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A crowd-funded contest to hack Apple's Touch ID has ended with a verified hack that emerged during the weekend.

We reported on Friday that a website had been setup - IsTouchIDHackedYet.com - by security researcher Nick Depetrillo and Robert David Graham as a crowd-funded contest to see who could spoof the Touch ID system into accepting a fingerprint lifted from an item.

On Sunday, the Chaos Computer Club claimed that one of its hackers had managed to spoof the system, and now it appears to be verified as legitimate.

"Big congratulations to Starbug (of the Chaos Computer Club), the first to demonstrate the hack! Starbug is giving the challenge pledge funds to Raumfahrtagentur, a spinoff from CCC-Berlin," the hack challenge website reads now.

"We don't have exactly the video we wanted from him, but others have confirmed it, including Marc Rogers (@marcwrogers) and the team of Mudge Zatko and Dominick Rizzo. We are in contact with Starbug, he's working on the video for us (apparently he's got a day job that delays things), but since we have several confirmations, it's pointless to hold things up."

Canadian smartphone maker BlackBerry has agreed in principle to a $4.7 billion takeover deal led by Fairfax.

Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited already owns a 10 percent stake in BlackBerry, and now it seeks to bring the company under private ownership in a deal that would pay shareholders $9 per share. The consortium would acquire for cash all of the outstanding shares of BlackBerry not held by Fairfax.

Back in August, BlackBerry formed a Special Committee to review strategic alternatives for the company, and it has advised the BlackBerry Board of Directors to approve the terms of the LOI (letter of intent agreement) under which the consortium would acquire BlackBerry and take the company private subject to a number of conditions, including due diligence, negotiation and execution of a definitive agreement and customary regulatory approvals.

Diligence is expected to be complete by November 4, 2013.

During the Diligence period, BlackBerry is permitted to enter into negotiations for alternative deals.

Once a pioneer in smartphones, BlackBerry has struggled to regain its position in the market due to the emergence and rapid growth of iPhones and Android devices. It has made efforts to fight its downward trend with the release of new devices running a revamped BlackBerry 10 operating system, but according to reports it has a stock of over $1 billion worth of unsold phones.

Rockstar Games has confirmed it is working to fix a bug where players' upgraded vehicles vanish from their garages.

The developer says it has received reports from players about problems with cars and garages in the blockbuster title. Gamers found that when they upgraded vehicles in the game and then completed a mission, the vehicles can do a disappearing act.

"Unfortunately, we do not currently have a workaround to recover a car if it is missing," Rockstar said in a support page about the problem.

"This issue may occur if you drive another character's personal vehicle. We are looking into a fix to prevent this from occurring in the future. In the meantime, please try to avoid parking a car in a garage, driving one already in a garage, or getting in a default vehicle, when playing as a character other than the one with your upgrades."

Other reports about problems with GTA V included a PSN streaming lag issue, and reports of older Xbox 360 consoles freezing during gameplay.

Grand Theft Auto V reached $1 billion in sales in just three days of availability.

(via: GameSpot)

Valve has announced SteamOS, a linux-based free operating system aimed at bringing PC gaming into the living room.

Set to be available soon, SteamOS will be free forever and will help to bring better PC gaming into the living room. Not only does Valve claim to have achieved significant performance increases in graphics performance (and is working now on audio and reducing input latecy) but you can also stream games from your PC or Mac to a living room "machine" running SteamOS.

That in-home streaming feature might help some PC gamers to move to their HD TV, but the technical details jkust aren't available now. Gamers will likely have questions about whether they can use existing controllers in this setup or maybe concerns about the limits of Wi-Fi streaming.

Valve also promises that SteamOS will provide entertainment from the "media services you know and love," which to us means at least Netflix, but again, there is no confirmation on any service yet.

Family Sharing allows you to easily share games with family members, allowing you to take turns playing one another's games while earning your own Steam achievements and saving your individual game progress to the Steam cloud.

The New York Police Department is endorsing Apple's iOS 7 update for compatible iPhones and iPads.

