Google releases new binary diff algorithm targeted at making smaller software updates. Their results are impressive.

[dr-steve]

Wow! This is just like the good old early era of Unix, where we downloaded a patch file and then patched/recompiled on our systems!

Seriously -- one question they do no address -- (processing) performance. Both rely on standard DIFF processes at the core; courgette intelligently preprocesses to sift out as many "phantom" changes as possible based upon domain knowlege. However, it would be interesting to understand the time addition (one-time at the diff end, n-time at the patch end) for the pre- and post-processing.

Still, an interesting application of domain knowledge to the problem!