[UPDATE 2: New, improved spy photos emerged on Sunday. See here.]

[UPDATE: Invitations for the rumored Oct. 14 special event -- "The spotlight turns to notebooks" -- arrived Thursday noon.]

It's becoming clear, at least to some Apple watchers, that Oct. 14 will come and go without On Thursday, Apple e-mailed reporters with invitations for the rumored show-and-tell at which Steve Jobs is supposed to introduce a new line of MacBooks — the aging notebook computers that now account for 30% of Apple's quarterly revenue. (See All eyes on the MacBook.)

But we're getting close, judging by the frequency with which spy photos are starting to emerge. There's even a leaked price list that has Apple selling MacBooks for as low as $800 (see below).

The latest set of pictures, posted by a Taiwanese blogger at Apple.pro and republished by MacRumors, may very well be fakes, but they are consistent with reports that Apple has switched to a new manufacturing process that carves the shells of its notebooks out of a single "brick" of aluminum. (See Has Steve Jobs built a secret MacBook factory?)

Accompanied by Chinese characters that, roughly translated, invite readers to look at "three mystical pictures transmitted greatly peacefully," the photos purport to show "the fable joins MacBook which the aluminum shell helps the C shell."  (link)

The photos are pasted below in their original form:

Note that although these images are similar in several respects to the image at right, posted earlier in the week by Engadget, they are clearly from different machines (or different Photoshop sessions). For example, the space between the keyboard holes and the outer edge of the computer in this image is wider than in the images above.

Meanwhile, Duncan Riley at The Inquisitor claims to have got his hands on an official price list for the new machines. According to his source:

"Apple retail stores have been given price sheets that list 12 price points for the new range, with prices between $800-$3100. Current lines only have 8 price points, 3 Macbooks starting at $1099, 3 Macbook Pros and 2 Macbook Airs." (link)

Riley adds that Apple retail outlets usually receive price lists 10 days before products hit the market, which would push the launch date into the third week of October. Several commentators dispute Riley's 10-day rule and suggest that we shouldn't expect to see the new machines before November.

Why would anyone with inside information share it with these rumor sites, given the speed and severity with which Apple (AAPL) punishes leakers? You have to wonder. Foxconn, Apple's Taiwanese manufacturing partner, is said to be even more strict about these things, which may explain the cryptic message posted below the Apple.com images:

下班後小心別被磚塊打

This, according to Babel Fish, roughly translates as:

"After getting off work, careful be not projected on by the brick bat."

"I'm as proud of the factory as I am of the computer," Steve Jobs told Fortune 18 years ago, describing the 40,000-square-foot plant he had constructed in Fremont, Calif., to manufacture circuit boards for his ill-fated NeXT, the $10,000 workstation into which Jobs poured his heart and soul after he was forced out of Apple (AAPL) in 1985.

The factory, as Jobs described it, had everything: robots, lasers, tolerances within one 10,000th of an inch, defect rates of less that 17 parts per million — one tenth the rest of the industry's — and the speed to turn out 60 machines a day. (link)

Now, according to a pair of reports in 9 to 5 Mac and Computerworld Blogs, Jobs has built that plant's successor: a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility that is already turning out the new line of MacBook and MacBook Pros that Apple is expected to introduce on Oct. 14.

This factory, according to Seth Weintraub, a tech reporter with good sources within Apple and a knack for correctly predicting the company's next moves, is the answer to a question that has been haunting Apple watchers for the past month: What is "the Brick"?

The Brick, Weintraub says, is not a new Apple TV, a table-sized Mac, a wireless USB hub, a Windows-smashing software breakthrough — or any of the other ideas put forward in the month of fevered speculation since Weintraub's 9-to-5 colleague Cleve Nettles first posed the question. (See Anatomy of an Apple rumor: "The Brick".)

What the Brick really is, according to Weintraub's sources, is a block of high-quality, aircraft grade aluminum out of which Apple's new laptops will be carved using robot-controlled lasers and high-powered jets of water in Jobs' new factory.

"It is totally revolutionary, a game changer," writes Weintraub. "One of the biggest Apple innovations in a decade." (link)

It may also be the answer to another mystery that has bedeviled Apple watchers — the innovation that Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer, speaking at the last quarterly earnings conference call, warned analysts would cut deeply into Apple's near term operating margins but result in something that "Apple's competitors won't be able to match" for years to come. (See Apple teases with mysterious "product transition".)

Weintraub paints a picture, drawn heavily from a long piece in The Mac Observer by John Martellaro, a former NASA engineer and Apple manager, of a nonpolluting, energy-efficient, wind- or solar-power plant, built in the United States, that would free Apple of its dependence on Chinese manufacturers (and unpleasant Chinese labor conditions) and fulfill Steve Jobs' long-held dream of moving Apple both up and down the value chain — building a legacy at Apple that could survive and prosper long after he is gone.

"An Apple factory (or two), in the right place," writes Marellaro, "costing several billions would be a worthy endeavor for Apple and its cash. It would achieve the grandest goals for Apple's technical future, make a contribution to the planet and its people's well being and help insure Apple's financial and political security." (link)

Marellaro concludes on a wistful note: "But, sigh, it's just an idea"

We'll find out soon enough how much of it is true.