Hold the presses! Apparently a new proposal is under review in the U.S. by the House of Representatives that may just be the people's ticket to purchasing unlocked iPhones from Apple and AT&T. The proposal is supposedly adopting the case observed when European service carrier T-Mobile was forced to sell iPhones without a T-Mobile-tied contract, though at more than twice the price of the MSRP. Read on to know more.

Downloadable programs on the internet geared toward opening the Apple iPhone to mobile service providers other than AT&T's Cingular could harm the gadget beyond repair. That's a warning issued by Phil Schiller, Apple's head of worldwide product marking.

In a report by Reuters, Schiller says that their iPhone was designed exclusively to work with the AT&T service, and hacking the mobile device opens up a lot of risks.

"We are not doing anything proactively to disable iPhones that have been hacked or unlocked," he tells the press, as he implied that applications created by unofficial sources could be doing the real damage.

The iPhone is one of the world's fastest-selling electronic devices with 270,000 units flogging in the first two months alone. The Cupertino, California company expects a million of the devices to fly off shelves by the end of the year.

"Apple strongly discourages users from installing unauthorized unlocking programs on their iPhones," concludes Schiller. A new software update for the iPhone is in the pipeline but details are yet to be revealed.

With the release of the iPhone, a lot of people have been trying to find a way to crack the AT&T lock on the product. The iPhone Dev Wiki hackers have been able to partially unlock the iPhone using a new application called iASign.

This program doesn't fully unlock the iPhone for use with all service providers, but the hack will allow you to use any existing Cingular/AT&T Pre-paid/MVNA SIM in the phone to place calls.

Currently, the hackers working on this project have been gearing up for a final assault on the unit with the ultimate goal of completely cracking the iPhone and giving it full functionality regardless of the network.

Certain issues have been blocking their attempts. The main problem of cracking the iPhone lies in the baseband or the radio chipset for the iPhone. The iPhone only has one lock which is a network personalization lock which is located in the baseband firmware itself.

The AT command to do the unlock is 'AT+CLCK="PN",0,"xxxxxxxx"'. The big problem is finding out what those x's are. Brute force is out of the question since there is a limit of 3-10 unlock attempts per phone, after which the firmware will "hard-lock" itself to AT&T.

Patching the firmware at /usr/local/standalone/firmware/ICE03.12.06_G.fls is difficult as well, considering that it's signed. The signature is checked in the baseband bootloader while the updater program, bbupdater, only checks a checksum, which can be changed. The update will take, but then the phone will refuse to boot because the signatures don't match.

The hackers have already worked two solid days in their attempt to disassemble the radio fw and have found a few backdoors. So far, none of these lead to an unlock, s the hunt is still on for a way to crack the code.

It seems that when it comes to all things tech - and to be a bit narrower, all things Apple - the recent talk of the town is the supposed data plan for Apple's much awaited iPhone. Well, Gizmodo's Brian Lam has something to add to all the speculation, and what's nice about it is that it's specific. It concerns the plan's cost, which is about US$ 30.

See? No estimates. A specific, closed US$ 30 price.

Where did that number come from? Lam cites a Cingular business sales rep as an informant. In addition to the pricing, the release date was also a specific:  June 11. (Others feel that June 20 is a more apt release date) He also speculates  this data plan should include either/both EDGE data or/and Wi-Fi. Well, that's the rumor so far.

Given that a Blackberry Personal Plan plan costs around US$ 35 (or so says their site) a price of US$ 30 for the iPhone's data plan does seem appropriate. Given the other prices available, this rumor does seem plausible. Of course, the US$ 599 iPhone price-tag that everyone's expecting does make that extra 30 bucks seem a little steep.

Media conglomerate CNBC recently had a report concerning Apple's much awaited iPhone. All of their details are fairly accurate, from the AT&T exclusive deal to the documentation of the whole iPhone journey.

Then the bomb was dropped: iPhone will be released on June 20. We really got excited about the announcement until we heard CNBC's source. According to the announcer, they got it from a Cingular phone store employee.

We are all familiar with how things are around the gadgets and games industry: employees are always giving release date and info leaks here and there.

