Flash 8.5 and ActionScript 3.0 Already?

Macromedia announced a Flash 8.5 player for the first half of 2006. But the alpha version will be available on Oct 17, at the MAX conference.
Looks like 8.5 will just be a player release, not an authoring environment. The release says it will have faster performance and improved debugging. It also says 8.5 will have ActionScript 3.0. Besides better error checking, it doesn’t go into details about what other changes ActionScript 3.0 will bring.