According to this post over at TSS.NET, Avalon and Indigo have now been dropped as pillars of Longhorn. Unfortunately the post doesn't link to any source for where they are getting this information. Personally I think it's misinterpretation. I mean there were only three pillars that really made Longhorn anything other than a service pack and if all three of those are now (supposedly) cut what's going to be new in the next OS? It just doesn't make sense.
Time for someone from MS to step in and deliver a clear and concise message. If we're lucky Scoble will catch wind of this, get in touch with the right people and clear up the the confusion.
Update: Scoble responds. Hopefully this makes it perfectly clear that Avalon and Indigo are going to be ready when Longhorn is released. Also this should make it perfectly clear that the APIs are not going to require Longhorn to run, but should run fine on XPSP2/Win2k3 as well.