Announcing DuckDB 1.5.0

DuckDB 1.5.0 ("Variegata") is now available with a major CLI overhaul featuring color schemes, dynamic prompts, a pager, and last-result access via `_`. Key new features include native VARIANT type support (binary semi-structured data inspired by Snowflake/Parquet), a `read_duckdb` table function with glob support, Azure Blob/ADLSv2 write support, and an ODBC scanner extension. The GEOMETRY type moves into DuckDB core, enabling cross-extension geospatial interoperability, WKB storage, shredding compression (~3x size reduction), geometry statistics for query optimization, and CRS type-system support. An experimental PEG parser ships for better error messages and tab-completion suggestions. Lakehouse updates cover DuckLake spec v0.4, Delta Lake Unity Catalog write improvements, and Iceberg table properties. The httpfs backend switches from httplib to curl. Non-blocking checkpointing improves concurrent RW throughput by 17%. DuckDB 2.0 is planned for summer 2026. The v1.4 LTS line continues until September 2026.