Q. What technology do you need to build the next Flickr? A. Trick question. What you need to build the next Flickr is people. George Oates, a key member of the core team that shaped the Flickr community, shares lessons that can help you grow yours.

Hide Your Shame: The A List Apart Store and T-Shirt Emporium is back. Hot new designs! Old favorites remixed! S, M, L, XL. Come shop with us!

Just because a design convention exists doesn't mean it works. Our field runneth over with design patterns, but is low on evidence of their utility. Jessica Enders drops some science on the widespread belief that zebra stripes aid the reader by guiding the eye along a table row.

Hide Your Shame: The A List Apart Store and T-Shirt Emporium is back. Hot new designs! Old favorites remixed! S, M, L, XL. Come shop with us!

The W3C Mobile Web Initiative is offering the online training course: An Introduction to W3C's Mobile Web Best Practices from May 26 - June 20, 2008. The course is free, registration is open, but limited.

The W3C announced today that WCAG2 is now a candidate recommendation and is likely to be “live” by the end of the year. The W3C says Candidate Recommendation means that we think the technical content is stable and we want developers and designers to start using WCAG 2.0, to test it out in every-day situations. It’s a while [...]

The W3C’s Mobile Web Test Suites Working Group have just announced a new suite of tests for mobile devices. In the spirit of the Acid tests, the test results are returned in an easily grokable visual manner—the green squares are desirable, the red squares mean a feature isn’t yet supported. The URL you need to point [...]

I'm so tired of people half-assing it on Casual Day, but Naked Day? Now you have my full attention

On March 3, the Web Standards Project launched the Acid3 Browser Test. On March 26, two browser teams reported that their builds passed.

From marking books to tagging people, it's the logical progression.

Today WaSP announced that the Dreamweaver Task Force will be renamed the Adobe Task Force to reflect a widened scope.

All SXSW Interactive attendees are welcome to attend WaSP’s annual public meeting which will be held tomorrow, Monday, March 10. The session runs from 5:00 pm to 6:00 pm (Central Daylight Time) and will be held in room 19AB (Level 4). Everyone is welcome to join our Meebo chat as well. This year marks the tenth [...]

The WaSP Street Team launches its first community project: bookmarks which you can place in libraries, schools, and bookstores to help signal to readers that the material is out of date.

In other news, the ACID2 test page has become overwhelmed.

2008-04-30: The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Working Group has released Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 as a Candidate Recommendation, and published updated Working Drafts of Understanding WCAG 2.0 and Techniques for WCAG 2.0, along with How to Meet WCAG 2.0 and Comparison of WCAG 1.0 Checkpoints to WCAG 2.0. WCAG defines how to make Web sites, Web applications, and other Web content accessible to people with disabilities. Working closely with Web developers, the WCAG Working Group expects to receive initial implementations by 30 June 2008 and to show evidence of meeting the exit criteria by 31 August 2008. Read the press release, invitation to implement, Overview of WCAG 2.0 Documents, and about the Web Accessibility Initiative. (Permalink)

2008-05-02: The XML Core Working Group has published the W3C Recommendation of Canonical XML Version 1.1. Canonical XML Version 1.1 is a revision to Canonical XML Version 1.0 to address issues related to inheritance of attributes in the XML namespace when canonicalizing document subsets, including the requirement not to inherit xml:id, and to treat xml:base URI path processing properly. Canonical XML Version 1.1 is applicable to XML 1.0 and defined in terms of the XPath 1.0 data model. It is not defined for XML 1.1. As a Recommendation, this is a stable document and may be used as reference material or cited from another document. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity. (Permalink)

2008-05-01: Browse W3C presentations and events also available as an RSS channel. (Permalink)

2008-05-01: The XML Processing Model Working Group has published a Working Draft of XProc: An XML Pipeline Language. This specification describes the syntax and semantics of XProc: An XML Pipeline Language, a language for describing operations to be performed on XML documents. Pipelines are made up of simple steps which perform atomic operations on XML documents and constructs similar to conditionals, iteration, and exception handlers, which control which steps are executed. The status section of the document lists the most important changes since the previous draft. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity. (Permalink)

