On August 16, 2006, the W3C published new editions of XML and Namespaces in XML that include various corrections and clarifications. By the end of the calendar year, they also expect to publish recommendations (their term for standards) relating to XQuery and XSLT. Revisions to XML Schema are also underway. Attention is also being devoted to improving the efficiency of XML storage, transmission and processing. (The W3C’s press release has additional information.)

Given my ongoing investment in the XML family this is expected, but nonetheless welcome, news 🙂

Although the increasing pervasiveness and importance of XML for the Web, Web Services, and even the Semantic Web (via RDF/XML) was mentioned explicitly, XPointer was not. (XPointer is an emerging W3C effort for the purpose of annotation that I’ve recently blogged about elsewhere.)