Blizzard just announced on Facebook and their website that the first beta keys will be issued soon.
We are preparing to invite testers for the Heart of the Swarm beta very soon! To be clear, this test will be for the multiplayer experience only. We will begin with a select group, including many players who assisted us in testing Patch 1.5, as well as some pro-gamers and press. Over time, we will add more and more testers into the mix.
If you are interested in participating in the beta test, please make sure you are opted in for beta testing. You can do this by clicking "Beta Profile Settings" under the Account Management section of your Battle.net account. Note that the opt-in doesn't guarantee entry, but gives you a chance at joining the beta test. Also, we'll be working with your favorite fansites and community personalities to give away more entries to the beta test, so keep an eye out for invites coming from the greater StarCraft community over the coming weeks.
We can’t wait to get the public test started for Heart of the Swarm, and we look forward to collecting your feedback.
The Swarm is coming!
Source : http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/6983561/
UPDATE:
possibly a clip from Chinese HotS beta.
Changes made to units :
On September 04 2012 04:30 orlandostar wrote:Patch notes for now: its not everything Zerg: Ultralisks' frenzied ability have not been deleted. Terrian: Widow mines' damage was decreased to 160 from 200. BCs' damage to ground was increased to 10 from 8. Reapers' regeneration ability doesn't need research, the upgrade to their speed is still there. Protoss: Oracles' cloak field ability was deleted, instead, they can scan a target area, all cloaked and burrowed units will be visible for 20s. Tempests' damage decreased to 30 and no longer have additional damage to massive units, attack speed decreased from 6 to 3.3. The purifier ability of mothership core has been changed to 25 damage, range 7 lasts 45 seconds from 60 damage, range 13 lasts 20 seconds. Mothership core now have a new ugly model. Mothership core now can move with a speed of 0.47. Mothership core's teleport to nexus ability has been deleted. Mothership core now have 100 shield and 150 Hp, down from 350/350. Mothership core's charge ability now costs 100 energy, increased from 25. Mothership now have cloak field ability. Mothership's vortex ability now stun the units in target area for 20s and prevent any damage to these units. I posted in http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/6490459399?page=1
For everyone watching the other unit videos being posted in this thread:
On September 04 2012 22:02 BobMcJohnson wrote:
Show nested quote +On September 04 2012 21:59 pmp10 wrote:
So still no word on streams or NDA status?
Would prefer to see those units in practice.
Beta has not started and servers are not up, people are making the videos with the map editor, and can only play vs AI, so no streams. Blizz said that the Beta won't be under NDA once it starts, so I expect people to stream it then. edit: also can you disable the autocast on the mines to trigger them manually? since they deal mostly single target damage it would be so much better if we could control them manually to blow up on big units and not Zealots/lings.
Last edit: 2012-09-04 22:17:26 | 
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pallad Poland. August 16 2012 02:55. Posts 1713
