Python 2.7 beta 1 was released on April 10th, 2010.

Python 2.7 is scheduled to be the last major version in the 2.x series before it moves into 5 years of bugfix-only mode. This release contains many of the features that were first released in Python 3.1. Improvements in this release include:

• An ordered dictionary type
• New unittest features including test skipping and new assert methods.
• A much faster io module
• Automatic numbering of fields in the str.format() method
• Float repr improvements backported from 3.x.
• Tile support for Tkinter
• A backport of the memoryview object from 3.x
• Set literals
• Dictionary views
• New syntax for nested with statements
• The sysconfig module

See these resources for further information:

• What's new in 2.7?
• Change log for this release.
• Online Documentation
• Report bugs at http://bugs.python.org.
• Help fund Python and its community.