[SatNews] NASA has joined the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the international consortium that develops protocols, standards and guidelines to ensure universal web access. "Standards will play a key role in making NASA's content more accessible on the Internet and in the implementation of our Open Government plan," said Chris Kemp, chief technology officer for Information Technology at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Additionally, standards nurture technology innovation. We are especially interested in participating in those areas where NASA's ongoing technical requirements overlap with the W3C's standardization efforts."

W3C's staff works with member organizations and the public to enhance long-term growth for the Web. The organization has more than 350 members and is run by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in Cambridge, Mass., the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics in France, and Keio University in Japan.