Since Symbian^3 was added to the roadmap , the most significant feature that has been in the making is Nokia’s contribution of the New Graphics Architecture (NGA). I am pleased to say, thanks to a very good engagement with Nokia, we now have a beta version available in Mercurial.
NGA not only incorporates new capabilities to the platform, but also implements a new Khronos standard for composited windowing systems all OpenWF. OpenWF provides a standard interface for key rendering operations such as:
- Scaling (with control over filtering)
- Rotations (90-degree increments)
- Mirroring
- Alpha-blending (per-pixel and global)
- Alpha masking
- Solid background colour
…From the OpenWF website
For more details on the implementation, the Nokia Package Owner (Faisal Memon) has documented the architectural changes –> here.
If you want to get an idea of the type of user experience improvements that this new architecture can provide, check out this QT demo on Symbian demonstrating some of the practical use of cool graphic effects:
Victor Tuson Palau's Blog 
…but this video is working on a current Symbian device without the new graphics architecture – this is just what Qt brings easily.
The new architecture will make it much easier (i.e possible to do properly) to work with semi-transparent layers, like semi-transparent controls popping up on top of a playing video.
sure, but I think the video is a good demo on how these enhancement on graphics are reflected on the user experience. Not claiming that the changes are due to NGA…