There has been no official announcement that I could see. However, looking at Gitlab, it appears that the new date was set.
https://gitlab.syncad.com/hive/hive/-/commit/488e6db2efe4b55ef82a75c0f29b1169d1bd3f20
Over the past few months, 
Of course, it is vital to remember, when it comes to coding, nothing can be considered "set in stone". This is a tentative date which will occur if everything goes smoothly.
There are still a few details to work out as posted by Blocktrades in the latest article.
The release candidate is going to be up, hopefully, today. It was delayed because a replay had to be done, something that takes about 18 hours, after more bugs were found.
Here is the article explaining the details.
@blocktrades/weekly-update-on-hive-hf24
It does appear that Hard Fork 24 is getting very close. We will see the first Hive fork occurring within 6 months of going live.
What does Hard Fork 24 do?
I will not even try to go into the detail of all that is taking place. Anyone trying interested can read through the different post by the Blocktrades account over the last two months which really delves into what is being done.
However, to hit upon some of the highlights, I guess we can call this an efficiency fork. The main focus is to upgrade the back end to improve the efficiency of front end interfaces. As they say, a system is only as good as its weakest link. Having superior front end interfaces operating on a crappy backend results in a flawed system.
It is vital to remember that little was done to the code over the past 4 years. In the technology world, 4 years is a lifetime. There seems to be better software available now that can handle the way data is structured and processed. This should help the operation of the front ends.
I think the one major "feature" change is the altering of Witness Voting when powering up. The original discussion was to have a 30 day delay from when a HIVE is powered up until it affects Witness Voting. This is a security feature in response to Sun's actions on Steem. Having this in place provides a window for the community to respond if there is an outside threat similar to what took place earlier in the year.
Blocktrades also discussed the personal blacklist feature. I am not sure this is really operating at the base layer as much as being a front end decision. However, from what I could garner, the base coding will now make it possible for front ends to establish the ability for individuals to have their own blacklists, follow those they desire, and offer an alternative to global blacklists.
As much as many of us are awaiting a "feature rich" hard fork, sometimes it is best to build from the ground up. Back end efficiency is often overlooked, that is until it becomes a problem. The fact that Steemit Inc followed the bi-polar behavior of its leader meant that some basic upgrades were ignored.
Hive can handle a lot more traffic than it presently has. However, as we see with other blockchains, the time to address the efficiency problem and overall operation of the chain is when there are no problems. Trying to provide solutions when the system is bogged down with transactions is a bad time to be addressing things.
Once this takes place, the focus can turn to Hard Fork 25. Hopeful, fingers crossed, attention will be paid to SMTs (HMTs) and finally bring them to life. This might not be a quick turnaround to another hard fork since there could be a great deal of community discussion that is required. Adding and altering base features is something that necessitates community consensus. For example, there was talk of lowering the power down from 13 to 4 weeks. If that is to be addressed in the next hard fork, discussion is going to have to take place.
As discussed the other day in a post, the development keeps moving forward. Obviously, coding never goes as quickly as any of us would like. However, the advantage to Hive is there are plenty of people focusing upon different areas. Collectively, if we step back, we see a great deal of progress being made.
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