Java 8 SE is currently scheduled for release on March 18, 2014.
-1, as evidenced in this thread when update 51 came out. I'd better go give my colleauges a heads up about this... and line my pants with shingles.
Regards
Not much of a need. I've been using the beta builds to play around with the new language features and I have not seen any adverse affects to any of my systems.