As you may be aware of HTML5 is already being worked on. So called HTML 5, was actually formed by W3C at first hand, but a group of browser vendors  Apple, Mozilla Foundation and Opera, after a W3C Workshop in 2004. They grouped as WHATWG Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group, in order address the concerns about W3C’s direction with HTML standarts. From their own words:

The WHATWG is a growing community of people interested in evolving the Web. It focuses primarily on the development of HTML and APIs needed for Web applications.

The WHATWG was founded by individuals of Apple, the Mozilla Foundation, and Opera Software in 2004, after a W3C workshop. Apple, Mozilla and Opera were becoming increasingly concerned about the W3C’s direction with XHTML, lack of interest in HTML and apparent disregard for the needs of real-world authors. So, in response, these organisations set out with a mission to address these concerns and the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group was born.

Lately, W3C also adopted the concept of HTML5 from WHATWG and taking a part.

WHATWG site predicts HTML5 will be ready (W3C recomendation state) approximately in 18 years from the start (which means ~2022).

It is estimated, again by the editor, that HTML5 will reach a W3C recommendation in the year 2022 or later. This will be approximately 18-20 years of development, since beginning in mid-2004. That’s actually not that crazy, though. Work on HTML4 started in the mid 90s, and HTML4 still, more than ten years later, hasn’t reached the level that we want to reach with HTML5. There is no real test suite, there are many parts of the spec that are lacking real implementations, there are big parts that aren’t interoperable, and the spec has hundreds if not thousands of known errors that haven’t been fixed. When HTML4 came out, REC meant something much less exciting than it does now.

Here’s a list of upcoming featured, complied from two other articles on HTML5

Elements for page structures

• <header>
• <nav>
• <footer>
• <section>

The HTML4 Way

The HTML5 Style

Native Video & Audio Support

Right now we’re mostly dependent on Flash movies for publish video and audio content. The HTML5 draft aims to change this.

<video src="video.ogv" controls poster="poster.jpg"
width="320" height="240">
    <a href="video.ogv">Download movie</a>
</video>

Above there is an example of simlpy embedding video & audio content, but don’t get that ogg is the current way to do it. Ogg format had been once defined in HTML5 as the standart coded and all compatible browsers had to implement it natively, but the decision seems to be dropped now out of the draft. There’s no certain information about what will be default codec for HTML5 but, ogg may still stand a chance or one can be developed by the group. 

Also the standart defines a mechanism for multiple-codec choises:

<video poster="poster.jpg">
    <source src="video.3gp" type="video/3gpp"
    media="handheld">
    <source src="video.ogv" type="video/ogg;
    codecs=theora, vorbis">
    <source src="video.mp4" type="video/mp4">
</video>

And using the DOM, the player can be controlled programaticly.

<video src="video.ogg" id="video"></video>
<script>
  var video = document.getElementById("video");
</script>
<p><button type="button" onclick="video.play();">Play</button>
   <button type="button" onclick="video.pause();">Pause</button>
   <button type="button" onclick="video.currentTime = 0;">
   << Rewind</button>

Localized database

This feature, when implemented, automatically embeds a local SQL database websites can read and write to, speeding up interactive searching, cacheing and indexing functions, or for offline use of web apps that rely on data requests.

Real apps in the browser

APIs for in-browser editing, drag and drop, back button “waypoints,” and other graphical user interface abilities.

Native 2D / 3D Animations

Rich animations without plug-ins. The canvas element gives the browser the ability to draw vector graphics. This means configurable, automatic graphs and illustrations right in the browser without Flash or Silverlight. Some support for canvas is already in all the latest browsers except for IE.
 

Tags: canvas element, canvas html, footer, header, html 2d, html 3d, html5, localized databse, native audio, native video, nav, section, structure elements, w3c, whatwg