Version 2.9 of WordPress was released on Saturday. The new version includes a trash feature, a built-in image editor, plugin compatibility checking, and support for the embedding content using the oEmbed standard. With trash feature posts and comments that are deleted will be placed in a trash folder instead being completely deleted. The image editor allows images to be cropped, edited, rotated, flipped, and scaled and the post announcing the new version indicated that this is the first of “many planned media-handling improvements”. To help the users planning to upgrade to newer versions, WordPress will now present data compiled from other users as to whether installed plugins are compatible with the new version. Support for oEmbed standard allows for embedding of images, video, and other content by pasting an URL into a post. The standard is supported by YouTube, Flickr, Hulu, Scribd, PollDaddy and other websites.
The new version requires that your server run MySQL 4.1.2 or higher, previously versions only required 4.0 or higher. WordPress will check if the server has a supported version of MySQL during the auto upgrade process.
A full lists of changes in 2.8 is available at the WordPress Codex.