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."

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!

The buzz over Apple's new product - the iPhone - and the recent pullback in the equity markets make investors feel encouraged about buying Apple stocks. But analysts warn: buying the stock now solely on the faith of this new product could come back to haunt investors' portfolio later in the year.

Apple plans to sell as much as 10 million units by the year 2008, a goal considered conservative. Analysts insist, however, that a closer look at the handset market may prove that such a goal may be too lofty even for a consumer electronics powerhouse like Apple.

The iPhone is considered a smart phone due to its high price and multifunction capabilities. Although smart phone sales increased by 42 percent since 2004, smart phone sales represent only 10 percent of the total number of handsets sold last year.

The way that the iPhone is only available through AT&T's Cingular Wireless service is also limiting for iPhone sales. Other factors that may not make the iPhone sell as well as planned are its high price, and the credibility of the competing smart phone makers such as Nokia, Palm and Motorola.

Analysts advice to avoid AppleÂ?s stock until it is certain that the iPhone will sustain a high level of growth.

Last week, Namco Networks announced the launch of Ms. Pac-Man for the Apple iPod. Today, we're bringing you a Gaming Bits interview with Scott Rubin, VP of Namco Networks, that gives us all a little peek at what the company has in store for iPod and mobile gamers. Read on for a few snippets.

On iPhone games. According to Rubin, Namco is "without a question one of the handful of game publishers that Apple has chosen to work with." He also noted that the company is also a top partner of Cingular, who will be distributing the iPhone.

"We're one of the few publishers that directly publishes games on almost every wireless platform," said Rubin. "Not just Java phones, but iPods, Sidekicks, Palm, Windows Mobile. If the opportunity is there, we will put our games on the iPhone. It's our mission."

Another big name in the videogames industry that is currently planning to release games for the Apple iPhone is Electronic Arts.

On original IP. "We're Namco," said Rubin. "We've been doing video games for years and we have a library that we're fortunate enough to be able to chose from like Dig Dug and Galaga." That doesn't mean that arcade ports are the only things that Namco will be bringing to the mobile gaming market, though. Rubin points towards two Namco titles, Scene It? Movies for Mobile and Pool Pro Online II, as examples of their original IP offerings.

Rubin also revealed that Namco will be doing "some original games tied to licenses like Snoopy and The Red Baron and a Dilbert title as well."

For the full interview, click on the "read" link below.