Here is a list of talks at the MySQL user conference that focus on new and upcoming features in MySQL. I will try to attend most of these myself, although I have some certifications to acquire and other topics of interest. It’s almost like I would like to split myself in multiple threads so I could see it all 
Tuesday
- New Replication Features
- Introduction to using DTrace with MySQL
- Falcon Storage Engine - Designed for Speed
Wednesday
- New foreign keys in 6.1
- Maria, the New Transactional Storage Engine for MySQL
- DTrace support in MySQL: guide to solving real-life performance problems.
- The Future of MySQL
- The future of replication
Attending these presentations should give you a good feel of what is up and coming in the MySQL world.
Tags: conference, mysql, sessions
Don’t forget: Thursday 11:55 am - 12:35 pm
Test Drive MySQL 6.1
Peter Gulutzan and Konstantin Osipov will have a live, hands-on demo of downloadable publicly available as-of-April-20 MySQL 6.1.
This is an “educational” and “how-to” and “hands on” show of what you can do now if you take up the latest source. You’re looking over our shoulders while we use foreign keys, utf32, performance schema, EXECUTE IMMEDIATE, and so on.
(this is part of MySQL Camp, free and open to all regardless of whether they’re going to the conference or not).