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The draft comes 10 months after the HTML Working Group was established and introduces a host of new elements for describing content on a web page.

New features include APIs for drawing two-dimensional graphics, embedding and controlling audio and video content, persistent client-side data storage, and an ability for users to edit documents and parts of documents interactively.

Other features make it easier to represent familiar page elements, introducing elements

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such as section, footer, nav - for navigation, and figure - or assigning a caption to a photo or other embedded content.

With the rise of web technologies such as AJAX, HTML sounds rather old-fashioned, but W3C still believes it is important.

"HTML is of course a very important standard," says Tim Berners-Lee, author of the first version of HTML and W3C Director. "I am glad to see that the community of developers, including browser vendors, are working together to create the best possible path for the web. To integrate the input of so many people is hard work, as is the challenge of balancing stability with innovation, pragmatism with idealism."

The Working Group has compiled a list of the changes in HTML 5 as well as the full draft.

The specification is expected to be finalised in the second half of 2010.