Ya hay una fecha de lanzamiento para Java 9, que se refactorizará para crear una plataforma modular. La fecha prevista de lanzamiento es en Marzo de 2017, aunque ya hay builds disponible en la pagina Jigsaw de Oracle (link is external). Lo importante de esto es que las características están ya cerradas (link is external):
102: Actualización en la API de procesos
110: Cliente HTTP2
143: Mejora de bloqueos
158: Loggin de la JVM mejorado
165: Control del compilador
193: Manejo de variables
197: Caché de código segmentado
199: Compilación inteligente de Java
200: JDK Modular
201: Código fuente modular
211: Eludir warnings deprecados
212: Resolver Warnings en Lint y Doclint
213: Milling project coin
214: Eliminar combniaciones de GC
215: Tiered Attribution for javac
216: Process Import Statements Correctly
217: Annotations Pipeline 2.0
219: Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS)
220: Modular Run-Time Images
221: Simplified Doclet API
222: jshell: The Java Shell (Read-Eval-Print Loop)
223: New Version-String Scheme
224: HTML5 Javadoc
225: Javadoc Search
226: UTF-8 Property Files
227: Unicode 7.0
228: Add More Diagnostic Commands
229: Create PKCS12 Keystores by Default
231: Remove Launch-Time JRE Version Selection
232: Improve Secure Application Performance
233: Generate Run-Time Compiler Tests Automatically
235: Test Class-File Attributes Generated by javac
236: Parser API for Nashorn
237: Linux/AArch64 Port
238: Multi-Release JAR Files
240: Remove the JVM TI hprof Agent
241: Remove the jhat Tool
243: Java-Level JVM Compiler Interface
244: TLS Application-Layer Protocol Negotiation Extension
245: Validate JVM Command-Line Flag Arguments
246: Leverage CPU Instructions for GHASH and RSA
247: Compile for Older Platform Versions
248: Make G1 the Default Garbage Collector
249: OCSP Stapling for TLS
250: Store Interned Strings in CDS Archives
251: Multi-Resolution Images
252: Use CLDR Locale Data by Default
253: Prepare JavaFX UI Controls & CSS APIs for Modularization
254: Compact Strings
255: Merge Selected Xerces 2.11.0 Updates into JAXP
256: BeanInfo Annotations
257: Update JavaFX/Media to Newer Version of GStreamer
258: HarfBuzz Font-Layout Engine
259: Stack-Walking API
260: Encapsulate Most Internal APIs
261: Module System
262: TIFF Image I/O
263: HiDPI Graphics on Windows and Linux
264: Platform Logging API and Service
265: Marlin Graphics Renderer
266: More Concurrency Updates
267: Unicode 8.0
268: XML Catalogs
269: Convenience Factory Methods for Collections
270: Reserved Stack Areas for Critical Sections
271: Unified GC Logging
272: Platform-Specific Desktop Features
273: DRBG-Based SecureRandom Implementations
274: Enhanced Method Handles
275: Modular Java Application Packaging
276: Dynamic Linking of Language-Defined Object Models
277: Enhanced Deprecation
278: Additional Tests for Humongous Objects in G1
279: Improve Test-Failure Troubleshooting
280: Indify String Concatenation
281: HotSpot C++ Unit-Test Framework
282: jlink: The Java Linker
283: Enable GTK 3 on Linux
284: New HotSpot Build System
285: Spin-Wait Hints
287: SHA-3 Hash Algorithms
288: Disable SHA-1 Certificates
289: Deprecate the Applet API
290: Filter Incoming Serialization Data
292: Implementado de caracteristicas ECMAScript 6 en Nashorn
294: Linux/s390x Port
295: Compilado por adelantado
297: Porte unificado a arm32/arm64
298: Eliminar demos y ejemplos
Fuente: https://blogs.oracle.com/java/latest-java-9-news (link is external)