Today, we've great news for the TeamSpeak community. Issue 1/2009 of the PC GAMES Hardware magazine contains an exciting article about the TeamSpeak 3 ALPHA. The PC GAMES Hardware test labs were visited by Ralf Ludwig and Peter Kirk - managing directors of the recently founded TeamSpeak Systems GmbH and lead developers of the TS3 client and server software - and had the exclusive chance to test a pre-release version of TeamSpeak 3.

"With the latest ALPHA release, the developers have given us a preview on the new TeamSpeak 3. From our view, the voice quality and latency will set new standards." said Lars Craemer - author of the article. "Already the ALPHA release can live up to the expectations to TeamSpeak 3. Reasonable new features in combination with superior voice quality and lower latency are more than enough reasons to switch to TS3."

TeamSpeak 3 will introduce a new authentication system. Instead of using a combination of username and password, TS3 now uses unique IDs to verify the users identity on all servers. All permissions and settings are bound to this ID so the drama of wannabe hackers guessing the administrators passwords should finally be solved. In addition, every identity can be added to a Friend/Foe list which allows you to mute or ignore annoying users.

Probably one of the most exciting features is TeamSpeak 3's File Transfer functionality. Depending on your permissions, you'll be able to up- and download files from a channels filebase. This feature offers unimagined possibilities. For example, clan leaders will be able to spread the latest patches for the games they're playing with their team mates. The path to your own TeamSpeak 3 file sharing network is set.

As a bonus, the arcticle contains some exclusive screenshots, an interview with the developers and additional details about features that were already announced in the past. To read the full article, simply get issue 1/2009 of the PC GAMES Hardware magazine visit the media archive on their website.

Related Links:

PC GAMES Hardware website