Any news on a new version of Elgg?

I don't know if it's all about autumn and the lack of good disposition but in the last 2 months not too much happened with Elgg and the community.

Somebody knows any news regarding future Elgg versions? Will it be soon a transition Elgg 1.8.9 available for download as I heard a while back or this has been axed and the next update will be just the 1.9 itself and it's still to early to speak about a release or atlast a downloadable beta version?