Minecraft Beta 1.7
After realizing that the adventure related stuff is taking a while, Notch's team decided to push 1.7 with the additions the community wants without the adventure related updates.
According to this reddit post, Jeb said this on an IRC chatroom:
'1.7 will include pistons, shears, redstone->repeater fix, fences on fences fix, torches on fences, and various smaller changes' - From IRC earlier today.
With the new version, we will have official pistons. This means if you want to make your great piston deathtrap, over-sized elevator, or collapsible staircase you'll be able to do it without mod support. Some knowledge of redstone is needed to efficiently use pistons, but they will finally be in the game.
The other item that excites me is the redstone repeater fix. For those unaware, you need to input redstone directly into a redstone repeater for it to function. As of 1.7, you just need redstone dust facing towards the repeater for it to work. This will help condense redstone circuts further, and reduce headaches relating to redstone-related issues.
As for the other items, I hope shears allows players to get much more wool than normal. Hunting sheep becomes tiring, and I've been tempted numerous times to just spawn the wool. The fence fix means you'll be able to place fences on top of each other instead of monkeying around with fences to achieve the same result.
Finally, I'm betting my entire supply of bitcoins (which is zero) that there will be at least one new bug that demands a 1.7.1 release.
Edit:
Looks like there's been a tweet by Jeb confirming everything in this post1.7 will include pistons, shears, redstone->repeater fix and fences on fences. It will not include the new lighting
