From the release announcement on the mailing list: Some of the highlights are: * Optimized handling of processes in the VM * New internal process table allow

From the release announcement on the mailing list: Some of the highlights are: * Optimized handling of processes in the VM * New internal process table allowing for parallel reads and writes - optimized run queue management - optimized process state changes * "Non-blocking" code loading * New internal port table, and rewrite of scheduling of port tasks. * Dynamic allocation of port structures, allowing the default for maximum ports to be raised to 65536 (from 1024) Support for UTF-8 encoded Unicode characters in source files. * Inets application: The http client now support HTTPS through a proxy * Asn1 application: Major cleanup of back ends and optimizations of mainly decode for PER and UPER. * The experimental features parameterized modules and packages are removed. An alternative compatible solution for parameterized modules is provided here https://github.com/erlang/pmod_transform https://github.com/erlang/pmod_transform. * All built in functions BIF's (even if they are implemented in C as part of the VM) are now visible in the source code of the module they belong to, including their type specs. * The Wx application now compiles and is usable with the unstable development branch of wxWidgets-2.9. This means that wx can now be built on 64 bit MacOsX as well. You can find the README file with more detailed info at http://www.erlang.org/download/otp_src_R16A_RELEASE_CANDIDATE.readme http://www.erlang.org/download/otp_src_R16A_RELEASE_CANDIDAT...