An Introduction
HTML 5 differences from HTML 4 from the W3C. Fantastic summary of the stuff that HTML5 will eventually bring to the table. Take it with a grain of salt though… because as you’ll see, there isn’t a whole lot you can use right now, cross-browser, without hacks.
I mentioned the Misunderstanding Markup comic already, but definitely worth a read if you are still confused as to which markup syntax to employ.
Questions? Check the WHATWG HTML5 FAQ.
Keeping up with the Spec
Comparison of layout engines (HTML 5) on Wikipedia. As you can see, Internet Explorer doesn’t provide a whole lot of support for HTML5 features.
The spec itself is definitely worth a read. Or use the WHATWG version (it’s split into multiple pages, and updated more regularly). Obviously the most comprehensive source you’ll find.
Current Uses
HTML5 Doctor has some articles on things that are mostly cross-browser, and more or less safe to use now, like Native Drag and Drop and “Block-level” links. Unfortunately I can’t recommend utilizing much more of the tips on the HTML5 Doctor site, because they either rely on hacks, or could change as the HTML5 standard changes.
I can’t recommend using the new semantic elements from HTML5 yet, but it can’t hurt to begin preparing for HTML5 with semantic class names. If nothing else, you’ll be ready when the new elements become safe to use.
We Can Dream…
Automatic form validation? Yes please.
You can do really cool things with the canvas element apparently.
Web workers + video + canvas = pretty freaking cool.
