DeltaXML announced the release of Version 14 of XML Compare, which now includes table comparison improvements to HTML tables. This new version features a major update to the way HTML tables are handled when comparing tables and reporting differences as well as new capabilities to ensure you get the best results when processing tables.
New HTML table capabilities include both ordered and ‘orderless’ columns. By default, column order is significant so if column order changes, that is flagged up in the results. But if column order doesn’t matter, you can now figure the comparison to ignore column order and it will align them differently in the result. Another new feature is Column Keying allowing you to control the way in which columns are aligned.
Improvements include the way changes to spans are handled enabling finer-grained results for cells and rows and improved display and understanding. When a column moves, is added or deleted, improvements to Column Alignment provides a new result which makes more sense and is immediately apparent to the viewer and easier to understand.
These xHTML table enhancements are now in the process of being rolled out to DeltaXML’s DITA Compare and DocBook Compare products.
Members of OASIS Open, the international open source and standards consortium, have approved Code List Representation (genericode) v1.0 as an OASIS Standard, a status that signifies that highest level of ratification. Developed by the OASIS Code List Representation Technical Committee (TC), the format, known as “genericode,” is a single semantic model for code lists and accompanying XML serialization that is designed to IT-enable and standardize the publication of machine-readable code list information and its interchange between systems.
A code list in its simplest form is a set of strings that represent an item or idea. Standardized code lists include country abbreviations, currency abbreviations, shipping container descriptors, and airport codes, while nonstandardized code lists used between trading partners include financial account types, workflow status indicators, and any set of values representing the semantics of related concepts known between the parties involved in information interchange. Genericode, a standardized code list representation, is a complete description of a code list, including alternate codes, and any other associated data. Genericode also describes how new code lists are derived from existing code lists, so that the derivation is repeatable, automatable, and auditable.
Netlify, a platform for modern web development, announced that it has acquired Gatsby Inc., providers of a cloud platform for web delivery and content orchestration, and creators of the open source framework Gatsby.
Gatsby first became known for its open source, frontend framework that featured a data layer and an ecosystem of content management system (CMS) plugins. On top of the framework, Gatsby built a cloud platform for building, deploying, and previewing large enterprise content sites.
To keep the power in the hands of developers and honor its deep roots in open source, Netlify says it is committed to being a good steward of the Gatsby open-source project and the maintainers will join the open source group together with the creators of frameworks like Solid JS and Eleventy.
Gatsby’s source plugin ecosystem, originally targeted primarily to content management systems, is also accessible to any data source that exposes an API (such as e-commerce systems like Shopify), enabling teams to adopt composable architectures without having to write glue code. The company has been working closely with partners and enterprise customers to deliver the new Valhalla Content Hub, which builds upon their data layer and delivers a hosted, fault-tolerant, edge-first GraphQL API.
The World Wide Web Consortium began the year 2023 by forming a new public-interest non-profit organization. The new entity preserves our member-driven approach, existing worldwide outreach and cooperation while allowing for additional partners around the world beyond Europe and Asia. The new organization also preserves the core process and mission of the Consortium to shepherd the web, by developing open web standards as a single global organization with contributions from W3C Members, staff, and the international community.
The new structure will allow continuity as well as further development of the Consortium. It also puts governance at the fore. A Board of Directors with W3C Member majority will guide the operations and strategic direction, aiming for clearer reporting, greater transparency and continued global cooperation, including with new international Partners from the former Hosts.
W3C processes promote fairness and enable progress. Our standards work will still be accomplished in the open, under the W3C Process Document and royalty-free W3C Patent Policy, with input from the broader community. Decisions will still be taken by consensus. Technical direction and Recommendations will continue to require review by W3C Members – large and small. The Advisory Board will still guide the community-driven Process Document enhancement. The Technical Architecture Group will continue as the highest authority on technical matters.
The EBU (European Broadcasting Union) announced EBUCorePlus, a new media metadata standard ontology for media enterprises. It is defined by EBU Members for the media community. It follows up on two long-standing EBU ontologies: EBUCore and CCDM (Class Conceptual Data Model). The two were merged and revised. The result is EBUCorePlus, the new standard that can fully replace its predecessors. It inherits both the reliability of EBUCore and the end-to-end coverage of the media value chain of CCDM. EBUCorePlus is specified using the ontology web language and therefore strictly semantic.