2008-05-01: W3C is pleased to announce the creation of the Product Modelling Incubator Group, sponsored by W3C Members TNO, POSC-Caesar Association, and Fraunhofer. Per the charter, the SWOP and S-TEN projects, with the POSC Caesar Association, believe that it is possible to define a small core of basic classes and properties for product modelling. This "product core" could be the basis of the ontologies defined by the two projects, and for many other application ontologies. This core could help the development of Web ontologies derived from existing international standards, such as IFC, STEP and ISO 15926. The XG has been proposed to work on this core set. Read more about the Incubator Activity, an initiative to foster development of emerging Web-related technologies. Incubator Activity work is not on the W3C standards track. (Permalink)

2008-04-21: W3C holds its semiannual Advisory Committee Meeting on 21-22 April in Beijing, China. W3C Member organizations participate in two days of discussions and strategic planning about W3C Activities and future work. The meeting takes place alongside WWW2008; you are invited to the W3C Track at WWW2008. The media are invited to a press conference with Tim Berners-Lee on 23 April at 3pm local time. Learn how to become a W3C Member and attend the next Advisory Committee Meeting in October 2008 (part of Technical Plenary Week) in Cannes, France. (Photo credit: Ian Jacobs. Permalink)

2008-04-16: W3C is pleased to announce the relaunch of the SVG Working Group. Erik Dahlström (Opera Software ASA) and Andrew Emmons (W3C Invited Expert) continue to chair the group, which is chartered to work in public to continue the evolution of Scalable Vector Graphics as a format and a platform, and enhance the adoption and usability of SVG in combination with other technologies. A new SVG Interest Group is also chartered to foster the widespread discussion of Scalable Vector Graphics as a format and a platform, to gather requirements, and enhance the adoption and usability of SVG in combination with other technologies. Learn more about Scalable Vector Graphics. (Permalink)

2008-04-16: The Mobile Web Test Suites Working Group has released a stable version of its Web Compatibility Test for Mobile Browsers, and has sent an invitation to the community to share reports of browser support and other feedback on the test itself. Read more about the design of the test. Read more about the W3C Mobile Web Initiative. (Permalink)

2008-04-15: The Rule Interchange Format (RIF) Working Group published three drafts today:

2008-04-15: W3C is pleased to announce that the Israel Chapter of the Internet Society (ISOC-IL) is the new host of the W3C Israel Office. Ori Idan will manage the Office from ISOC-IL. W3C wishes to thank Michel Bercovier and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for hosting the W3C Israel Office since 1999; Michel will remain involved as senior advisor. Learn more about the the W3C Offices, which promote adoption of W3C Recommendations in local regions among developers, application builders, and other regional stake-holders. (Permalink)

2008-04-15: The Web API Working Group has published the Last Call Working Draft of The XMLHttpRequest Object. The XMLHttpRequest Object specification defines an API that provides scripted client functionality for transferring data between a client and a server. Comments are welcome through 2 June. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity. (Permalink)

2008-04-15: The Ubiquitous Web Applications Working Group has published a Working Draft of Delivery Context Ontology. The Delivery Context Ontology provides a formal model of the characteristics of the environment in which devices interact with the Web or other services. The delivery context is an important source of information that can be used to adapt materials to make them useable on a wide range of different devices with different capabilities. The delivery context includes the characteristics of the device, the software used to access the service and the network providing the connection among others. This document describes the ontology (using OWL) and gives details of each property that it contains. Learn more about the Ubiquitous Web Applications Activity. (Permalink)

2008-04-15: The Internationalization Core Working Group has published a Working Draft of Web Services Internationalization (WS-I18N). This document describes enhancements to SOAP messaging to provide internationalized and localized operations using locale and international preferences. These mechanisms can be used to accommodate a wide variety of development models for international usage. Learn more about the Internationalization Activity. (Permalink)

