http://www.ascent.co.nz The latest news and announcements from Ascent (c) 2009 Ascent Technology Limited en-us Media/ui/logo.gif http://www.ascent.co.nz Microsoft today announced it has kicked off a "technical preview" of the next version of its money-making Office suite and promised a public beta will ship this summer. http://reseller.co.nz/reseller.nsf/inews/microsoft-sets-office-15-public-beta-for-summer-2012?opendocument&utm_source=chbeat&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=chbeat Notes from a Mozilla meeting last week said that the upgrade was on for Jan. 31, the next ship date in the every-six-week schedule that the company adopted last year. http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9223796/Mozilla_OKs_Firefox_10_launch_this_week Purchase a selected Canon product, register online via the Canon website and Canon will give you a bonus gift. Gifts include cashbacks, digital camera lens and movie passes. http://www.ascent.co.nz/Showcase.aspx?PromotionID=3409 Intel's next-generation processor architecture, Haswell, has been pictured for the first time in a spy shot of an engineering sample. http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2012/01/30/intels-first-haswell-chip/1 The HP Mini 1104 netbook has a 10.1-in. screen. The netbook has Intel's Atom N2600 dual-core processor, which was released in December along with other chips code-named Cedar Trail. http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9223641/HP_s_new_Mini_netbook_sports_Intel_s_latest_Atom_chip USB 3.0 ports will be found widely on smartphones and tablets within the next year or so, according to the USB standards-setting organization. http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9223571/USB_3.0_to_Reach_Smartphones_Tablets_This_Year Microsoft has given details on a variety of ways in which the upcoming Windows 8 operating system does a better job than its predecessors at letting users manage their connections to Wi-Fi and mobile broadband networks. http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9223610/Microsoft_gives_details_on_mobile_broadband_improvements_in_Windows_8 The first firm hints as to what AMD's upcoming Radeon HD 7950 boards will bring to the table have appeared. http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2012/01/21/amd-radeon-hd-7950-specs-leak/1 AMD has announced that it plans to rebrand its Fusion System Architecture (FSA) to the Heterogeneous Systems Architecture, as it looks to gain more traction in professional environments. http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2012/01/19/amd-ditches-fusion-branding/1 Intel has announced a new service aimed at the overclocking community, dubbed the Intel Performance Tuning Protection Plan, and best described as life insurance for your processor. http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2012/01/19/intel-overclocking-warranty-programme/1 Microsoft will be introducing a new file system with Windows 8 Server, called ReFS, which is built on top of the existing NTFS, but will deliver new features for scale and prevent data corruption. http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/refs-ntfs-file-system-windows-8-server,news-37569.html Acer, Asus and Lenovo will likely throw Intel's Thunderbolt connectivity technology into their Ivy Bridge-based ultrabooks. The report also indicates that these ultrabooks will use motherboards provided by Gigabyte Technology. http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/ultrabook-thunderbolt-ivy-bridge-usb-3.0-displayport,news-37566.htm Purchase Symantec Norton 360 5.0, register online via the Symantec website and Symantec will give you $40 cashback. http://www.ascent.co.nz/promotion.aspx?PromotionID=3378 VNvidia showed tablets using its Tegra 3 quad-core processors at CES, including a developer prototype that was running Windows 8. http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9223402/Nvidia_shows_quad_core_tablet_prototype_running_Windows_8 AMD and Microsoft have released a pair of updates for Windows 7 in order to introduce scheduler improvements that make better use of the dual-core module architecture of the Bulldozer architecture AMD FX processors. http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2012/01/12/scheduler-updates-bulldozer-boost/1 AMD has demonstrated its forthcoming offering Lightning Bolt - the company's answer to Intel's USB killing technology Thunderbolt. http://www.itproportal.com/2012/01/16/amd-demos-lightning-bolt-usb-killer-technology-at-ces/#ixzz1jeNQFLuE AMD will be looking to combat Intel this year by pursuing an aggressive pricing strategy with its newly announced Trinity family of chips. http://www.itproportal.com/2012/01/16/amd-undercut-intel-low-priced-ultra-thin-notebooks/#ixzz1jeO6polW Adobe has extended its CS5.5 migration promotion from its original end date of 31st December to 15th March. Until March save 20% off the price of selected CS5.5 upgrades from CS2, CS3 & CS4. http://www.ascent.co.nz/promotion.aspx?PromotionID=3183 Wi-Fi chipmaker Broadcom announced its first chips based on the coming 802.11ac standard, the successor to todays 802.11n Wi-Fi. Products based on 802.11ac are expected to begin appearing late this year, delivering improved coverage and theoretical speeds up to twice those offered by the fastest 802.11n gear. http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9223267/The_first_next_gen_Wi_Fi_chips_arrive Windows 8 includes a storage scheme suitable for business deployment that can treat hundreds of disks as a single logical storage reservoir and ensures resiliency by backing up data on at least two physical disks. http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9223239/Microsoft_aims_Windows_8_storage_at_enterprise_data_centers