http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/cdcc816dea85 changeset:   76971:cdcc816dea85 user:        Antoine Pitrou date:        Tue May 15 23:48:04 2012 +0200 summary:  Issue #14624: UTF-16 decoding is now 3x to 4x faster on various inputs. Patch by Serhiy Storchaka.

Such optimization should be mentioned in the What's New in Python 3.3 doc if Python 3.3 is now faster than Python 3.2. Same remark for the UTF-8 optimization. Victor