Along with the major Android news from Mountain View, Calif., this week, Google has pushed version 9 of Chrome out of the beta nest. Available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, Chrome 9 stable marks the spread of WebGL support, debuts Google Instant in stable Chrome's search/location bar, and opens the Chrome Web Store for Chrome-based apps to all users.

WebGL support has been available to Chrome users in the dev and beta channels for some time now. What it means for people on the stable branch is that they will now be able to check out 3D animations that are getting a power boost from their computer's hardware without requiring additional software. Google has put together a series of demos to show off what WebGL does. You can also check them out in other browsers that support WebGL, such as Firefox 4 beta and Safari. Though Opera is part of the group that's developing WebGL, Opera 11 doesn't yet support it. Microsoft has no plans for incorporating WebGL into Internet Explorer 9.

Google Instant is the name given real-time updates that appear in your search results as you enter a query, changing on the fly. Changing "battle" to "battles" will see your search jump from war-related returns to Battlestar Galactica, depending on your browsing history. By making Instant available to all users from the location bar, Google is helping to ensure that users will begin seeing the location bar as a replacement for the search bar.

The Chrome Web Store applies to the smallest portion of Google users, though it's still an interesting feature that's now made its way to all Chrome users. Best suited for the Chrome OS, the Chrome Web Store app-ifies the work of Web site publishers that have turned their sites into site-specific, Chrome-only apps.

Of the nine security fixes that Google also announced in Chrome 9 stable, most notable was a "critical" fix that addressed an audio bug found by Reddit gamers playing Z-Type. The full changelog for Chrome 9 can be read here.

Talk about a can't-miss idea: an Angry Birds-style game based on the cult classic "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." Instead of flinging birds at pigs, you fling French cows (and other presumably French barnyard animals) at King Arthur and his knights. Sprinkle in clips from the movie and some unique gameplay twists, and you've got pure gaming gold.

In theory. In reality, Monty Python's Cow Tossing (also available for iPad) is missing that certain...special...something [cue music].

The game works on the same basic principle as Angry Birds: fling stuff at your enemies until you've destroyed them. In place of a slingshot and a limited supply of birds, you've got a catapult and unlimited animals.

So where's the challenge if you have unlimited "ammo"? It took me a while to figure this out, but the knights (i.e. your targets) are piled atop a battering ram that slooowly creeps toward your stronghold. If it gets there, you lose the level.

You can adjust the height and placement of your catapult, though I rarely found this to be necessary. What's more, various power-ups (and occasional power-downs) drop from the sky at regular intervals; if you time your shot so that your "weapon" hits one midflight, it immediately gains (or loses) an advantage.

What do the various power-ups/downs do? You'll have to squint at the game's tiny help pages to figure it out. One example: fling a turkey at a falling axe and it turns into two projectiles (body and, um, severed head) instead of just one.

All this should add up to great fun, especially for a die-hard Python fan like myself, but Cow Tossing comes up short in the most important area: gameplay. Maybe it's because everything onscreen is so tiny, or because the herky-jerky framerate makes the action awkward, but the game just doesn't "feel" right.

I will say that after I got through the first 10 or so levels, which are extremely easy, things started to get more interesting, and I started to enjoy it more. But I still couldn't escape that feeling of something being missing. I guess I expected more humor, or at least some Python-ish sound effects (mostly you just hear explosions). Monty Python's Cow Tossing needs less tossing and more Python.

At 99 cents ($1.99 for iPad), the game won't break anybody's bank. It did, however, turn me into a newt. (I got better.)

Originally posted at iPhone Atlas

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If you count yourself among the select members of BlackBerry's Beta Zone, you may be in for a musical treat this afternoon. RIM announced via its BlackBerry blog an upcoming radio discovery application that will be set for beta testing later today. The aim of the app, dubbed BlackBerry Radio, is to provide a straightforward way to access multiple mobile radio services within a single, streamlined interface.

In this way, BlackBerry Radio doesn't intend to compete with existing standalone radio apps. Instead, it pulls in music feeds from various other programs in an attempt to make finding and listening to radio on your phone a quicker and easier process. So, for example, if you want to listen to rock, you can dive down into that genre and be presented with options from various Internet services (Slacker among them) and even terrestrial radio.

BlackBerry Radio also attempts to offer a seamless way for listeners to connect with services they may not have heard of previously. For instance, you can download the premium Slacker app with one click within the BlackBerry Radio interface. Further, the app integrates with the onboard BlackBerry media player; you can access the app from the music player as well as purchase discovered music directly from Amazon MP3.

BlackBerry Beta Zone members will have an opportunity to test out the app and provide feedback. As of now, RIM has not provided a final release date for the rest of its U.S. customers.