The first release candidate of Perl 5.10, with the first new syntax and major features since 2002, will be released soon, probably in the next week or two. The code has been in feature freeze for weeks, and only minor patches are being accepted. Lately the VMS porters have been working on compatibility problems with File::Spec and File::Patch, and Jos Boumans and Ken Williams are syncing core CPAN modules with the Perl source trunk.
For a gentle and well-presented introduction to the features in Perl 5.10, see Ricardo Signes' slides for his talk Perl 5.10 For People Who Aren't Totally Insane.
Please note that Perl 5.10 is not Ponie. Ponie was the project that was to put Perl 5.10 on top of the Parrot virtual machine, but Ponie has been put out to pasture.
If you have a not-so-common platform (ie not linux or win32) now is a good time to get a current blead perl, compile it and report compilation or test failures.
Very cool! I am looking forward to this one.
If the people who decide about the official release date are reading this: Please consider releasing the final version of 5.10 on Perl's 20th birthday - 18th of December, 2007.