It should be remembered that it was only yesterday when we ran a report how it is very unlikely for Apple to showcase the iPhone at the upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference much more a June 20 release date.

Until we get more confirmation, were tagging this bit under our Rumors section. The Read link should take you to CNBC's official website where you can see the report's video version.

Most if us are already familiar with the standard mobile phone deal where you sign a two-year subscription with a service provider and you get a nice handset with either a large discount or totally free of cost.

There were some rumors being passed around, however, that Apple's hyped-up iPhone just might carry some different options.

Instead of the usual post-paid service where you rack up bills and get charged at the end of the month, the Pay As You Go and Pick Your Plan options could soon be made available.

The pre-paid Pay As You Go option allows subscribers to purchase credits and use them up as they go without having to worry about exceeding budgets and hidden charges.

The Pick Your Plan option on the other hand, lets users choose their own monthly allowable credit set, where they pay a fixed bill at the end of each 30-day cycle. The only drawback is that the phone of their choice may not come free. As a matter of fact, users will have to pay for the handset's full price.

Click on Full Article to read more on this rumor, plus the source of it all.

Now we're pretty skeptical about the claim, but it appears that a video brewing with "Mr. Notecards" and the almost intelligible mention of "iPhone" and "first" in the same sentence has appeared, so we decided to give it a chance.

Now you may not all remember the notecard shuffler, Stan Stigman, back when Steve Jobs first revealed the Apple iPhone, but he was apparently a 1970 West Texas A&M University graduate and handed over an iPhone to the current WTAMU president, Dr. J. Patrick O'Brien.

What was AT&T's Wireless' CEO doing in WTAMU, you ask? Well, he was marketing "the new Cingular" company, AT&T Wireless, over a commencement exercise for WTAMU's graduates for this year. In conclusion to his speech (which you can't hear very much of in 42 seconds of audio distortion), he gave Dr. O'Brien what appeared to be a phone, mentioning it was the "first ... iPhone in the state of Texas."

Abandon Mobile today announced the release of their new mobile phone title U.S. Marine Corps. Scout/Sniper. This strategic military sniper game is available on J2ME carriers, Cingular, Boost, and a new J2ME service from Cricket/Leap.

In US Marine Corps. Scout/Sniper, players take the role of a trainee whose helicopter gets shot down. You will have to hold the enemy off with your rifle using long-ranged attack capabilities until help finally arrives. There are eight action packed levels to shoot your way through, and the objective is to make it to the radio and call for extraction.

"By partnering with the U.S. Marine Scout/Sniper Association, [the game] also supports our troops and soldiers, and it's an honor to publish a game that gives something back to those who defend our country," said Jamie Ottilie, President and COO of Abandon Mobile.

Under the terms of a deal between Abandon and The U.S. Marine Scout/Sniper Association, 15% of proceeds from the game will go directly to the association for support of troops on the battlefield.

The iPhone is possibly the most wanted cellphone since the mighty Blackberry, and sporting loads of features, including a mini OSX Operating System and devilish good looks, who wouldn't want one? We know that the iPhone doesn't have everything, but the sheer appeal of the phone, just like the iPod, makes everyone want one.

There has been rumor of an early release for the iPhone, but until now no solid dates have been revealed. Cingular is confirming that the release date will be June 11, and although this isn't coming from Steve Jobs' mouth, June 11 coincides with the first day of Apple's World Developers Conference.

We're still awaiting a response from Apple, but as soon as one comes in we'll have it ready. Any confirmation on this date would be helpful so we can get our pre-orders in!

At first we were like the others who were a bit skeptical about a tornado game. It's...a tornado. But instead of a violently rotating gameplay, Tornado Mania turned out to be an innovative take on a mobile sim and arcade game. It was widely accepted, and even named Game of the Year for 2006 by IGN. It's one of the few games that has received a perfect score of 10 from the IGN reviews.

Now, Digital Chocolate's phenomenal game is going Live. It is now an exclusive on Verizon Wireless, found in both the What's New and VZW Exclusive categories. The exclusivity of TM on Verizon Wireless will eventually expire, and then after that, you may find the game on other carriers, including Cingular and Sprint. Go on, be swept away by Tornado Mania!