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XML and Web Services In The News - 30 August 2006
Provided by OASIS |
Edited by Robin Cover
This issue of XML Daily Newslink is sponsored by Sun Microsystems
HEADLINES:
Common Policy: A Document Format for Expressing Privacy Preferences
Henning Schulzrinne, et al., IETF Internet Draft
This document defines a framework for authorization policies
controlling access to application specific data. This framework
combines common location- and presence-specific authorization aspects.
An XML schema specifies the language in which common policy rules are
represented. The common policy framework can be extended to other
application domains. The abstract sequence of operations can roughly
be described as follows: The PS receives a query for data items for a
particular PT, via the using protocol. The using protocol (or more
precisely the authentication protocol) provides the identity of the
requestor, either at the time of the query or at the subscription time.
The authenticated identity of the WR, together with other information
provided by the using protocol or generally available to the server,
is then used for searching through the rule set. All matching rules are
combined according to a permission combining algorithm. In a passive
request-response mode, the WR queries the PS for data items about the
PT. Examples of protocols following this mode of operation include
HTTP, FTP, LDAP, finger or various RPC protocols, including Sun RPC,
DCE, DCOM, Corba and SOAP. The PS uses the ruleset to determine whether
the WR is authorized to access the PTs information, refusing the request
if necessary. Furthermore, the PS might filter information by removing
elements or by reducing the resolution of elements. Alternatively, the
PS may contact the WR and convey data items. Examples include HTTP,
SIP session setup (INVITE request), H.323 session setup or SMTP.
See also: Privacy Specifications
Ajax3D: The Open Platform for Rich 3D Web Applications
Tony Parisi, Media Machines Technical Paper
Real-time 3D is emerging as a first-class media type for the web.
Network bandwidth and graphics hardware processing power are now
sufficiently advanced to enable compelling web-based 3D experiences,
including games, online virtual worlds, simulations, education and
training. Commercial developers are expressing increasing interest in
exploiting real-time 3D in web applications to enhance production value,
create engaging immersive experiences, and deliver information in a
more meaningful way. Ajax3D combines the power of X3D, the standard for
real-time 3D on the web, with the ease of use and ubiquity of Ajax.
Ajax3D employs the X3D Scene Access Interface (SAI) & the X3D
equivalent of the DOM — to control 3D worlds via Javascript. With
the simple addition of an X3D plugin to today's web browsers, we can
bring the awesome power of video game technology to the everyday web
experience. Royalty-free standards such as X3D have made it possible
for anyone to deliver rich 3D content in real time over the Internet.
At the same time, Ajax has emerged as a worldwide phenomenon and
unleashed a flurry of new application development. By bringing these
two technologies together, Ajax3D promises a complete open platform
for creating a next-generation 3D web experience. With Ajax3D,
immersive virtual worlds can be deployed within a web browser,
integrated with pages and other media. Ajax3D worlds can communicate
with standard web servers using XML and Ajax technologies, enabling
professional, scalable, industrial strength applications with high
production value and visual impact.
XForms, Web Forms 2.0 and the Future of XML Content on the Web
John Boyer, Blog
The W3C XForms working group defines an important web technology: the
next generation of web forms. The technology became a recommendation
in 2003 and had a significant refinement earlier this year. One reason
behind the strength of the XForms community is its broad applicability
as a web technology. XForms defines the core XML data processing asset,
whether the data processing needs be simple or complex. It is designed
to be connected to numerous host languages like XHTML, SVG, Voice XML,
XSL-FO and even XML vocabularies like XFDL. The point is that the web
is more than just what web browser makers implement. Part of the
reason for this is that web browser makers don't tend to make much
money on web browsers, so their desire to pour development dollars into
their proper maintenance is stunted. As a result, web technologies have
flourished from numerous third parties who are helping to define the
future nature of web content. IBM strongly advocates for the renewed
charter of the XForms and HTML working groups to include unification of
the Web Forms 2.0 work with emphases on the ease-of-use benefits from
WF2 and the XML basis from XForms. There will be compromises required
of all parties, but also significant synergies that become possible by
accommodating the full range of forms expertise available in the W3C...
The XForms working group is committed to a unification of the best that
the Web Forms 2.0 has to offer. We already have a decent implicit data
generation feature, and we look forward to expanding that to implicit
data model generation so that the easier on the glass authoring
experience can be provided while still allowing the XHTML and XForms
standards to scale up to the needs of larger web applications.
See also: XML and Forms
jQuery Eases JavaScript, AJAX Development
Darryl K. Taft, eWEEK
As more developers adopt the practice of AJAX-style development to
create more interactive applications, they are looking for tools to
make the job easier. One such tool is jQuery, which some users say
makes AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) development cleaner by
making using JavaScript easier. John Resig, the creator of jQuery,
said the technology reached its 1.0 release on August 26, 2006. jQuery
is essentially a new type of JavaScript library that allows developers
to work "unobtrusively" with JavaScript. According to Resig: "jQuery
is not a huge, bloated framework promising the best in AJAX, nor is
just a set of needlessly complex enhancements; jQuery is designed to
change the way that you write JavaScript... Web developers have a
definite desire to write unobtrusive JavaScript code, but in a manner
that is simple and effective." The technology that most influenced his
thinking was Behaviour, a JavaScript tool created by Ben Nolan,
technical director of Projectx Technology, in Wellington, New Zealand.
