TensorFlow: v0.8.0rc0 Release

Major Features and Improvements

• Added a distributed runtime using GRPC
• Move skflow to contrib/learn
• Better linear optimizer in contrib/linear_optimizer
• Random forest implementation in contrib/tensor_forest
• CTC loss and decoders in contrib/ctc
• Basic support for half data type
• Better support for loading user ops (see examples in contrib/)
• Allow use of (non-blocking) Eigen threadpool with TENSORFLOW_USE_EIGEN_THREADPOOL define
• Add an extension mechanism for adding network file system support
• TensorBoard displays metadata stats (running time, memory usage and device used) and tensor shapes

Big Fixes and Other Changes

• Utility for inspecting checkpoints
• Basic tracing and timeline support
• Allow building against cuDNN 5 (not incl. RNN/LSTM support)
• Added instructions and binaries for ProtoBuf library with fast serialization and without 64MB limit
• Added special functions
• bool-strictness: Tensors have to be explictly compared to None
• Shape strictness: all fed values must have a shape that is compatible with the tensor they are replacing
• Exposed tf.while_loop (deprecated control_flow_ops.While)
• run() now takes RunOptions and RunMetadata, which enable timing stats
• Fixed lots of potential overflow problems in op kernels
• Various performance improvements, especially for RNNs and convolutions
• Many bugfixes
• Nightly builds, tutorial tests, many test improvements
• New examples: transfer learning and deepdream ipython notebook
• Added tutorials, many documentation fixes.

Thanks to our Contributors

This release contains contributions from many people at Google, as well as:

Abhinav Upadhyay, Aggelos Avgerinos, Alan Wu, Alexander G. de G. Matthews, Aleksandr Yahnev, @amchercashin, Andy Kitchen, Aurelien Geron, Awni Hannun, @BanditCat, Bas Veeling, Cameron Chen, @cg31, Cheng-Lung Sung, Christopher Bonnett, Dan Becker, Dan Van Boxel, Daniel Golden, Danijar Hafner, Danny Goodman, Dave Decker, David Dao, David Kretch, Dongjoon Hyun, Dustin Dorroh, @e-lin, Eurico Doirado, Erik Erwitt, Fabrizio Milo, @gaohuazuo, Iblis Lin, Igor Babuschkin, Isaac Hodes, Isaac Turner, Iván Vallés, J Yegerlehner, Jack Zhang, Jan Zikes, Jay Young, Jeff Hodges, @jmtatsch, Johnny Lim, Jonas Meinertz Hansen, Kanit Wongsuphasawat, Kashif Rasul, Ken Shirriff, Kenneth Mitchner, Kenta Yonekura, Konrad Magnusson, Konstantin Lopuhin, @lahwran, @lekaha, @liyongsea, Lucas Adams, @makseq, Mandeep Singh, @manipopopo, Mark Amery, Memo Akten, Michael Heilman, Michael Peteuil, Nathan Daly, Nicolas Fauchereau, @ninotoshi, Olav Nymoen, @panmari, @papelita1234, Pedro Lopes, Pranav Sailesh Mani, RJ Ryan, Rob Culliton, Robert DiPietro, @ronrest, Sam Abrahams, Sarath Shekkizhar, Scott Graham, Sebastian Raschka, Sung Kim, Surya Bhupatiraju, Syed Ahmed, Till Hoffmann, @timsl, @urimend, @vesnica, Vlad Frolov, Vlad Zagorodniy, Wei-Ting Kuo, Wenjian Huang, William Dmitri Breaden Madden, Wladimir Schmidt, Yuan Tang, Yuwen Yan, Yuxin Wu, Yuya Kusakabe, @zhongzyd, @znah.

We are also grateful to all who filed issues or helped resolve them, asked and answered questions, and were part of inspiring discussions.