Perhaps the biggest change is that you edit the programs online now (using Flash). The new version of the offline editor is due "this summer" apparently.
Other changes include:
1) You can clone a sprite. This has great potential for people who want to write "Space Invaders", for example (I have great admiration for the people who wrote version of this game when you couldn't clone sprites). I'm not entirely sure how this would work in practice though (there are no class variables, no way to pass parameters to a constructor, and no way to "block" other threads when updating a variable).
2) You can create your own blocks. This is obviously good as it gives you the basis of writing your own methods/subroutines.
3) You can store numbers in "cloud variables". This is useful for having high scores which work across all players, for example.
4) You can access the user's webcam. Sounds good in principle (you could write games a little like on the PS2 EyeToy) but I haven't really had time to play with it yet.
I guess that covers some of the good news. I'll cover some of my negative thoughts in my next posting.
