Ubuntu 8.10 Beta has been released and, if the announcement is to be relied upon, things look good.
What stands out above all else for me is 'guest sessions' which allows users who don't have login credentials access to the system. It's interesting that such a thing has been non-existent (or at least I don't know how to set it up) in the distros I've used so far, and really is useful, EG when you just wanna play some music from a machine. Many a time I get glad when easily getting into a Microsoft system even though that compromises security, a problem easily fixed in this release's inclusion of easy encryption of user folders, which I suppose should hide confidential data from prying eyes.
That's not to say I'm gon be running an Ubuntu system anytime soon, especially given that I'm rather happy here (okay, sometimes; I mean how long am I going to wait for GNOME 2.24 to reach Sid) in Debian-land of course, and can only wait for those features.