April’s What’s New is packed full of exciting content, including our May Campus Updates webinar focused on Microsoft Copilot AI, Intune P2, Teams Rooms & Defender. Plus, Copilot comes to Microsoft Viva, we look at what’s new in Microsoft Teams & EDU and Adobe share their exciting roadmap for Firefly AI video! TechSmith release their brand-new Camtasia 2023, Pugh partner with assistive tech specialists Aventido with impressive new tools, Azure Communication Services Email is now GA, Microsoft release the new Surface Thunderbolt 4 Dock, new MindManager 23.0 is released and RedHat announce OpenShift 4.12!

 

 

Latest Campus Updates: Copilot, Intune & more!

Following our Easter break, join us for an exciting webinar where Pugh’s Microsoft expert Eifion Evans brings you all the very latest Microsoft updates!

• Introduction to the very exciting Copilot – Microsoft’s next-generation AI built into the M365 suite!
• A deep dive into further details announced for Intune P2
• Important upcoming changes to Microsoft Teams Rooms licensing
• Latest Microsoft Defender security updates

Register today to stay ahead of the curve and get the most out of your Microsoft investments!

 

 

Copilot’s next-gen AI comes to Microsoft Viva!

Microsoft are excited to announce Copilot in Microsoft Viva, along with the introduction of Microsoft Viva Glint, helping organisations create a more engaged and productive workforce!

• Copilot in Viva Goals can suggest draft OKR recommendations based on existing Word documents, such as an annual business plan or a product strategy paper
• Viva Glint joins the Viva Suite in July 2023 and it comes with Copilot built in, helping summarise and analyse employee comments and gives a fresh way to explore feedback using natural language
• Viva Summit also saw many other exciting updates, including Copilot in Viva Engage, Learning & Topics

 

 

Adobe Firefly’s exciting vision for AI video!

We’ve seen how Adobe Firefly can generate stunning images and artwork. Now, Adobe have unveiled their exciting vision for bringing creative, generative AI to video and audio!

• Text to colour enhancements – Change colour schemes, time of day or even the seasons in already-recorded videos, instantly altering the mood and tone
• Advanced music and sound effects – Easily generate royalty-free custom sounds and music to reflect certain feelings and scenes
• Powerful script & B-roll capabilities – Dramatically accelerate workflows using AI analysis of script to text to automatically create storyboards and visualisations

 

 

What’s NEW in Microsoft Teams!

Following a month of exciting announcements in March, Microsoft are not slowing down, bringing you more than 20 brand-new Teams features in April!

• Meetings – Including automatic lowering of a user’s raised hand after speaking & video closed captions in PowerPoint Live
• Events – Automated reminder emails at a configured date and time that can include custom-branded headers, webinar details and a join link
• NEW Teams Certified devices – Including Yealink Meeting Board Camera & Lenovo ThinkVision Monitor Webcam

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What’s NEW in Microsoft EDU!

Microsoft EDU have been working on some great new updates that they’re excited to share with us all!

• All-NEW Teams for Education – Reimagined and enhanced with a performance-first mindset, including 2X faster and 50% less memory! (coming later this year)
• NEW Viva Connections for Education – Students can track class registrations, club memberships and upcoming events directly within Teams (coming July 2023)
• Updates to Assignments – Teachers can now mark assignments as inactive, hiding them from the active list for both students and teachers (rolling out now)

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Key Microsoft Teams Rooms licensing changes

Microsoft have announced that after July 1^st 2023, Teams Rooms devices logged in with resource accounts must have one of the following licenses assigned:

• Microsoft Teams Rooms Pro
• Microsoft Teams Rooms Basic
• Microsoft Teams Rooms Standard (legacy)
• Microsoft Teams Rooms Premium (legacy)

If you currently have M365 or O365 user licenses assigned to Teams Rooms meeting devices (e.g., E1/E3), they will need replacing prior to this date or they will be blocked from signing in.

Join our May Microsoft Campus Updates webinar for more details!

 

 

Easily create professional videos & tutorials!

TechSmith’s NEW Camtasia 2023 is the perfect combination of power, performance and ease of use, allowing anyone to create professional-quality tutorials, training and demos!

• More Background Control – Easily remove even complicated or multicoloured backgrounds with no green screen required
• Expanded image & animation controls – It’s now even easier to give your video more creative flare with colour adjustments and custom motion paths
• Better Snagit & Audiate integration – Launch the Snagit or Audiate recorder directly from Camtasia and send multiple files to Audiate for an even faster workflow

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Innovative assistive tech for inclusivity!

Pugh have always been passionate about inclusive learning and working, and are now proud to partner with Assistive Technology specialists Aventido to further enhance our portfolio!

• TextAid – Literacy support for struggling readers, with its text to speech capabilities making any text accessible to all (supports Welsh)
• Lightkey – Focus on ideas and forget about typos with AI-Powered spelling correction for real-time suggestions and grammar corrections (supports Welsh)
• Pro-Study – Collect, organise and reference assignment research by quickly capturing information from Web pages, textbooks, Word documents and PDFs
• ABBYY – FineReader PDF is a versatile tool with AI-based OCR technology to easily digitise, retrieve, edit, protect, share and collaborate on documents
• MindMeister – An online collaborative tool to connect concepts, ideas and information, ideal for project planning, designing timelines and brainstorming

 

 

Azure Communication Services Email now GA!

Azure’s simpler, faster Communication Services Email is now generally available. It provides an easy to use, comprehensive set of APIs, allowing organisations to embed rich content email within their customer engagement applications.

• Developers can send emails quickly and securely with rich content including images, videos, audio files and documents
• Robust delivery analytics, enabling developers to measure delivery success and obtain richer engagement tracking data
• Developers can easily integrate with PowerApps and Logic Apps for low/no code workflows

 

 

Introducing NEW Microsoft Surface Thunderbolt!

Microsoft are excited to announce the newest Surface Thunderbolt 4 Dock which extends the support of Thunderbolt 4 connectivity in Surface Pro 9, Surface Laptop 5 and Surface Laptop Studio!

• Instantly connect to a desktop setup at home or in the office with a single, fast connection
• High-speed USB4/Thunderbolt 4 on USB-C ports to power your device, connect two 4K monitors and transfer data at up to 40 Gbps!
• Sustainable – Uses 20% ocean-bound recycled plastic, 99% recyclable packaging and no single-use plastics

 

 

Transform ideas into powerful visual mind maps!

Alludo (formely Corel) are delighted to launch the NEW 23.0 version of MindManager, allowing you to quickly transform ideas into clear, customisable mind maps, flowcharts and timelines!

• Professional templates – Previously available in MindManager Cloud, these templates are now available in MindManager Windows, ensuring greater consistency across the MindManager portfolio
• Task & project management enhancements – Multiple features have been added to expand project manager capabilities, such as clearly highlighting connected relationships and dependencies
• Easier link pasting – If a paragraph contains one or more links, MindManager will automatically recognise them and add them as a topic link or links

 

 

Efficiently scale hybrid cloud workloads!

RedHat have announced that OpenShift 4.12 is now available, designed to help organisations more efficiently scale workloads across hybrid clouds without compromising security.

• 49 Customer Requested Enhancements delivered, including disabling DNS management in Ingress Controllers and limiting access to load balancers for Ingress Controller to IP address ranges
• OpenShift lifecycle extended to 24 months for Extended Update Support releases, providing six additional months to effectively plan, deploy and support infrastructures
• OVN Kubernetes as Default Networking Solution – New clusters will be installed with the OVN-Kubernetes network plugin as the default networking plugin across all support platforms and topologies