespace Related-Resource Language). "XML Namespace
Related-resource Language (XNRL) is an HTML-based markup language
designed to contain a human-readable description of an XML namespace
as well as pointers to multiple resources related to that namespace.
Examples of such related resources include schemas, stylesheets,
human-readable documentation (beyond that contained in the XNRL
package) and executable code. XNRL is designed to be suitable for
service as the body of a resource returned by deferencing a URI
serving as an XML Namespace name. [The draft proposal] defines the
syntax and semantics of XNRL, and also serves as an XNRL package for
the namespace http://xnrl.org/." (2) Jonathan Borden presented
an "XML
Namespace Catalog Format." The proposal "defines a
format for an XML Namespace Catalog. An XML Namespace Catalog serves
as a text description of an XML Namespace and includes links to
resources associated with the namespace such as schemata,
stylesheets and/or other resources associated with the namespace
URI.
[January 02, 2001]
DAMSAD Final Draft on 'Datatyping for Electronic Data Interchange'
Approved.
A communiqué from Man-Sze Li
(CEN/ISSS Electronic Commerce Workshop Chair) announces approval of
a 'final draft' version of a DAMSAD datatyping specification which
uses W3C XML Schema. The CEN/ISSS
Electronic Commerce Workshop "has approved the final draft
of "Datatyping
for Electronic Data Interchange" produced by its Project
Group on Defining
and Managing Semantics and Datatypes for European Electronic
Commerce (DAMSAD). The document, which is to be formally
published as a CEN Workshop Agreement, analyses various techniques
for defining and constraining data or code set values used within
B2B electronic data interchange messages. It recommends usage of the
W3C datatype
specification. The Project Group plans to develop a set of
guidelines to enable the harmonization of business semantics in
support of European e-commerce. DAMSAD is chaired by Martin Bryan of
The SGML Centre. In
addition, CEN/ISSS is to hold an Open
Forum entitled "The state of the art in B2B standards
issues" on January 23rd and 24th in Brussels. The overall event
includes two
additional seminars, one of which will explore the harmonization
of European semantic sets. The objective is to enable the various
e-commerce sectorial and generic groups within CEN/ISSS, and in
other standardization arenas, to share experiences and findings, and
to discuss problems associated with the development and maintenance
of semantic sets for use in European electronic commerce. A
subsidiary aim is to ascertain the relevance of the DAMSAD
recommendations to the sectoral work, and to help facilitate a
European contribution to the on-going international standardization
efforts on the use of datatypes..." See also the CWA document
abstract.
