XML News from Saturday, October 1, 2005

The W3C Synchronized Multimedia Working Group has posted the proposed recommendation of the Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL 2.1). SMIL 2.1 has four goals:

• Define an XML-based language that allows authors to write interactive multimedia presentations. Using SMIL, an author can describe the temporal behaviour of a multimedia presentation, associate hyperlinks with media objects and describe the layout of the presentation on a screen.
• Allow reusing of SMIL syntax and semantics in other XML-based languages, in particular those who need to represent timing and synchronization. For example, SMIL components are used for integrating timing into XHTML and into SVG.
• Extend the functionalities contained in the SMIL 2.0 into new or revised SMIL 2.1 modules.
• Define new SMIL 2.1 Mobile Profiles incorporating features useful within the mobile industry.

Differences from the candidate recommendation are claimed to be "clarifications but no major changes."