W3C to hold London mobile standards event
Published: 03 Nov 2005 12:15 GMT
The W3C is holding an event in London to promote its Mobile Web Initiative (MWI) to promote the idea of 'the Web on the move' to UK developers. The half-day event on the 15th November will be open to the public and free to attend. The MWI was launched in May of this year at the WWW2005 Conference in Japan.
The MWI's mission is to promote the use of Web technologies on mobile devices, with the aim of making the mobile Web as functional and easy to use as its desktop equivalent. The group's activities include advocacy, developing best practices and standards for use with mobile devices. The group currently has 19 sponsoring companies, including handset manufacturers and network operators.
"The Mobile Web Initiative's goal is to make browsing the Web from mobile devices a reality," said Tim Berners-Lee, W3C director and inventor of the Web, in a statement. "W3C and mobile industry leaders are working together to improve Web content production and access for mobile users and the greater Web." Berners-Lee will introduce the event in a video address.
The W3C will use the event to outline what it sees are the opportunities for the mobile Web, as well as the hurdles that content providers will have to overcome. At present, most Web sites are designed purely for use with a computer with a large screen and don't render very well on the smaller screens of mobile phones and other handheld devices. Some browsers, such as Opera Mobile, attempt to solve this problem by scaling down standard Web pages but results vary. While many standards needed to make the mobile Web work already exist, few site designers take advantage of them.
Full details of the event can be found in Builder UK's Events channel.







