HTML5 introduces several new elements and attributes that provide capabilities previously only available through third party plugins like Flash. The canvas element allows dynamic drawing and graphics, the video element embeds video without Flash, and offline web applications allow interaction without an internet connection. Geolocation detects the user's physical location. While Flash remains powerful, HTML5 has wider acceptance since it runs natively in browsers without plugins and is free unlike Flash's development costs. The future of web development likely belongs to HTML5.