W3C

The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of CSS Custom Properties for Cascading Variables Module Level 1. This module introduces cascading variables as a new primitive value type that is accepted by all CSS properties, and custom properties for defining them. Comments are welcome through 18 July.

The group also published a First Public Working Draft of CSS Shapes Module Level 1. CSS Shapes control the geometric shapes used for wrapping inline flow content outside an element. For Level 1, CSS Shapes can be applied to floats. A circle shape on a float will cause inline content to wrap around the circle shape instead of the float's bounding box.

In addition, the group updated CSS Masking Level 1. CSS Masking provides two means for partially or fully hiding portions of visual elements: masking and clipping.

Learn more about the Style Activity.

The System Applications Working Group has published a Working Draft of Web Telephony API. This specification defines an API to manage telephone calls. A typical use case of the Web Telephony API is the implementation of a 'Dialer' application supporting multiparty calls and multiple telephony services. Learn more about the Ubiquitous Web Applications Activity.

The SVG Working Group has published a Working Draft of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 2. This specification defines the features and syntax for Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Version 2, a language for describing two-dimensional vector and mixed vector/raster graphics. Changes in this working draft include introduction of a new ‘hatch’ element as a refinement on patterns, improved accessibility and integration with HTML through the addition of the ‘tabindex’ attribute and changes to the ‘foreignObject’ element, addition of a new 'auto-start-reverse' attribute value for markers, clarification of CSS transforms on SVG content, and various updates to bring SVG closer in line with CSS best practices. See the full list of modifications in the SVG changes appendix. Learn more about the Graphics Activity.

The XML Security Working Group has published a Group Note of Test cases for Canonical XML 2.0. This document outlines test cases for Canonical XML 2.0. Learn more about the Security Activity.

W3C published today a report summarizing the Open Data on the Web workshop that took place in April. The report summarizes the major themes discussed and conclusions arising from them. Participants discussed how to bridge the gap between the worlds of tabular and linked data, and how to ensure the long term growth of the Web as a platform for data.

Sponsored by Google, Adobe and Microsoft, the workshop was organized by W3C in conjunction with the Open Data Institute and the Open Knowledge Foundation, and hosted by Google at Campus London. Learn more about the Semantic Web.