My (ok TechNet´s , sorry nothing original) list of all things new in Lync Client 2013 (This is not a complete list of everything that is new in Lync 2013, just some handpicked goldies!)

Lync Web App Updates

Now how great is this one

In this release, the addition of computer audio and video to Lync Web App provides a complete in-meeting experience for anyone who does not have a Lync client installed locally. Meeting participants have access to all collaboration and sharing features and presenter meeting controls.

Because of the enhancements to Lync Web App, an updated version of Attendee is not available for Lync Server 2013 Preview. Lync Web App is the client of choice for participants outside of your organization. No local client installation is required, although audio, video, and sharing features require installation of a plug-in during first use.

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Plug-in

The Lync 2013 Preview client now supports audio and video in a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Environment

Video Enhancements

• Video is enhanced with face detection and smart framing, so that a participant’s video moves to help keep him or her centered in the frame.
• High-definition video (resolution 1270 x 720; aspect ratio 16:9) is now supported in conferences.
• Participants can select from different meeting layouts: Gallery View shows all participants’ photos or videos; Speaker View shows the meeting content and only the presenter’s video or photo; Presentation View shows meeting content only; Compact View shows just the meeting controls.
• With the new Gallery feature, participants can see multiple video feeds at the same time. If the conference has more than five participants, video feeds of only the most active participants appear in the top row, and photos appear for the other participants.
• Participants can use video pinning to select one or more of the available video feeds to be visible at all times.
• Presenters can use the “video spotlight” feature to select one person’s video feed so that every participant in the meeting sees that participant only.
• With split audio and video, participants can add their video stream in a conference but dial into the meeting audio.

Integration with Office Setup

Because Lync 2013 Preview is integrated with Office setup, you can use the following methods to customize Lync 2013 Preview setup:

• Use the Office Customization Tool (OCT)
• Use the Config.xml to perform installation tasks
• Use Setup Command-Line Options
• In Lync 2013 Preview you can now use the Lync ADMX and ADML administrative templates that are provided along with the Office Group Policy Administrative Templates. (Intead of the Communicator.adm)

Outlook Scheduling Add-in Updates

• Administrators can customize the organization’s meeting invitations by adding a custom logo, a support URL, a legal disclaimer URL, or custom footer text. For more information, see Customizing the Online Meeting Add-in.
• New attendee mute controls allow meeting organizers to schedule conferences that have attendee audio and video muted by default.

Chat Room Integration

Lync 2013 Preview now integrates the features previously provided by Lync 2010 Group Chat. A separate group chat client is no longer required.

• From within Lync 2013 Preview, users can search for chat rooms, add chat rooms to their contacts, monitor chat room activity, and read and post messages.
• Users can create filters so that they will be notified if someone in one of their chat rooms adds a post containing specific keywords.
• With the new Persistent Chat options page, users can set notification alerts and sounds that apply when people post messages to their chat rooms.

Conferencing Updates

• Depending on the type of meeting, users can now mute the audience and allow or block video sharing when scheduling the meeting. These options are available on the Meeting Options page and are recommended for large meetings with more than 20 participants.
• Easy to use audio controls in the meeting room allow the user to control audio options, such as mute, unmute, change device, and so on.
• When sharing programs, users can select multiple programs to share if they need to work with more than one program.
• Users can now upload presentations that contain video clips by uploading the PowerPoint file, and pointing the mouse over the slide to display video controls, such as play, pause, and audio controls.
• While in a meeting, users can merge another open conversation into the meeting by using Merge This Call Into on the More Options (…) menu.
• To see the participants’ names, users can hover the mouse over the View Participants button, or click Show Participant List to dock the panel in the meeting.
• Depending on the meeting type, users can select from several different content and participant views.
• Meeting recordings are automatically saved in a format that plays in Windows Media Player (MP4). Users can easily share the file with anyone, or use the Publish feature in recording manager to post the recording on a shared location.
• OneNote enables new ways to collaborate in a meeting. During a meeting, users can take notes with OneNote for personal use after the meeting, or use shared notebooks and co-edit with meeting participants in real time. All team members can access the shared notes to contribute information, brainstorm ideas, or use the notebook pages as a virtual whiteboard. People and content shared in the meeting are automatically added to the Notes.
• Users can switch between content types using Share content and lead meeting activities at the bottom of the meeting room. Users can also use the Meeting Content menu to choose which content you want to share.

My (ok TechNet´s , sorry nothing original) list of all things new in Lync Server 2013 (This is not a complete list of everything that is new in Lync 2013, just some handicked goldies!)

New Video Features

These are my favorites of the cool new stuff that is comming. Absolutly beautiful.