2008-04-15: The Mobile Web Initiative Device Description Working Group has published a Group Note of Device Description Repository Core Vocabulary. This document identifies properties that are considered essential for adaptation of content in the Mobile Web. Its intended use is to define a baseline Vocabulary for Device Description Repository (DDR) implementations. The Vocabulary defined in this document is not intended to represent an exhaustive set of properties for content adaptation. DDR Implementations that require additional properties are free to make use of additional vocabularies. The process of creating a new Vocabulary can be modeled on the process described in this document. Learn more about the Mobile Web Initiative Activity. (Permalink)

2008-04-15: The Uncertainty Reasoning for the World Wide Web Incubator Group published their final report. The document includes a set of use case descriptions that illustrate situations for reasoning under uncertainty; some of the use cases include comprehensive information and details on how uncertainty would help to address issues that cannot be properly addressed with current deterministic approaches. The document also identifies methodologies that may be applied to address the use cases and that show promise as candidate solutions for uncertainty reasoning on the scale of the World Wide Web. This publication is part of the Incubator Activity, a forum where W3C Members can innovate and experiment. This work is not on the W3C standards track. (Permalink)

2008-04-15: The Common Web Language Incubator Group published their final report. The goal of the Common Web Language is to allow the exchange of information through the Web and also for enabling computers to process information semantically. CWL allows people to describe contents and meta-data of Web pages written in natural language; the language seeks to lower language barriers and to facilitate the automatic extraction of information from Web pages. This publication is part of the Incubator Activity, a forum where W3C Members can innovate and experiment. This work is not on the W3C standards track. (Permalink)

Foreign aid workers dedicated to delivering emergency telecoms are prevented from going into Burma.

Facebook agrees a deal to protect children on the site from sexual predators and cyber bullies.

Microsoft appeals against a $1.4bn fine given for defying sanctions imposed on it for anti-competitive behaviour.

MySpace says its "data availability" project will put users in the driving seat with web information sharing.

Google expresses interest in extending an advertising partnership with fellow search engine Yahoo.

A booby-trapped media file is catching out tens of thousands of file-sharers, says a security firm.

Nasa has unveiled a plan to boost its supercomputer power to help plan and model future missions.

Google executive Elliot Schrage leaves for Facebook, prompting concern of a talent exodus.

Virtual worlds for children are booming. Will they all survive?

New teaching resources aimed at helping primary school children surf the web safely are launched.

PlayStation 3 will help Sony reclaim its spot as the leading console maker, says the head of the firm's games division.

A mother whose daughter was murdered by a man addicted to violent web porn wins her bid to have it outlawed.

File-sharing site TorrentSpy is ordered to pay damages to the US film industry for copyright theft.

A company which offers super-fast broadband via the sewers announces its first 'fibre city'.

Ofcom considers how the airwaves will help improve health and transport in the future.

A demonstrator satellite for the European Galileo system begins transmitting navigation signals back to Earth.

Luminaries predict the shape of tomorrow's world wide web

The famed Xerox Parc labs invites the BBC to view the best of its latest crop of research projects

Two of the biggest games of the year - GTA IV and Wii Fit - have finally arrived and they could not be more different.

Game design and social networking are merging into one of the most persuasive forces on the net.

Campaigners hoping to save mountain gorillas are making a game simulating the lives of the animals free to mobile phone users.

A leading internet academic warns the future of the internet is at risk from closed and proprietorial systems.

Rounding up the week that was Web 2.0 by looking at the main themes and assessing what comes next

Bill Thompson on the implications of lax programming of Flash

Humans may never be intimate with machines thinks Bill Thompson

We need to recruit more programmers, says Bill Thompson

Bill Thompson wonders if his virtual presences are having a significant real world impact.

Bill Thompson on how Twitter is beginning to be taken seriously.

Bill Thompson on how the Wii is controlling more than the games market these days.

The humble mobile phone looks set to become a multimedia, multi-function monster as more features are crammed inside it.

How mobile phones are set to become the gateway to the web

Google's director of mobile platforms explains his vision for Android, a new operating system for mobiles.

