Max 2010 has been announced. Among the new features there is:

• Innovative Graphite Modeling Toolset
• Material Explorer
• Integrated mental mill Technology
• PFlowAdvanced Particle Effects
• Containers
• xView Mesh Analyzer
• OBJ Import
• ProOptimizer
• ProSound
• Global Quality Knobs: mental ray
• Performance Improvements
• C# and .NET Support

Go to the Autodesk site for all the details of this release.

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?id=5659302&siteID=123112