This is the second part of the 1.8 update which was released in September.
The Official 1.9 will be released on the day of MineCon which is not long away.
Notch has confirmed that he will be adding a new mob to the update Snow Golem You must login or register to view this content.
This mob will be friendly, and only available by crafting it. It will attack other mobs with snowballs (zero damage) as a "suicide". Of course also confirmedare the additions of new biomes and the NPCs to the villages
A new realm has also been added called: The EndYou must login or register to view this content. You must login or register to view this content.
Theirs is also Villager which moves about in NPC Villages You must login or register to view this content. You must login or register to view this content.
Also confirmed the magma cube, which is a cube-shaped nether mob that jumps at you and springs open. It breaks into smaller creatures just like a slime You must login or register to view this content.
Heres a video to show every one Mushroom Biomes and Acid Cows
You can also Breed Animals
Pre-Release 5 Details
New achievements
Block of iron texture has been changed. You must login or register to view this content.
You now have mushroom biome grass in your creative inventory.
Fence Posts no longer connect to leaves.
Improved stability over 1.9 Pre-Release 4.
Annoying Stair glitch fixed.
Option to disable clouds in menu.
F6 allows you to fly horizontally through blocks. You will take suffocation damage while in blocks.
F9 Adds a fixed camera angle. ( You can move this with I, J, K, and L)
Lily pads are no longer gray in inventory.
Hostile mobs will no longer attack you unless provoked when in creative mode, except for ghasts and spiders. Enemies from spawners are still hostile.
Melon slice drops are back to normal.
Pressing N,M,Y,U,O, and H changes depth of field and camera angle.
You receive a warning when changing render distance to far.
Items retain their enchantments if a chest is destroyed.
You can now look around without a mouse using: I, J, K, and L.
Game Crashing piston glitch fixed.
Player bow drawback animation improved.
Silk touch does not work on spawners.
Grass has a slightly different look.
Video on some of these details
Download linkYou must login or register to view this content.
On Windows Vista/7 copy the downloaded minecraft.jar to %AppData%\.minecraft\bin
On GNU/Linux copy the downloaded minecraft.jar to ~/.minecraft/bin
On Mac OS X copy the downloaded minecraft.jar to ~/Library/Application Support/minecraft/bin
If you have a server and want to have it on 1.9 here is the link: You must login or register to view this content.