Students at a school in Tynemouth carry out a survey of mobile phone use as apart of the BBC's School Report project.

The computing technologies to go beyond Moore's Law

A look at some of the technologies that could allow the silicon industry to deliver faster, cheaper chips.

The silicon factories where a speck of dust is a big problem

BBC News interviews Gordon Moore, the man whose "law" has driven the computer revolution.

Will a plane-car hybrid be the future of transport?

Perfect pagination style using CSS. Learn how to design a perfect pagination style using some lines of HTML and CSS code.

Override Inline Styles from the Stylesheet. A way to override what someone else has done with inline styles.

Getting Creative With Transparency. Arm yourself with the knowledge of how different file types of images can be used to achieve transparency on web-pages.

Dragonfly for Opera. A set of developer tools that provide effective mechanisms for web standards debugging and problem solving.

Web Directions North slides and podcasts. For those that didn't make it to the conference, here's a list of some of the slides and podcasts available for download.

Kotatsu. A simple html table generator that helps you add column classes quickly. Pretty Handy!

This is how you get sIFR to work. A simple step-by-step process of how to implement sIFR on your site

Stop using Ajax! A great article pointing out why you should avoid using ajax now and focus on accessibility.

In search of a great designer. We here at nclud are looking for a designer to join our team. If you think you've got what it takes, reach out to us.

GridFox. A Firefox extension that overlays a grid on any website and allows you to create the exact grid you designed your layout around.

eXtreme Type Terminology. Paul Dean delivers the third installment of an excellent series explaining essential typographical jargon.

CSS - An Absolute Mess. Talks about the problems that crop up time and time again with absolute positioned elements in IE6 and how to solve the issues.

CSS Naked Day 08'. The third annual CSS Naked Day is underway and taking sign ups. Show off your naked <body> on April 9th.

960 Grid System The 960 Grid System is an effort to streamline web development workflow by providing commonly used dimensions, based on a width of 960 pixels.

Extensible CSS Interface II: CSS Selectors & jQuery This second article provides an opportunity to dive deeper into markup and even a little scripting.

We have just released a new code sample. Written in Java, this new sample shows how Amazon SimpleDB can be used as a repository for metadata which describes objects stored in Amazon S3. The code was written to illustrate best...

A few weeks ago we asked our developer community for feedback on a proposed Copy feature for Amazon S3. The feedback was both voluminous and helpful to us as we finalized our plans and designed our implementation. This feature is...

There is lots of buzz about Hadoop and Amazon EC2—and of course there should be, given all the great projects such as the one that the New York Times one, where they converted old articles into PDF files in short...

We've been working to drive down our costs and to pass the savings along to our customers. We've focused on bandwidth costs and are happy to announce that the cost of outbound bandwidth (for data transferred from within AWS to...

I hardly ever listen to broadcast radio in my car anymore. Instead, I subscribe to a whole bunch of podcasts, some technical, some fun, and others educational. Here are two episodes which should be of interest to anyone who reads...

I'll be in New York this coming Friday, the second leg of a trip to Washington, DC and New York. Via Twitter, Tristan Louis suggested a lunch meetup and I was happy to oblige. We'll be meeting at the Union...

Many people have told me that they have used the ElasticFox extension for Firefox to get started with Amazon EC2. ElasticFox makes it easy to see the list of available AMIs (Amazon Machine Images), to launch any number of instances...

My last trip to India was in the pleasant winter and it was packed with action. I met with Wipro, Infosys, Patni, Accenture, Symphony and various other small and large companies. It was 14-day 5-city tour with stops in Mumbai,...

Animoto is a very neat Amazon-powered application. Built on top of Amazon EC2, S3, and SQS, the site allows you to upload a series of images. It then generates a unique, attractive, and entertaining music video using your own music...

Time for an Inbox cleanup... I met developer Chris Richardson in Philadelphia last month. Chris is a seasoned Java developer and the author of POJOs in Action. He told me that he had just released CloudTools. This is a set...