The Postgres project has released version 8.3 of their flagship database engine. The new release provides enhanced performance, manageability, as well as several key features:

• HOT - Heap Only Tables - As much as is practical, the db will immediately purge outdated (MVCC) rows on frequently updated tables. This can eliminate as much as 75% of the overhead of maintaining some busy tables
• XML Support - More xml, xquery, and sql/xml support. Unfortunately, query performance on xml is still not competitive with some true xml databases, however, this is a noble start
• Asynchronous Commit - For when fast performance is more important than absolute guarantees of data integrity
• Text Search - TSearch2 has been merged into the core for full, integrated full-text indexing
• Replication - Several fascinating replication tools have been offered. Bucardo looks particularly interesting as a multimaster replication system. There is great potential for scalability in some of these solutions

Overall, I am quite impressed with the number of features and robustness improvements that the Postgres team has been able to put into an already excellent product. I look forward to the vast improvements that the 8.4 series will now surely bring!