Looks like PHP5 is on the way. The PHP dev team have come up with a presentation with some details about the changes which can be seen at;
http://talks.php.net/show/php5intro
Looks like they are just adding things java (and in some cases c) had years ago. The best thing I can see is the new stream API, which will make writing software that uses socket based connections (ie. spiders, mail readers and *gasp* auto submitters) alot less painful.
I couldn't find a release target, so if anyone knows, let me know.