Yesterday Mojang released the 1.9 update for Minecraft. Dubbed the 'Combat update', the patch aims to improve the combat experience of Minecraft, changing it from the spamming-left-click it was before to something that requires more thought and even some tactics.
One new feature is the ability to hold a different item in each hand, this allows the player to use a sword with the new shield, or a pickaxe and a torch, removing the constant swapping between the two when mining.
Along with the changes to combat, Mojang has also added various new block types and a new mob type, the Shulker.
You can view the full changeling here via this link. Currently patch 1.9 is only available PC, but will be coming to consoles at a later date.