  In this talk I review various developments in the past year concerning
quantum vacuum energy, the Casimir effect. In particular, there has been
continuing controversy surrounding the temperature correction to the Lifshitz
formula for the Casimir force between real materials, be they metals or
semiconductors. Consensus has emerged as to how Casimir energy accelerates in a
weak gravitational field; quantum vacuum energy, including the divergent parts
which renormalize the masses of the Casimir plates, accelerates indeed
according to the equivalence principle. Significant development has been
forthcoming in applying the multiple scattering formalism to describe the
interaction between nontrivial objects. In weak coupling, closed-form
expressions for the Casimir force between the bodies, which for example reveal
significant discrepancies from the naive proximity force approximation, can be
achieved in many cases.
