JDK 8 has many new features, including improvements to collections, new security features, and even additions to the Java programming language (for example, Lambda expressions ). It's best to take a look at What's New in JDK 8 , as there are too many to list cleanly here.
As for why you might not want to update immediately, here is the JDK 8 Compatibility Guide , which lists incompatibilities between JDK 7 and 8.
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