According to numerous reports on Twitter and from media sources, NYPD officers were handing out fliers on the street encouraging iPhone owners to upgrade to iOS 7, due to a new feature that could discourage the theft of Apple's smartphones.

For the first time in two decades, New York City's crime rate rose, and officials are blaming it on "Apple picking", which is smartphone theft.

There has been calls for Apple and other smartphone manufacturers, like Samsung, to build in more anti-theft measures into their devices.

iOS 7 brings a feature that allows a device to be remotely secured if it is stolen. Once activated, the device cannot be wiped and used again until its associated Apple ID and password are entered.

Such measures may discourage smartphone theft, and so the NYPD is making it its business to let iPhone-owning New Yorkers know about the advantages of having iOS 7 installed.

Four uniformed NYPD officers were at my subway stop tonight asking me to upgrade to iOS 7. Not a joke! pic.twitter.com/CGdR2RqtKJ
-- Michael Hoffman (@Hoffm) September 21, 2013

Apple sold 9 million iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c smartphones in just 3 days since they launched on Friday.

Apple's iOS 7 update is also now present on 200 million iOS devices, which Apple claims is the fastest software upgrade in history.

"This is our best iPhone launch yet―more than nine million new iPhones sold―a new record for first weekend sales," said Tim Cook, Apple's CEO.

"The demand for the new iPhones has been incredible, and while we've sold out of our initial supply of iPhone 5s, stores continue to receive new iPhone shipments regularly. We appreciate everyone's patience and are working hard to build enough new iPhones for everyone."

Apple's press information doesn't indicate which smartphone sold more units but it was no secret that the iPhone 5s was out of stock in most places very quickly. In the UK, mobile providers were frustrated that Apple sent them ample supplies of the iPhone 5c and only "tens" of the iPhone 5s to sell at launch.

Nevertheless, Apple is entitled to celebrate yet another very successful launch.

Earlier this year, The Pirate Bay co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm was found guilty on multiple cases of hacking.

The prosecution and the defense have taken the case to appellate courts, but it appears the Court of Appeal's decision has been delayed, as the decision was due today.

After a quick two-week trial for his part in hacking the Swedish IT company Logica, Svartholm was convicted of hacking, aggravated fraud and attempted aggravated fraud. He was sentenced to two years in prison.

In appeal, the court reassessed the evidence and allowed new testimony, as well.

The decision is now expected for next Wednesday.

Major phone leaking @Evleaks has posted purported press images of the upcoming Nokia Lumia 929, which may be a phablet.

A phone recently hit the FCC, the Nokia RM-927, which is set for Verizon, and has a 5-inch display.

The press photo shows a device with a plethora of home screen tiles, so it definitely has a larger screen than we are used to for a Windows Phone 8 device but most likely not as big as the rumored 1520's 6-inch display.

New devices from Nokia are expected on October 22nd.

Here are the photos:

Nokia Lumia 929, for Verizon, in black, 2013. Also coming in white. pic.twitter.com/YrEsqYPOtS

-- @evleaks (@evleaks) September 21, 2013

By popular demand: pic.twitter.com/FhdECeCoea

-- @evleaks (@evleaks) September 22, 2013

There appears to be multiple reports that older Xbox 360 consoles are having trouble playing Grand Theft Auto V.

The issue seems to involve Xbox 360 consoles manufactured or refurbished between 2006 and 2008. Players report that they cannot play for more than thirty minutes without the game freezing up the console.

"I've probably reinstalled the game about 10 times now," a player reported at GTA Forums.

"I'm thinking it might be my 20GB HDD? After I installed the game I probably [have] a couple hundred MB left. Could it possibly be a problem that I don't have enough excess memory after the install?"

Other users report that they have run into the same problem even on larger capacity drives.

"Same problem here. Xbox from 2006, original 20gb model, sent in for repairs in 2009 for RROD," said another user.

"I bought a 250 gb hard drive for it, but otherwise it's the same console I've had for years. I can't play for more than 30 minutes without the game freezing on me, and I've tried every troubleshooting step I've seen here and on other websites."

