Redstone Update

The Redstone Update is a planned major update labeled as 1.5. It will probably be released sometime in mid or early January 2013.

Planned changes
Note: Most of the changes listed here have no detailed references since most of them were mentioned at MineCon 2012. Especially the Future Updates with the Minecraft PC Team respectively the The Future of MOD API talk

You can watch the presentation here:

Redstone improvements

 * More predictable and consistent redstone behavior
 * The functionality of BUDs will be affected
 * Eliminating directional quirks
 * Most of the timings of redstone contraptions will change
 * Overall redstone will be more like analog signals
 * Redstone signal strength will matter (for some blocks)
 * A Capacitor Block
 * Only outputs a signal if the input has a specific strength
 * Configurable like a repeater
 * Possibility of a BUD Switch block
 * A way of sucking up items into a container/transport items between containers
 * This will most likely be a revised form of the Allocator idea
 * Weighted pressure plates
 * Outputs a signal with a strength corresponding to the weight of the entity (e.g. storage minecarts) sitting on the pressure plate/detector rail
 * Perhaps a Daylight Detector
 * Outputs a signal with a strength corresponding to the intensity of the sunlight
 * Redstone repeater lock improvements
 * Some Redstone bugfixes
 * Perhaps one or more new ores for crafting the new redstone devices
 * Will most likely be available only in the Nether, encouraging exploration of the dimension

Minecart improvements

 * New ways of transporting items
 * Using minecarts similarly to Railcraft systems
 * New uses for storage minecarts
 * Filling and emptying of storage minecarts
 * Specific rails to empty them
 * The possibility of linking minecarts together (driven by furnace minecarts)
 * Rails to unload mobs and perhaps players when reached

Rendering engine rewrite
The features were:
 * Current engine has some bugs
 * Will require a higher OpenGL feature-set
 * Will include some sort of fallback for older hardware
 * Support for high resolution textures
 * The internal layout of texture packs will change
 * Every block will have its own texture file
 * Supports the use of animated textures for all blocks
 * The geometry of individual textures can differ
 * Not intended to support HD skins
 * Much faster overall rendering, resulting in more frames per second (FPS).
 * Lighting fixes similar to the ones first introduced in snapshots 12w39a/b (during 1.4 development)
 * Support for fancy lighting control
 * Support for more realistic lighting, such as active furnaces only giving off light from their front surface

Other

 * No new mobs.
 * Fireworks for New Year's Eve
 * Will be a safe explosion
 * Perhaps a method of enchanting equipment with paper
 * The player would enchant the paper, then use an anvil to combine it with equipment
 * The anvil cost to do this would be very high
 * The Possibility of editing Ghast Fireballs' sizes with third party programs
 * Will not affect the amount of damage dealt to the Player
 * Slabs made up of Netherrack/Nether Brick
 * A crafting recipe for Nether Brick