WordPress today announced the release of the latest version of its awesome eponymous blog platform. Version 2.8 ('Baker', after the famous Jazz trumpeter Chet Baker), consists of few immediately visible changes but plenty of performance enhancements.

Once you've had a time to play around with the new version, you'll spot an overhauled widget interface, easier to handle theme installations, a new CodePress editor for editing themes and plugins within wp-admin and a new Screen Options interface that lets you customize the look of your admin area to fit your monitor. As well as all that, WordPress seems to run much faster.

Find full details of the new release on the WordPress Codex. Or just watch their video...

You can download the latest version of WordPress here, but if you're running 2.7 or higher, you should be able to upgrade automatically. If you don't have a web host but you'd like to try WordPress out, skip along to WordPress.com and register for a free hosted blog!