It's been a long time coming, but Patch 1.7 launched into Minecraft today, adding pistons and shears to the game.  Of course, for those of us who mod the game, we'll have to wait until Bukkit updates before we can start building our piston-powered mega machines.  Personally, I look forward to adding hidden doors to my current project.

Here are the offiicial patch notes from 1.7, in case you missed them:

• Added pistons
• Fire or redstone is now required to trigger TNT
• Fences can be stacked
• Added shears
• Shears can be used to pick up leaf blocks
• Shears can be used to shear sheep without hurting them

  • Note: Sheep no longer drop wool from being punched

•  Removed Herobrine

And finally, to celebrate the new patch, here's the official Minecraft 1.7 trailer, although the behind the scenes is equally, if not more, interesting.