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A general description is here.
There is a new version of the X11() device based on cairo graphics which is selected by type = ""cairo" or "nbcairo", and is available on machines with cairo installed and preferably pango (which most machines with gtk+ >= 2.8 will have). This version supports translucent colours and normally does a better job of font selection so it has been possible to display (e.g.) English, Polish, Russian and Japanese text on a single X11() window. It is the default where available.
There is a companion function, savePlot(), to save the current plot to a PNG file.
On Unix-alikes, devices jpeg() and png() also accept type = "cairo", and with that option do not need a running X server. The meaning of capabilities("jpeg") and capabilities("png") has changed to reflect this. On MacOS X, there is a further type = "quartz". The default type is selected by the new option "bitmapType", and is "quartz" or "cairo" where available.
Where cairo 1.2 or later is supported, there is a svg() device to write SVG files, and cairo_pdf() and cairo_ps() devices to write (possibly bitmap) PDF and postscript files via cairo.
Some features require cairo >= 1.2, and some which are nominally supported under 1.2 seem to need 1.4 to work well.
Name space 'grDevices' was not unloading its DLL when the name space was unloaded.
getNativeSymbolInfo() was unaware of non-registered Fortran names, because one of the C support routines ignored them.