The [jQuery] technology has been used by developers of commercial Web
sites such as Technorati and FeedBurner, as well as of open-source
projects such as Drupal, Trac and CakePHP. Aptana, a company based
in San Francisco, will be delivering jQuery with the latest release of
its Web 2.0 IDE (integrated development environment) software. The
Aptana IDE, still in beta, now includes the ability to import jQuery's
JavaScript library into a Web project. The project sets itself up
with an included sample page that was created by Cody Lindley, which
demonstrates how to use jQuery, according to Aptana's founder Paul
Colton.
See also: the web site
Public Review for OASIS oBIX Specification
Brian Frank (ed), Committee Draft Version 02
The OASIS Open Building Information Exchange (oBIX) Technical Committee
approved a second Committee Draft "oBIX Specification" for public review,
ending 12-September-2006. oBIX is designed to provide access to the
embedded software systems which sense and control the world around us.
Historically integrating to these systems required custom low level
protocols, often custom physical network interfaces. But now the rapid
increase in ubiquitous networking and the availability of powerful
microprocessors for low cost embedded devices is weaving these systems
into the very fabric of the Internet. Generically the term M2M for
Machine-to-Machine describes the transformation occurring in this space
because it opens a new chapter in the development of the Web —
machines autonomously communicating with each other. The oBIX
specification lays the groundwork building this M2M Web using standard,
enterprise friendly technologies like XML, HTTP, and URIs.
See also: the announcement
What's New in System.Xml 2.0?
Aaron Skonnard, MSDN Magazine
Now that the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 has shipped and is in the
hands of countless developers worldwide, it seems like a good time to
discuss the improvements found in System.Xml, which sits at the heart
of all .NET-based Web service apps. This article highlights some of the
new features and shows you how they can simplify some of your common
XML programming tasks. From early in the design process, the System.Xml
team had some ambitious goals for version 2.0, but for better or worse,
not everything made it into the final release. In fact, many features
appeared in one beta and then quickly disappeared in the next as the
team worked to finalize their offering based on customer feedback.
Compared to their .NET Framework 1.1 predecessors, the new XmlTextReader
and XmlTextWriter classes are now twice as fast as before, the XSLT
performance is three to four times as fast, and XML Schema validation
is faster by about 20 to 25 percent. To achieve most of these performance
improvements some significant redesign and targeted optimizations were
required. For example, it took some serious reworking to make the .NET
XSLT implementation just as fast as its unmanaged predecessor, MSXML
4.0. Now in System.Xml 2.0, the XSLT implementation builds Microsoft
intermediate language (MSIL) directly, which is then JIT compiled by
the .NET runtime and executed as machine code. The resulting performance
is very similar to that of MSXML 4.0 in most cases.
Generating RSS with XSLT and Amazon ECS
Craig Noeldner and Brian Swan, XML.com
One choice you have to make when working with web services is how you
will process the web service response. You could build the processing
into a rich client, but that would likely require some type of
installation for others to use your application. You could process the
web service response on a server, but that requires, well, a server.
Amazon ECS has an alternate solution: the XSLT service. XSLT is a
language for transforming XML into other formats. The XSLT service with
Amazon ECS can transform a REST response using an XSLT file you identify
by adding a parameter that specifies the location of the file and
returning the transformed result. This means that a call to the Amazon
ECS web service can return HTML, text, or any other format you want and
makes it a compelling to building a rich-client or server-based solution.
In this article we'll walk through the steps for generating an RSS feed
for Amazon Wish Lists using Amazon ECS and the XSLT service.
See also: XSL/XSLT resources
Creative Commons: An Answer to the Copyright Debate?
Eric J. Sinrod, CNet News.com
Attorney Eric J. Sinrod says the group is picking up important allies as
it seeks to revolutionize traditional copyright law. Creative Commons
consists of a U.S. charitable corporation and a not-for-profit company
in the United Kingdom. It believes that all-out copyright has failed to
help many artists and entrepreneurs gain the exposure and widespread
distribution they desire. As a result, a significant number of them are
increasingly open to "innovative business models" that ensure a return
on their creative investment. This is where Creative Commons comes into
play, by offering a set of licenses on its Web site, free of charge.
All too frequently, the debate over creative control has tended toward
the extremes. On one end of the spectrum is a total control paradigm
that Creative Commons describes as a world in which every last use of
a work is regulated and where "all rights reserved" notices (and then
some) have become the norm. At the other end of the spectrum is an
anarchical world in which creators enjoy a wide range of freedom but
are vulnerable to exploitation. So it was that the people behind the
concept of Creative Commons became concerned at the increasing
disappearance of balance, compromise and moderation.
See also: Creative Commons Project
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