Early tests have proved promising. For instance, Gmail looks for those browsers that can work with version 3 of the Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), a standard closely related to HTML5. If the browser supports CSS3, Gmail will render the pages using these specifications, rather than its traditional approach of using the Document Object Model (DOM). The company has found that using CSS3 can speed the rendering time by 12 percent.

HTML5 will also help in building new features. One feature that the Gmail design team is now working on is the ability to drag files from the desktop into the browser.

This feature will be important in that it will bring Web applications even closer in feature functionality to desktop applications, de Boor said.

Gmail will also make use of HTML5's database standards. Now, the e-mail service uses Google Gears to store mail for offline reading, but over time that will migrate to the HTML5 standards.

De Boor also talked about adding new features that couldn't be rendered using HTML5.