Oracle has announced the release of the next major version of Java, Java 7. The new version incorporates a number of new language features and APIs; more detail is given in the Release Notes. The new version can be downloaded here.
At present, this release will primarily of interest to developers, and to those who have a portfolio of existing applications that they wish to test against the new release. I see no reason for ordinary users to be in any hurry to update their systems, until some time has passed, and the new features begin to show up in real-life applications. It is a fact of life that major new versions of software tend to have at least their share of bugs and problems. (You should, though, make sure that your system is running the latest release of Java 6, version 6 update 26.)
In fact, even developers might wish to tread cautiously for a bit. There is a report at the Apache Lucene project site of some compiler optimization bugs in the new version. So be careful out there.
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