Every 11 year-old in Britain will be getting the BBC Micro Bit this autumn. The platform will be programmable with three programming languages: Touch Develop (https://www.touchdevelop.com/), C++, and Python.

The Python Software Foundation is a supporting organization of this initiative. The PSF blog post on the topic can be found at http://pyfound.blogspot.com/2015/03/bbc-launches-microbit.html

Python 2.7.9rc1 is out for testing! Please give it a spin and report any issues to bugs.python.org as this release will contain a bunch of security improvements related to SSL.

"""
Python 2.7.9rc1 is the first release candidate for the next bugfix version of the Python 2.7 series. Python 2.7.9 will include several significant changes unprecedented in a "bugfix" release:

* The entirety of Python 3.4's ssl module has been backported for Python 2.7.9. See PEP 466 for justification.
* HTTPS certificate validation using the system's certificate store is now enabled by default. See PEP 476 for details.
* SSLv3 has been disabled by default due to the POODLE attack.
* The ensurepip module module has been backported, which provides the pip package manager in every Python 2.7 installation. See PEP 477.
"""

"""Python 2.7.8 was released on July 1, 2014. This release includes regression and security fixes over 2.7.7 including:

* The openssl version bundled in the Windows installer has been updated.
* A regression in the mimetypes module on Windows has been fixed.
* A possible overflow in the buffer type has been fixed.
* A bug in the CGIHTTPServer module which allows arbitrary execution of code in the server root has been patched.
* A regression in the handling of UNC paths in os.path.join has been fixed.
"""

"""Python 3.4.1 has over three hundred bugfixes and other improvements over 3.4.0. One notable change: the version of OpenSSL bundled with the Windows installer no longer has the "HeartBleed" vulnerability."""

PyCon 2014 videos are starting to come online.
The conference is far from over.

Python 3.4.0 was released on March 16th, 2014.

Major new features of the 3.4 series, compared to 3.3

Python 3.4 includes a range of improvements of the 3.x series, including hundreds of small improvements and bug fixes. Among the new major new features and changes in the 3.4 release series are

* PEP 428, a "pathlib" module providing object-oriented filesystem paths
* PEP 435, a standardized "enum" module
* PEP 436, a build enhancement that will help generate introspection information for builtins
* PEP 442, improved semantics for object finalization
* PEP 443, adding single-dispatch generic functions to the standard library
* PEP 445, a new C API for implementing custom memory allocators
* PEP 446, changing file descriptors to not be inherited by default in subprocesses
* PEP 450, a new "statistics" module
* PEP 451, standardizing module metadata for Python's module import system
* PEP 453, a bundled installer for the pip package manager
* PEP 454, a new "tracemalloc" module for tracing Python memory allocations
* PEP 456, a new hash algorithm for Python strings and binary data
* PEP 3154, a new and improved protocol for pickled objects
* PEP 3156, a new "asyncio" module, a new framework for asynchronous I/O

Python 3.4.3 is out!

"""Python 3.4.3 was released on February 25th, 2015.

Python 3.4.3 has many bugfixes and other small improvements over 3.4.2.
"""

Python 3.4.2 is out!

"""
Python 3.4.2 has many bugfixes and other small improvements over 3.4.1. One new feature for Mac OS X users: the OS X installers are now distributed as signed installer package files compatible with the OS X Gatekeeper security feature.
"""

Python 2.7.7 has been released!

And an FYI in case you were not at PyCon or didn't hear about it afterwards, Python 2.7 support will exist until 2020 (http://legacy.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0373/).

3.3 branch is now in security fix mode.

opensource.com recently covered the Google Summer of Code and GNOME Outreach Program for Women, both of which we're happily involved with! Check it out: http://opensource.com/life/14/3/google-summer-code-2014