Just like ADO.NET Entity Framework had a refresh for Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2, we've just released the Astoria CTP version that runs on it as well - read the announcement here . Compatibility, improvements in the runtime, improvements in the tooling...

If you've been keeping up with what Project Astoria has to offer, you'll notice that the REST -ful style of accessing resources is mentioned over and over again. One of the nice things about REST-ful style architectures is that it's easy to find support...

In case you don't regularly read MSDN Magazine, let me point out some interesting articles that show some of the cool stuff that is coming out with the next version of Visual Basic.NET. I'm spending a lot of time these days working on LINQ and friends...