Hey. Notch has said in his tweets that he will be uploading the 1.8 demo at PAX and after PAX he was going to release it, At PAX he had to fix a few things and tweak some things when he got back home, He got back home yesterday so expect 1.8 either tomoz or sometime this week =) oh and he has also said it will be split into two parts due to demand. So 1.8 will contain most things and then 1.9 will release more things and then after 1.9 the next update will be the official release on the 11/11/11 whitch will make minecraft a full game with future updates. The problem is they are releaseing the full game on the same day as Skyrim the elder scrolls, so they gonna have a major challenge on there hands. hope i helped =)