A new version of Ubuntu is released every 6 months; the Update Manager should inform you when a new version is available for download. To check for a new version:
Upgrades usually take a while to complete. Typically, around 700MB of packages must be downloaded and installed, although the actual figure will depend on how many packages are already installed on your computer.
You can only upgrade to the latest Ubuntu release if you are running the second most recent release. If you have an older release, you must upgrade to the next release after that, and so on until you are running the most recent version. For example, users of version 7.10 would first have to upgrade to version 8.04 before upgrading to version 8.10. An exception to this rule is with LTS (Long Term Support) releases. You can upgrade directly from the previous LTS release to the current release.