• HD video
  Users can experience resolutions up to HD 1080P in two-party calls and multiparty conferences.
• Gallery View
  In video conferences that have more than two people, users can see videos of participants in the conference. If the conference has more than five participants, video of only the most active participants appear in the top row, and a photo appears for the other participants.
• H.264 video
  The H.264 video codec is now the default for encoding video on Lync 2013 Preview clients. H.264 video supports a greater range of resolutions and frame rates, and improves video scalability.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj205246(v=ocs.15)

New Conferencing Features

• Join Launcher
  Lync Server 2013 Preview updates the Join launcher to validate each meeting before launching a client, and to provide support for opening a meeting in the following clients:
  Windows Phone 7, Android devices, Apple iOS devices, Windows 8 Release Preview, Internet Explorer 10
• Updated PowerPoint Sharing
  Lync Server 2013 Preview now uses Office Web Apps and the Office Web Apps Server (formerly known as WAC Server) to handle PowerPoint presentations. The use of Office Web Apps Server allows for higher-resolution displays and better support for PowerPoint capabilities, access to more types of mobile devices (Lync Server 2013 Preview uses standard DHTML and JavaScript to broadcast PowerPoint presentations), and the ability for users with the appropriate privileges to scroll through a PowerPoint presentation independent of the presentation itself..
• Gallery View
  In video conferences that have more than two people, users can see videos of participants in the conference. If the conference has more than five participants, video of only the most active participants appear in the top row, and a photo appears for the other participants.
• Archiving
  Any document that is shared during a conference is archived into Exchange 2013 Preview data storage if Exchange Server integration is enabled with Archiving. This includes PowerPoint presentations, attachments, whiteboards and polls.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg413085(v=ocs.15)

New Enterprise Voice Features

• Multiple trunks between  Mediation Servers and gateways (called inter-trunks).
• Enhanced call authorization for call forwarding and simultaneous ringing
• Manager/Delegate simultaneous ringing
• Voicemail escape
• Caller ID presentation
• Conference dial-out for users not enabled for Enterprise Voice

More info: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg398964(v=ocs.15)

New Hybrid Voice Features

Hybrid voice enables customers to leverage the on-premises Enterprise Voice environment for Lync Online users as if they were on-premises Enterprise Voice users. The primary feature of a hybrid voice environment is that Lync Online users can place and receive calls from the on-premises gateway.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj205343(v=ocs.15)

But Response Groups are only for on-prem users In a hybrid voice environment, you deploy the Response Group application and configure the response groups on-premises. Response Group functionality is available only for on-premises users. That is, only on-premises users can be Response Group agents. On-premises users who are moved to Lync Online no longer have Response Group functionality available and cannot be Response Group agents.

On-premises users and Lync Online users can call and receive calls from response groups as usual.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj205095(v=ocs.15)

New Response Group Features

These once are good

• Manager role
  Lync Server 2013 Preview introduces a new Response Group Manager role. Now there are two management roles for response groups: Response Group Manager and Response Group Administrator. While Response Group Administrators can still configure any element for any response group, Managers can configure only certain elements, only for response groups they own. This improvement in the administration model benefits Response Group scalability, especially for large deployment scenarios.
• High availability
  High availability support for the Response Group application, in the form of SQL Server mirroring, is enabled as part of the overall configuration and deployment of high availability for Lync Server 2013 Preview. If you configure for high availability and lose connectivity to the primary back-end server, Response Group functionality is not affected by leveraging the mirrored back-end server. Support for SQL Server mirroring for the Response Group application can’t be individually enabled or configured outside of the overall Lync Server 2013 Preview high availability configuration.
• Disaster recovery
  Disaster recovery support for the Response Group application is enabled as part of the configuration and deployment of the paired Front End pools, which are part of the overall Lync Server 2013 Preview disaster recovery configuration. In addition, Response Group import and export cmdlets support the failover process to the backup pool and the failback process to the primary pool or to a new pool. If an outage occurs in the primary pool, response groups can be failed over to the backup pool, and then failed back to the primary pool or to a new pool when the outage is over.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg398373(v=ocs.15)

New E9-1-1 Features

• You can now specify a distribution group to be used for notifications to security personnel during emergency calls. This new location policy feature reduces the effort required to keep SIP URIs updated in location policy as turnover occurs within security personnel.
• Disclaimers that are shown to users when they dismiss prompts for locations are now based on location policy, instead of being global across the entire organization. This new location policy feature lets you set different disclaimers for different locales or different sets of users.
• You can now specify the number of hours between client requests for a location update from the Location Information service. This new location policy feature provides flexibility for deployments that require location updates more or less frequently than the default of four hours.
• Microsoft Lync 2013 Preview running on Windows 8 Release Preview now supports Link Layer Discovery Protocol-Media Endpoint Discover (LLDP-MED). This new feature lets you use LLDP ports and switches to define locations for  Lync Server clients in the location database.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj205261(v=ocs.15)

