HTML 5

Background
Work on HTML 5 has been going on since 2003. In 6 years the web has changed a lot. How can they possibly come up with something relevant after 6 years? By constantly keeping a finger on the pulse of web trends they are able to build in new features directly by using APIs. Most of the web functionality that we see today is made possible by 3rd party addons or code. This makes it difficult to have standards that will allow all browsers to display every page accurately. To try to address some of this problem HTML5 will make it easier on developers to make awesome websites that will work on all browsers without having to use 3rd party addons that may not display correctly.

Benefits
Just 2 semesters ago I learned how to build a drag and drop application using the dojo toolkit. The dojo toolkit is a great 3rd party library of javascript files that allow for some awesome stuff to happen on webpages. But this took a lot of time to understand how to use this toolkit and it also took a lot of storage space on the server to upload all of the support files. With HTML5 drag and drop support is built in with no need for hundreds of supporting javascript files. Drag and drop is not the only new feature though. There are many more such as better layout and menu support that will make developing good looking functional websites easier and quicker for developers.

Some of the built in new technologies
Geolocation
Drag and drop
Embedded audio & Video
Structural Elements (header, footer, aside etc.; allows for more control over legacy div tags)
Offline support (file cache to run apps offline)

Mobile Device Support
With the wide use of smart phones and small mobile devices it is key for HMTL5 to offer a great experience for those users. Apple safari uses the webkit rendering engine which currently supports most HTML5 standards except for audio.
Rim Blackberry just bought Torch Mobile, a Webkit development company that own Iris web browser. This is probably an attempt to compete with the apple iphone in the mobile internet arena.

Conclusion
HTML5 is a big leap forward for developers. It allows them to quickly develop functional websites using the core HTML & CSS features.

Sources:
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/07/16/html5-and-the-future-of-the-web/
http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-10316027-17.html