For people who regret cutting off their landline service to switch to a cellular phone service, here's one perk that may console you after accumulating all those minutes and getting your call cut off at inopportune times.

T-Mobile is now offering a Hotspot@Home service that will let your phone connect to a Wi-Fi network, where you can may make free unlimited calls for as long as you like.

What's even better is that once your phone enters a Wi-FI range, or a T-Mobile hotspot, there's no need to fiddle with menus or activate any feature in your phone. Your mobile phone will just automatically switch from GSM/EDGE to Wi-Fi, even if you're in the middle of a call upon transition.

All you have to do is to become a T-Mobile customer, and just add an additional a month for this service. If you don't have a router yet, get yourself a router from T-Mobile, routers of any manufacturer (preferably Linksys) will do, and make sure that you own a T-Mobile Hotspot@Home-compatible phone, be it the Samsung t409 or the Nokia 6086.

It may sound like a lot of trouble, but being able to make unlimited calls anytime you enter Wi-Fi range sounds like a sweet deal.

Uh-oh. Could it be that Apple is getting a taste of its own medicine? After its history of suing various individuals and companies left and right for various forms of copyright or trademark infringement, it looks like Apple is now being sued for the exact same thing.

Now, we've seen this looming over the horizon for quite some time now, and apparently, not even filing for rights to the "iPhone" trademark has saved Apple from the eyes of Cisco Systems. Tsk, tsk. And to think that everyone was so excited to just see Apple unveil its new toy.

On January 10, iPhone trademark">Cisco representatives announced that they have filed a lawsuit against Apple, Inc. at the District Court of Northern California, "seeking to prevent Apple from infringing upon and deliberately copying and using Cisco's registered iPhone trademark".

As explained on the company website, here's what happened, and why they should be considered as the true owners of the trademark, "iPhone":

Cisco obtained the iPhone trademark in 2000 after completing the acquisition of Infogear, which previously owned the mark and sold iPhone products for several years. Infogear's original filing for the trademark dates to March 20, 1996. Linksys, a division of Cisco, has been shipping a new family of iPhone products since early last year. On Dec. 18, Linksys expanded the iPhone family with additional products.

Moreover, according to Cisco's senior VP Mark Chandler, they have "entered into negotiations with Apple in good faith after Apple repeatedly asked permission to use Cisco's iPhone name", but that Apple "should not be using our trademark without our permission".

Thanks to zerox for the tip!

Perhaps when Apple gone and patented "-pod," they should have gone and patented the "i-" prefix once and for all. Because according to Gizmodo, there IS an iPhone out and announced. And it's not from Apple (Which means we just lost a bet. We were betting on "iPhone" in a previous article. Dang, there goes this writer's wages for the week).

It's the Linksys iPhone, with the "iPhone" trademark owned (or pwned) by Linksys parent company Cisco Systems. Looking at Linksys' press release, iPhone is their family of VoIP-enabled wireless phones. The Wireless-G IP Phone, in particular, also combines features normally found in cell phones including media streaming from the Internet.

Yeah, of course, if you're an Applephile who's been eagerly waiting for news on the iPhone, all of this Gadgets-related talk is blah-blah yada-yada without the trademark Apple logo somewhere in there. Well, whatever the Apple cellular phone will be, it won't be called the iPhone, that's for sure.

Which now launches the great debate/contest/discussion in Macworld today: what do YOU think Apple will call the iPhone? Because sure as heck, iPhone's been taken (The other alternative doesn't bear much thinking: what if there's no Apple phone at all? What would all the speculators think?).