W3C sees graphics on mobile phones

NEWS

In a development that could help Adobe erode some of Macromedia's vector graphics lead, the Web's most influential standards group issued a draft designed to make its vector graphics standard work more easily on cell phones. Facing an end-of-year publishing deadline, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) this week also released a flurry of proposals covering linking and querying Web pages and XML documents. But the consortium reserved most of its enthusiasm for the vector graphics changes, which it hopes will help nudge the industry away from the accepted -- and proprietary -- standard, Macromedia's Flash technology. "What we're seeing are some exciting developments on the SVG front," said W3C representative Janet Daly. SVG, or (Scalable Vector Graphics), is the W3C's method for creating vector graphics, which are more flexible than the common bitmaps that form most of the graphics on the Web. In contrast to bitmaps, which are transmitted fully rendered and defined pixel by pixel, vector graphics are composed of mathematical descriptions of curves and forms. This composition results in a more compact file, the ability to render the image to fit television or monitor screens with varying resolutions, and greater ease in animating the image. In addition to a new version of SVG that lets developers separate the protocol into smaller modules that work on smaller devices, the consortium is heralding the release of third-party tools designed to help developers use SVG in their Web pages. New versions of Adobe's Acrobat viewer support SVG. This month alone, SVG tools or support have cropped up from the likes of Corel, Mattercast, Safe Software and Toon Boom, a cartoon-authoring toolmaker. The new SVG architecture follows a recent standardisation trend, which is to divide up a protocol into separable modules. These smaller subsets are tailored for specific uses, so that someone designing vector graphics for cell phone screens doesn't have to negotiate the full-featured SVG protocol meant for use with desktop computer systems. But one analyst said that while the W3C's modularisation schemes look good in theory, they had yet to prove themselves in the real world. "XHTML has the same modular structure, which should be good from an adoption point of view," said Ron Schmelzer, a senior analyst at ZapThink, a research firm that focuses on XML and Web services. "But XHTML modules haven't been adopted that much." Schmelzer said SVG fit right into Adobe's larger goal to provide content-rendering technologies that render similarly on various platforms. "For Adobe, this is like the way that PDF allowed universal representation of documents," Schmelzer said. "With vector graphics, the images will always render consistently." Macromedia in the past has dismissed SVG, pointing to Flash's near ubiquity on personal computers and the relative scarcity of SVG on the Web. But Schmelzer said Macromedia would do well to embrace the open standard rather than let Adobe get an early advantage in the SVG market. Macromedia and Adobe were not immediately available for comment, but Macromedia released a prepared statement on the W3C release. "We have not had significant demand from our user base for SVG-related features," read the statement. "None of the Web browser companies have announced support of SVG, and the large file size of the SVG plug-in (2.2MB) is still a deterrent to any significant desktop browser saturation. Macromedia Flash Player, on the other hand, is under 400K and is installed on 98 percent of all major browsers." But Schmelzer, in response to Macromedia's dismissive attitude toward SVG, said, "denial is always the first stage." Through 20 December, the W3C is seeking comments on its SVG 1.1 proposed recommendation and two Mobile SVG profiles -- SVG Tiny, designed for cell phones, and SVG Basic, for PDAs. In other W3C news, the consortium pushed through upgrades for its technologies that help authors link to and from XML documents. These include new drafts of the XPointer Framework, XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Data Model, XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Formal Semantics, XML Query, XML Path Language (XPath) 2.0, XQuery 1.0, and XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Functions and Operators. XPointer dictates how to link or point to discrete parts of XML documents. XPath is a language for navigating within documents. XQuery is a query language tailored to XML documents. Schmelzer said the query language had elicited keen interest from database companies that now have to jerry-rig query solutions using an unwieldy combination of XML and SQL. Sybase has already decided to use XQuery, according to Schmelzer, while IBM, Microsoft and Oracle are still evaluating it.

For everything Internet-related, from the latest legal and policy-related news, to domain name updates, see ZDNet UK's Internet News Section. Have your say instantly, and see what others have said. Go to the ZDNet news forum. Let the editors know what you think in the Mailroom.

Post your comment

In order to post a comment you need to be registered and logged in.

You can also log in with Facebook. Log in or create your ZDNet UK account below

By signing up for this service, you indicate that you agree to our Terms and Conditions and have read and understood our Privacy Policy. Questions about membership? Find the answers in the Community FAQ

ZDNet UK Live

@ewallace. Not so clear. Anyone can obtain the text, for example from here http://www.ustr.gov/webfm_send/2379. I support ACTA so long as it and...

17 minutes ago by Moley on ACTA: Facts, misconceptions and questions

I think WinRT is fantastic. I just wish it was an option for people that didn't want to go through Microsoft's App Store with its attendant...

3 hours ago by 45283 on Why Windows 8 needs architectural hygiene for WOA

Nine people? £30m? Who's back pocket is that lot going in? And IF they say it is for new buildings, what about all the ones the government has...

4 hours ago by Burn-IT on Police set to launch three £30m e-crime hubs

Just to be clear, nobody knows what is in the text of ACTA, here is a photograph of the text of ACTA http://twitpic.com/8h9iju as submitted to the...

5 hours ago by ewallace on ACTA: Facts, misconceptions and questions

Unfortunately main issue is that ASUS is refusing to accept that they make some mistake on this version of asus Transformer prime. 1 - GPS sensor...

6 hours ago by fgvrg56 on Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime Wi-Fi & GPS problems?

@Marcus A fair question. Just talked with Archos which said it was working on an announcement for next week....

7 hours ago by Ben Woods on Archos confirms G9 Ice Cream Sandwich update schedule

Any update on this, considering the claimed "first week of February"?

8 hours ago by Marcus Karlsson via Facebook on Archos confirms G9 Ice Cream Sandwich update schedule

Bill Goodrich : Just as al_langevin pointed out, with Windows Server 2008 there is no Services for Macintosh anymore. It's gone, not available....

16 hours ago by apexwm on Windows Server 2008 drops the ball for Mac compatibility

Replying to an old topic that I'm currently facing with my CEO (who is on a Mac). Our servers are primarily Windows Servers, office is about...

23 hours ago by txtrainguy on Windows Server 2008 drops the ball for Mac compatibility

Sure, that makes perfect sense. Pay wrong-doers money and thank them for breaching your security and pointing out your flaws, that would surely...

23 hours ago by k0tcs3 on US indicts Romanian over NASA climate change hack

I think he's referring specifically to Android apps, as Apple do regulate their App Store, but Google seem to let any old crap onto the Android store!

23 hours ago by Random_Error on RIM: BlackBerry will keep 'garbage' apps out of store