New IPv6 Features

Lync Server 2013 Preview includes support for network environments with only IPv4 addresses, only IPv6 addresses, and dual-stack (both IPv4 and IPv6) addresses.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj205409(v=ocs.15)

New Persistent Chat Server Features

This one is a long one, but basically, one client to rule them all. So we now have persistent chats in Lync.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg412965(v=ocs.15)

New Unified Contact Store Feature

Unified contact store allows users to keep all their contact information in Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 Preview. After users’ Lync contacts are migrated to Exchange 2013 Preview, the users can access and manage their contacts from Lync 2013 Preview, Outlook, or Outlook Web App, and their Favorites stay synchronized.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj204947(v=ocs.15)

New Exchange Server Integration Features

• You can use a unified contact store, in which the Lync contact list is stored in Exchange 2013 Preview, and you can manage the contact store in Lync 2013 Preview, Outlook 2013 Preview, and Outlook Web App.
• You can use high-resolution photos for contacts. Photos with up to 648×648 pixels are stored in Exchange 2013 Preview and made available to clients including Lync 2013 Preview, Outlook 2013 Preview, Microsoft Lync Web App, and Outlook Web App.
• You can enable Lync Archiving integration, which integrates Lync Server 2013 Preview Archiving into the Exchange 2013 Preview Litigation Hold feature, for users homed on Exchange 2013 Preview, which enables one common experience for administrators around compliance and eDiscovery.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj205269(v=ocs.15)

New Archiving Features

• Collocation of Archiving on Front End Servers.
  Lync Server 2013 Preview does not have a separate Archiving Server role. Archiving is an optional feature available on all Front End Servers in an Enterprise Edition deployment, and on Standard Edition servers, that can be implemented configured for a pool or a site.
• Exchange Server integration.
  When you deploy Archiving, you can integrate data storage for Archiving with your existing Exchange 2013 Preview storage for all users who are homed on Exchange 2013 Preview and have their mailboxes placed on litigation hold, so you don’t need to deploy separate SQL Server databases to archive Lync data. If you do not have an Exchange 2013 Preview deployment, or if you prefer not to integrate with it, or if you have any Lync 2013 Preview users who are not homed on Exchange 2013 Preview with their mailboxes placed on litigation hold, you can deploy separate Archiving databases by using SQL Server to store archived data from Lync communications. You can use both Exchange Server integration and Lync Server 2013 Preview Archiving databases if you want to use Exchange Server integration for some but not all users in your deployment.
• SQL Store Mirroring.
  When you deploy Archiving, you can enable SQL store mirroring for your Archiving database.
• Archiving of Whiteboards and Polls.
  Archived conference content now includes whiteboards and polls that are shared during the meeting.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj205225(v=ocs.15)

New Monitoring Features

Lync Server 2013 Preview does not have a separate Monitoring Server role. Monitoring is an optional feature available on all Front End Servers in an Enterprise Edition deployment, and on Standard Edition servers, that can be implemented and configured for a pool or a site.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg399034(v=ocs.15)

New Features for External User Access

• Support for IPv6 addressing.
  Lync Server 2013 Preview supports IPv6 addressing for all Edge Server services. If you have provided IPv6 addresses for the interfaces through configuration in Windows Server, you can use IPv6 addresses in your Edge Server configuration through the IP address configuration in Topology Builder.
• Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP).
  Lync Server 2013 Preview introduces a fully integrated XMPP proxy (deployed on the Edge Servers) and an XMPP gateway deployed on your Front End Servers. You can deploy XMPP federation as an optional component. Adding and configuring the XMPP proxy and XMPP gateway will allow your Microsoft Lync 2013 Preview users to add contacts from XMPP-based partners for instant messaging and presence.

New Disaster Recovery and High Availability Features

As in Lync Server 2010, the main high availability (HA) scheme for Lync Server 2013 Preview is based on server redundancy via pooling. If a server running a certain server role fails, the other servers in the pool running the same role take the load of that server. This applies to Front End Servers, Edge Servers, Mediation Servers, and Directors.

Lync Server 2013 Preview adds new disaster recovery measures by enabling you to pair Front End pools located in two datacenters. If one of the paired pools goes down, an administrator can fail over the users from that pool to the other pool in the pair, to provide continuation of service.

Lync Server 2013 Preview also adds Back End Server high availability. This is an optional topology in which you deploy two Back End Servers for a Front End pool, and set up synchronous SQL mirroring for all the Lync databases running on the Back End Servers. You may choose whether to deploy a witness for the mirror.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj204892(v=ocs.15)