Public Working Draft for HTML 5: A Vocabulary and Associated APIs

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has announced the publication of
a First Public Working Draft of HTML 5: A Vocabulary and Associated
APIs for HTML and XHTML. The specification is intended to replace, viz.,
become the new version of, what was previously defined in the HTML4,
XHTML 1.x, and DOM2 HTML specifications. The HTML 5 specification defines
the fifth major revision of the core language of the World Wide Web: HTML.
In this version: (1) new features are introduced to help Web application
authors, (2) new elements are introduced based on research into
prevailing authoring practices, and (3) special attention has been given
to defining clear conformance criteria for user agents in an effort to
improve interoperability. The new features are presented in the companion
Working Draft HTML 5 Differences from HTML 4. According to the W3C
announcement, the HTML 5 specification "helps to improve interoperability
and reduce software costs by giving precise rules not only about how to
handle all correct HTML documents but also how to recover from errors.
Ajax and related innovations have propelled demands for a new standard
that allows people to create Web applications that interoperate across
desktop and mobile platforms. Some of the most interesting new features
for authors are APIs for drawing two-dimensional graphics, embedding and
controlling audio and video content, maintaining persistent client-side
data storage, and for enabling users to edit documents and parts of
documents interactively." The new specification differs from previous
versions of "HTML" in that it defines an abstract language for describing
documents and applications, as well as some APIs for interacting with
in-memory representations of resources that use this language.