EBUCorePlus serves as a plug and play framework. It can be used out of the box, either in its entirety or just a subset of its elements. But it may also be adapted and extended to enterprise-specific needs. Especially for system integration tasks and defining requirements, projects benefit from EBUCorePlus as a business – not technology – oriented language.
The EBU’s free CorePlus Demonstrator Kit (CDK) can help with extending development skills from entity-relationship models to ontologies, from tables to triples, and from SQL to SPARQL, and is available in cloud, hybrid and on- prem versions. It contains a graph database, populated with the EBUCorePlus ontology and sample data.
Brave announced that more than 2 million Unstoppable domains can now be used to display decentralized websites in Brave, a secure and privacy-centric browser that allows you to explore the Internet without being tracked. Through the Unstoppable Domains integration with Brave, creators can build decentralized content with a domain that they fully own and control – or explore the nearly 30,000 websites and counting that have been created using an Unstoppable domain. Brave integration goes beyond .crypto to include more top-level domains such as .nft, .x, .wallet, .bitcoin, .blockchain, and .dao.
Through the Brave integration with Unstoppable Domains, domains like Sandy.nft and Brad.crypto function just like normal Web2 addresses, but are hosted on the InterPlanetary File System (IFPS), a decentralized, peer-to-peer network. Brave offers a browser with native support for IPFS—meaning you don’t need to take any additional steps, or download any additional software, to access decentralized sites. Navigating to an IPFS URL is as simple as clicking a link. Native support for IPFS is a key piece of infrastructure for decentralized websites where both the domain and Web content are owned entirely by the user and distributed across a network of nodes.
This is a guest post from friend and colleague Girish Altekar, who has been working on this idea and technology for some time. I have been involved as an advisor for a couple of years, and will be republishing the series of posts he refers to below. Check it out…
Be Intrepid on the web
Over the next few days, we take the wraps off a new way to manage personal data. We will showcase applications that empower individuals to manage and reuse their data efficiently while enhancing data privacy, increasing data control, and facilitating genuine competitiveness in marketplaces they are interested in. Our Intrepids technology is a liberating technology for data owners as, untethered from call centers, complex web sites, and repeated data entry, data owners are free to go about their lives feeling secure about their personal data and knowing that their Intrepid driven requests are being honored accurately.
Businesses benefit also. The authentication and accuracy that is built into Intrepid driven data transfer empowers business applications to rely on actual dependable user data, instead of screen scraping and heuristics. Dependable data reduces the need for data verification and cleansing and drives the creation of new innovative applications that reduce business costs and improve customer experience.
A key difference between Intrepids and other approaches is that user data encapsulated in Intrepids stays with users, not with intrep-id.com or related servers. Intrepid servers facilitate the data transfer, but all user data is purged when the requested user transaction is completed.
These posts are intended to generate two kinds of interest.
We want to see if there is user interest in a privacy mechanism such as Intrepids. Please feel free to try out any application and give us your feedback if you think Intrepids, if/when widely adopted, may be useful to you.
We are also looking for strategic business partners who may be interested in exploring the use of Intrepids for their businesses and customers. Remember that any repetitive or burdensome data transfer can be eliminated by using Intrepids.
We would be honored if you felt like passing these posts on to colleagues and friends who may have an interest.
In the next post we start with the first Intrepid example.
Future Topics
Previous Intrepid related posts available at intrep-id.com.
Netlify, a platform for modern web development, announced the first cohort of the Jamstack Innovation Fund, created by Netlify to support the early-stage companies that are driving forward the modern web by arming developer teams with Jamstack-based tooling and practices.
Jamstack is an architectural approach that decouples the web experience from data and business logic, improving flexibility, scalability, performance and maintainability. Each of the startups Netlify has invested in offers a unique technology that adds to the best development experience for the web. They include ChiselStrike, a prototype-to-production data platform; Clerk, the first authentication service purpose-built for Jamstack; Clutch, a visual editor for Jamstack solutions; Convex, a global state management platform; Deno, a modern runtime for JavaScript and TypeScript; Everfund, a developer-first nonprofit tool to build custom fundraising systems; NuxtLabs, making web development intuitive with NuxtJS, an open source framework for Vue.js; Snaplet, a tool for copying Postgres databases; TakeShape, a GraphQL API mesh; and Tigris Data, a zero-ops backend for web and mobile apps.
The Fund has a goal of investing $10 million in the Jamstack ecosystem. In addition to a $100,000 investment, Netlify provides a free startup program. Netlify is accepting rolling submissions to the Jamstack Innovation Fund.
