* An extensive overhaul to the Java API * Out-of-the-box support for C# and Go * An optional verifier to make FlatBuffers practical in untrusted scenarios * .proto parsing for easier migration from Protocol Buffers * Optional manual assignment of field IDs * Dictionary functionality through binary search on a key field

* Protocol buffers are a flexible, efficient, automated mechanism for serializing structured data – think XML, but smaller, faster, and simpler. * You can use special generated source code to easily write and read your structured data to and from a variety of data streams and using a variety of languages. * You can even update your data structure without breaking deployed programs that are compiled against the "old" format.