* Open documents with the user's default application
You can open document files in the application the user has set up as the default opening application. Launching executables or script files is not permitted unless the application is packaged in a native installer. See File.openWithDefaultApplication() and Opening files with the default system application.

* Microphone data access
You can access the sound data from a microphone directly for recording or other processing. See Microphone.sampleData and Capturing microphone sound data.

* Mass storage device detection
You can now detect when a mass storage device, such as a USB drive or a camera, has been connected to the user's computer. See StorageVolumeInfo.

* Updated WebKit version
- WebKit in AIR is based on the version shipped with Safari 4.0.3
- Support for JavaScript profiling
- SquirrelFish Extreme JavaScript engine resulting in 50% faster performance using SunSpider tests
- CSS3 Module support (2D transformations, transitions, animations, gradients, zoom and WebKit CSS selectors, etc.).
- Styling scrollbars via CSS
- Latest Canvas enhancements.

* Global Error Handling
Global error handling lets you handle all uncaught errors (both synchronous errors and asynchronous error events) in one place in your code. See UncaughtErrorEvent.

* New networking support
- Server sockets: You can listen for incoming socket connections. See ServerSocket and Server sockets.
- UDP sockets: You can send and receive messages using the Universal Datagram Protocol (UDP). See DatagramSocket and UDP sockets (AIR).
- TLS/SSL sockets: You now connect to a server that requires TLSv1 or SSLv3 for socket communications. See SecureSocket and Secure client sockets (AIR).
- DNS lookup: You can look up Domain Name System (DNS) resource records. See DNSResolver and Domain Name System (DNS) records.
- Network interface enumeration: You can enumerate the list of hardware and software network interfaces available on a client computer. See NetworkInfo and Network interfaces.

* Packaging an AIR application in a native installer
You can package an AIR application in a native install program instead of an AIR file. Applications packaged and installed using a native installer have access to platform-specific features such as the Native Process API. See Packaging an AIR application in a native installer.

* Native process API
You can launch and communicate with native processes. Applications that use this API must be installed using a native installer. See NativeProcess and Communicating with native processes in AIR and the following quick start articles: (For HTML developers) Interacting with a native process, (For Flex developers) Interacting with a native process, and (For Flash developers) Interacting with a native process.

* Database transaction savepoints
You can commit or roll back multiple database changes as a single transaction. See SQLConnection.setSavePoint().

* Screen reader support (Windows only)
Users can use screen reader software with AIR applications. See Accessibility.

* Printing enhancements
- Vector printing is now supported on the Mac.
- PrintJobOptions.printMethod allows you to control whether vector or bitmap printing is performed. You can also let the runtime choose the best method (using an internal heuristic based on analyzing the content to be printed). See PrintJobOptions.printMethod.

* Idle time-out settings for URL requests
You can override the default idle time-out setting for URL requests. See idleTimeout.

* Improved IPv6 support
IPv6 format addresses can now be used with all APIs that accept an IP string as input.

* Increased maximum size of NativeWindow
The maximum size of a NativeWindow has been increased to 4095x4095 pixels (from 2880x2880 pixels). See NativeWindow.bounds.

* File promises (Win/Mac only)
You can now allow users to drag a file that has not been created yet out of an AIR application and provide the data for that function after the file promise has been dropped. For example, you could provide a list of files available on a remote server. When the user drops an item from that list onto their desktop, you can download the data and write it to the dropped file. See URLFilePromise and Dropping file promises.

* Multi-touch events
You can listen for multi-touch and gesture events on computers that have multi-touch hardware and operating system support. See TouchEvent.

* IME API and IME text input enhancement
Input Method Editors (IMEs) can be used with any InteractiveObject, not just TextField objects. This allows you to support IME input when using the Flash Text Engine or the Adobe Text Layout Framework, for example. See IME.

* Native runtime install packages for Linux
Native install packages are now provided for the rpm and debian package managers.