Team

TeamSpeak today unveiled an official app for iOS devices ($4.99) that delivers nearly the same functionality as the popular desktop client.

Utilized by millions of gamers around the world, TeamSpeak is a way for small or large groups of people to communicate without interruption. Long ago, when I played World of Warcraft, our guild's TS3 server would have 25 people on it as we worked together in a raid to defeat Illidan Stormrage. It was the perfect way for our guild to communicate during the complicated confrontation and it wouldn't be uncommon for all us to be on the server for hours as we trekked our way through the Black Temple.

While my MMORPG days are long gone, I still hop on TeamSpeak from time to time to catch up with my gaming buddies. After downloading TeamSpeak for iPhone, I logged in to my usual server and tested out the app, which supports multi-server connectivity. Incoming sound quality is comparable to the desktop experience, while my voice sounded crisp and clear to my friends. So far, so good.… Read more

Research In Motion's official BlackBerry blog was defaced earlier today in retaliation for the company's apparent decision to assist the London police.

It's still unclear what assistance, if any, RIM has extended to the London police, who are combating widespread street unrest that has wracked England's capital for the last several days. A spokesman for RIM did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

But yesterday, RIM tweeted that it felt sympathy for people "impacted by the riots in London. We have engaged with the authorities to assist in any way we can."

That was enough to trigger a response from a group calling itself Team Poison, which subsequently posted a message on RIM's BlackBerry blog and announced on Twitter that it had compromised the site. It then fired a warning shot of sorts, threatening to release access to the company's database if RIM shares information that helps the police make arrests. … Read more

America's robot might won the day at the RoboCup 2011 tournament in Istanbul, Turkey, with a team from Virginia Tech dominating the field.

Teams DARwIn and CHARLI from the Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory (RoMeLa) are the first U.S. groups to win the adult-size and kid-size classes, taking home bragging rights along with the Louis Vuitton Humanoid Cup, a prestigious crystal trophy that was held by Germany and Japan in the past.

The team's 5-foot-tall humanoid robot CHARLI-2 (that's Cognitive Humanoid Autonomous Robot with Learning Intelligence) made its debut in the RoboCup this year, beating Singapore's Robo Erectus 1-0 in a kicking challenge in the adult-size class.

As this video shows, CHARLI-2 moves like a very frail old man. But the robot was already famous last year when Virginia Tech heralded it as "the first untethered, autonomous, full-sized, walking, humanoid robot with four moving limbs and a head, built in the United States."

The lab's miniature humanoid DARwIn-OP, developed with engineering students from the University of Pennsylvania, won the kid-size class, defeating Japanese team CIT Brains 8-1. The final seen in the video below shows that the kid-size matches are far more exciting. … Read more

Office 365, announced today, gives professionals and small businesses a subscription service that lets them work from anywhere using familiar-feeling Web-enabled applications. Combined with hosted versions of Exchange, SharePoint, and Lync, Office 365 is designed to enable users to share, collaborate, and communicate in the cloud. In our testing during the beta, we found that the tools worked well across the board (with some hiccups), and expect that many people who use Office on desktop Macs and PCs will appreciate the familiar look and feel, which should help them get up and running quickly.

Obviously, Office 365 is going to … Read more

The software hole involved in a popular method for jailbreaking Apple's iOS devices has reportedly been patched by the company as part of iOS 5, the free system software update that's due out later this year.

Digging through the beta version of iOS 5, which Apple made available to developers earlier this month, the iPhone Dev-Team--a group of hackers that targets Apple devices and is not to be confused with Apple's group that designs the iOS software--has discovered a change that threatens to close a loophole the group has long exploited.

"Those of you who have been jailbreaking for a while have probably heard us periodically warn you to 'save your blobs' for each firmware.... Saving your blobs for a given firmware on your specific device allows you to restore *that* device to *that* firmware even after Apple has stopped signing it," the group wrote on its blog yesterday. "That's all about to change."

The group says Apple has implemented a system that checks for a uniquely generated chunk of data each time the phone is restored. The problem there is that only Apple has the keys to unlock that code to let the phone boot up successfully. The end result is that jailbreaking methods that took advantage of that vulnerability could be endangered if that same system is employed in the final version of the software.

The iPhone-Dev Team notes that "there may still be ways to combat this" but that it's not showing its cards just yet, since it might give Apple time to make a fix ahead of a general release. "They've stepped up their game!" the group said of Apple's security efforts.

Apple's iPhone and other iOS devices continue to be hot targets for hackers. Ahead of the release of the App Store, one of the most popular reasons to jailbreak an iOS device was to be able to install third-party software. Even after the launch of the App Store, places like third-party app repository Cydia became destinations for developers who couldn't get their applications through Apple's approval process. Another popular reason was to unlock the iPhone so that it would work on other carriers, an option Apple now offers to U.S. buyers at a hefty price premium.

iOS 5 is due out this fall. Last week Apple released a second beta of the software to developers so they could use it to test their applications for compatibility with the OS and its new features. The first beta of the software was allegedly jailbroken by a member of the iPhone-Dev Team in less than 24 hours.… Read more

Hackers today released what looks like personal information on former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, including the contents of his electronic address book, with contact data for members of Parliament and for what could be Blair's dentist and his mechanic.

A link to the data on the Pastebin Web site was sent out on Twitter from the account of "TeaMp0isoN" along with a message saying "Tony Blair should be locked up, he is a war criminal." Earlier in the day, the TeaMp0isoN account had featured a tweet that said the group was targeting Blair for … Read more

Team Fortress 2 has gone free, and it's staying that way forever.

Valve, the game's developer, announced the news on its Web site yesterday. The company said that users can play as much of the game as they'd like for as long as they like at no charge.

Team Fortress 2 was first released in 2007. The game is an online action title, allowing users to form teams and take on other players. It is also one of the most critically acclaimed games ever released, earning a score of 92 out of 100 on CNET sister site … Read more

Software made by a Chinese company and used around the world by chemical, defense, and energy companies contains security holes that attackers could exploit to hack into critical systems.

In an advisory issued yesterday (PDF), the Department of Homeland Defense warned of two vulnerabilities in software made by Beijing-based Sunway ForceControl (Google Translate English version). The Chinese company makes SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) software, which is used in computer systems that control and monitor manufacturing plants and equipment used by different industries.

Discovered by security researcher Dillon Beresford of NSS Labs, the security holes could allow cybercriminals to … Read more

Apple's new beta version of iOS 5 has been jailbroken for the second time this week, now opening the door for users to jailbreak their iOS 5 devices using the latest version of the popular Redsn0w tool.

In a blog post today about the new jailbreak, the iPhone-dev Team, a group of hackers that target Apple devices, announced that it has released a tethered redsn0w jailbreak for iOS 5.

As with the group's first jailbreak of iOS 5 earlier this week, the redsn0w jailbreak will let users install Cydia, which allows them to use apps unapproved and unsanctioned … Read more