The Chaos Computer Club has claimed that its "biometrics hacking team" has broken Apple's Touch ID, just days after the release of the iPhone 5s.

Apple has touted the security of its fingerprint scanner system that can be used to unlock an iPhone 5s and for iTunes purchases. It said that the system cannot be beaten as easily as some other fingerprint scanners, which have found to be particularly weak.

In fact, Apple even discounted the possibility that a severed finger could be used.

Enter the Chaos Computer Club, a group many of you will have heard of before. It now claims that just days after the iPhone 5s release, it can already spoof Apple's Touch ID "using easy everyday means."

"A fingerprint of the phone user, photographed from a glass surface, was enough to create a fake finger that could unlock an iPhone 5s secured with TouchID," CCC claims.

"This demonstrates – again – that fingerprint biometrics is unsuitable as access control method and should be avoided."

A hacker with the nickname Starbug claimed all the group had to do was ramp up the resolution of its fake. "As we have said now for more than years, fingerprints should not be used to secure anything. You leave them everywhere, and it is far too easy to make fake fingers out of lifted prints."

Apple CEO Tim Cook has put a time frame on when he believes tablet sales will surpass those of PC sales.

He has said in the past that tablets will eventually overtake the sales of PCs, but never attempted to pin down a timeframe for this transition.

"We're 24 months away from that," he told Bloomberg Businessweek in an interview.

Cook pointed out that a substantial amount of tablet sales come from traditional PC manufacturers who have decided to produce low-cost Android devices.

Of course, he then went on to bash those low-cost Android tablets.

"I think if I bought [an Android tablet] and used it, and I thought that was a tablet experience, I'm not sure I would ever buy another tablet," he said.

"The responsiveness isn't there. The basic touch is really off. The app experience is a stretched-out smartphone kind of experience. It's not an optimized experience."

According to reports, the National Security Agency (NSA) in the United States buys Zero Day exploits and other tools/information from French firm Vupen.

Vupen does research looking for vulnerabilities in popular software, like web browsers, and then sells that information rather than disclosing it to the software vendor.

According to paperwork released under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, the NSA is a Vupen customer, buying a 12 month subscription to a "binary analysis and exploit service" sold by the French company, reports The Hacker News.

How much money exactly the NSA has given to Vupen is unclear, as the information is redacted in documents.

Vupen is criticized by security experts and has even been branded a "zero day cyber weapon merchant." It reportedly has promised not to sell services to non-NATO countries and not to deal with oppressive regimes.

Apple has updated its Apple TV software, bringing support for iTunes Radio, the store and Airplay from iCloud.

With Airplay from iCloud lets you "use your iOS device to play videos from iTunes in the Cloud," meaning that the streaming will go right to the Apple TV device rather than the iOS device. However, Apple TV takes reportedly a long time to buffer ahead before playing from the Cloud, so the feature is not enabled in the update by default.

In contrast, streaming to iOS device begins almost immediately, though AirPlay from iCloud is for iOS 7 devices only.

The update also brings support for the iTunes Music Store, and replaces Photo Stream with iCloud Photos and Videos.

The Apple TV update also supports iTunes Radio.

AT&T has confirmed this week that it is exploring options to sell its wireless broadcast towers, but any sale would depend on the terms for their own ongoing use of the towers.

The company would sell the towers and then lease back some space from the new operators to ensure there is no interruption of their cellular services.

Analysts believe the towers could fetch up to $5 billion.

A few of the names seen as potential acquirers are Crown Castle International Corp, American Tower Corp and SBA Communications Corp.

Sony has confirmed that the PS4's camera will support voice and gesture control.

Unlike Kinect, the PlayStation Camera is not bundled with the PlayStation 4 (PS4) consoles as Sony made the decision to keep the price lower.

If you do buy a $60 camera, you will be able to use voice and gesture control features, Sony confirmed to Engadget from the Tokyo Game Show this week.

The Amazon listing for the new camera listed "navigational voice commands" among its features beforehand, so Sony just confirmed what was already rumoured.

The PS4 launches in North America on November 15, in Europe on November 29 and only launches in its home territory of Japan in February 2014.